Low Tech vs Interstellar societies...

[RossWinn]

Really having trouble coming up with a reason why any planetary government worth more than 50¢ wouldn't import the machines, tools, and technology necessary to raise their tech level as quickly as possible. After a 100 years, I cannot find a single reason why any Imperium world would have a tech level below 10. Simply the economic advantages for the colonies and the survivability alone would make it all but mandatory -- wouldn't it?

 

[atpollard]

Really having trouble coming up with a reason why any planetary government worth more than 50¢ wouldn't import the machines, tools, and technology necessary to raise their tech level as quickly as possible. After a 100 years, I cannot find a single reason why any Imperium world would have a tech level below 10. Simply the economic advantages for the colonies and the survivability alone would make it all but mandatory -- wouldn't it?

Why doesn’t Chad (the country in Africa) import the machine tools and manufacture Aircraft?

 

[Badenov]

Really having trouble coming up with a reason why any planetary government worth more than 50¢ wouldn't import the machines, tools, and technology necessary to raise their tech level as quickly as possible. After a 100 years, I cannot find a single reason why any Imperium world would have a tech level below 10. Simply the economic advantages for the colonies and the survivability alone would make it all but mandatory -- wouldn't it?

Well, it costs a lot more than 50 cents to bump your TL, otherwise the whole 3I would be TL15. And people are loathe to spend their own personal cash on this when they could line their pockets instead. Gamers tend to have a more altrustic, or at least more group-goal-oriented approach, than most rich people. Possibly because they, the players, don't get to really enjoy the perks of piles of imaginary money in a game, so there's less motivation to spend it on selfish things.

I wonder if there are any world-building (in the RPG sense) resources describing how to raise a TL, because that sounds like an interesting project.

 

[whartung]

Why doesn’t Chad (the country in Africa) import the machine tools and manufacture Aircraft?

Well, it hasn't been 100 years yet.

However, it's still cheaper to buy aircraft than build them, so there's that.

Chad is "close enough" that it doesn't necessarily need to maintain private aircraft. It should be able to maintain State/Military aircraft, but even then, it can contract that out to 3rd parties.

Chad is a TL 8 country like pretty much the rest of the world, even if it lack manufacturing capability.

Simply the economic advantages for the colonies and the survivability alone would make it all but mandatory -- wouldn't it?

Similarly, off world services may be more than enough to service the needs of the world. There's a lot of place on Earth without, say, a gas station, yet they handle vehicle traffic just fine. Those vehicles simply go somewhere else for fuel and maintenance.

However a good example of this was in the TV show "Long Way Round", about a pair of motorcyclists going around the world.

In Mongolia, one of the bikes had a problem, and a local tradesmen tried to fix it. The problem was that it was a "TL 8" motorcycle with a bunch of electronic being worked on by a "TL 7" mechanic. While welding on the bike, he didn't ground something and scrambled the electronics on the bike -- effectively bricking it. He wasn't trying to fix the electronics, the problem was mechanical. But the electricity from the welder zapped the bike electronics.

BUT, what the party did (it was actually 3 people, the 3rd being the camera man) was they bought a local ("TL 7") motorcycle to continue the journey, and had the other one shipped on ahead to "a better starport" to get fixed.

Another anecdote, my Mom bought a used car, and we took it on a road trip. We pulled into Bishop CA (which is at the foot of the Eastern Sierra, and in the middle of the desert) at 2am discovering the clutch gave up the ghost. That derailed our trip abruptly, and we took a bus home. We did that because they had no parts (it was a Ford rebadged Opel, so parts in the US weren't at the local Autozone). They had to order parts for the car. Three weeks later, my Mom took the bus back to Bishop to pickup the car.

Obviously starships are harder to push around and tow through Jump Space, but FRU (field replaceable units) are FRU. It takes mostly mechanical skill more so than detailed engineering knowledge to put the things back together. Although the mechanics in Bishop had never see the car before, they managed to figure out how to replace the clutch. Because, you know, they're mechanics!

 

[Badenov]

Though I did a bit of research and found that the Marshall Plan invested $1.4 billion in rebuilding Germany after WW2, when the US GDP was about $228 billion with a population of 140 million,so pop 8. So, about 0.6% of GDPof a pop 8 group to bring a population 7 nation up to TL5. I have no real idea how to extrapolate this to higher TLs.

But it does imply that it should be possible to bootstrap a group up to higher TL if someone is altruistic enough (or can find another motivation) to front the cash.

 

[atpollard]

From the Traveller Wiki:

Technology is the ability to use tools to make other tools. Technology Level, or Tech Level and commonly abbreviated TL, is a measure of technological capability and sophistication. A world's tech level is the degree of technological expertise, and thus the capabilities of local industry.

The Tech Level of a world determines the type, quality, and sophistication of the products commonly available on a world in urban areas or near the starport. Large areas of the world away from the starport or away from large population centers may be one or even two Tech Levels lower.

Tech Level also indicates the general ability of local technology to repair or maintain items which have failed or malfunctioned.

Stepping back to Chad and TL 7 and TL 8.

TL 7 includes

• “Semiconductors, solar, organ transplants.” (Are those manufactured and repaired in Chad?)
• “Two of the key indicator discoveries of this period include the rocket and computer.” (Are rockets or computers manufactured and repaired in Chad?)

Clearly “distance” is not preventing the import of the tools and manufacturing capability, so what is holding back the Chad space program and keeping them from joining TL 7-9?

Could the history of colonialism have an impact?
Could the multiple civil wars in the last 100 years have an impact?
Could the culture have an impact?
Could the availability of cheap alternatives have an impact?
Could mass poverty or famine have an impact?

Might any of these factors impact a Traveller World?

 

[Condottiere]

Barriers to entry.

The Chinese reverse engineered a lot of Soviet, and let's call it post Soviet, technologies.

They have problems, despite their rather extensive industrial base, reverse engineering Western aviation technology.

Chinese hyperspeed trains have a tendency of going off the rails, or threatening to, despite reverse engineering European ones.

However, to get to that point, you do have to get foreign investment and technological transfers.

And three millenia experience of doing that, tends to make the incumbents wary of cutting into their technological leads and profit margins.

 

[atpollard]

100% IMTU:

I link TL to POP based on an assumption that you require a certain minimum number of “bodies” to support the diversity of support technologies needed to create a Tec Level. For example, 5 people living alone in the woods could sustain TL 0, but would be hard pressed to manufacture a suit of chainmail (it takes a small city to produce a blacksmith, and a foundry, and mine the ore, and transport it, and grow the food to feed everyone, and build the buildings to house everyone, and weave the cloth to clothe everyone …).

So once you reach beyond TL 10, it requires a stable multi-system population and trade network with specialized labor and an interdependent economy to support all the “other” trades that your specific TL 10 product depends on. That becomes the barrier to TL advancement … your TL 5 world needs to specialize to gain access to TL 10 economies, but it already needed to be at TL 10 to be part of those economic networks.

It is similar to the obstacles that Eastern Europe faced integrating with the EU markets … there was no real demand for the goods that their old equipment could produce. For Europe, the EU was willing to invest in modernization (irrespective of why). For Traveller, it appears that the Megacorporations are unwilling to invest in modernization (irrespective of why).

[I am going to self report this in case another MOD thinks it is getting too close to modern politics. I have no political opinions, just trying to use nations as analogies to guesstimate about planets.]

 

[MichaelSTee]

This is Traveller - space opera with a thin veneer of hard science-fiction. There could be any number of reasons:
The locals don't want the higher tech, their religion says to keep what tech they have. (Doesn't mean they live in a theocracy; they just follow their beliefs.)
The rulers have the money to buy hi-tech goods from offworld; they don't care too much about giving them to the lower classes.
The locals are miners/farmers/gatherers of some resource; they can't make some of their own tools, but the corp which carries away the resource in ships will send those ships back with replacement tools. No need to teach the locals how to make their own.
And so on...

 

[Condottiere]

There are minimums that can sustain sub aspects of planetary civilization, or just civilization as a whole.

Technological level/eight basic fusion reactors.

Currently, I'm exploring using airships/lifting bodies, technological levels six/seven, as way cheaper substitutes to air/rafts.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Really having trouble coming up with a reason why any planetary government worth more than 50¢ wouldn't import the machines, tools, and technology necessary to raise their tech level as quickly as possible.

You're making multiple assumptions, right off the bat ... not all of which are going to be true.

The first and foremost one is that Not Everyone™ is going to WANT high tech levels on their worlds. There are multiple examples of this in the Spinward Marches (typically on Agricultural and/or Rich worlds) where the allure of the "simpler life" without high technology holds great appeal.

The locals don't want the higher tech, their religion says to keep what tech they have. (Doesn't mean they live in a theocracy; they just follow their beliefs.)

Knorbes/Regina/Spinward Marches is merely one (among many) examples of this phenomenon.

After a 100 years, I cannot find a single reason why any Imperium world would have a tech level below 10.

For one thing, the Third Imperium is a Feudal Technocracy ... which means that there is not a "push" to spread the "wonders of technology" equally and evenly to all worlds within the borders of the polity.

Also, remember, the LBBs were published in the late 70s ... and the (original) Star Trek notion of a Prime Directive protecting developing cultures had a lot of value. In the Third Imperium, MOST of the interdicted Red Zone worlds have a population that should not be contacted (see: Prime Directive-esque ideas at play).

Simply the economic advantages for the colonies and the survivability alone would make it all but mandatory -- wouldn't it?

Not necessarily ... from a certain point of view ... by which I mean the purely parochial/isolationist point of view.

Most of the tech level codes we see in UWPs on the map are what those particular worlds are capable of sustaining "NOW" whenever the survey was taken ... but not all of them are necessarily "stable" conditions. Some may be on the upswing, while others are on the downswing ... depending on which way the winds of opportunity are blowing during the Boom & Bust cycles (especially if planets are considered "disposable assets" by the exploitative class).

But the best answer is simply that a One Tech Level Fits ALL™ result would be excessively BORING from a world building standpoint. The mere fact that you can "go somewhere else" and it happens to be on a "different rung" of the tech tree ladder makes the setting MUCH more diverse and interesting than making everywhere Bland High Tech Chrome, All The Same.

 

[Badenov]

But the best answer is simply that a One Tech Level Fits ALL™ result would be excessively BORING ...

I think this is the best answer. It's not an in-game answer, but is totally legit. It's up to GMs to explain each world's reason for not keeping up, they can (and probably should) all have different reasons.

 

[mike wightman]

Really having trouble coming up with a reason why any planetary government worth more than 50¢ wouldn't import the machines, tools, and technology necessary to raise their tech level as quickly as possible. After a 100 years, I cannot find a single reason why any Imperium world would have a tech level below 10. Simply the economic advantages for the colonies and the survivability alone would make it all but mandatory -- wouldn't it?

Because the Imperium deliberately maintains this TL disparity to engineer the economy to the advantage of the high TL worlds where the wealth is concentrated for the megacorporations and their noble shareholders.

It is the same reason there is a first world and a developing world here on Earth today. Technology and infrastructure could have been built in every country to the beterment of the living standards of the people who live in that country. Instead standards of living are kept low so cheap labour can be employed in very advanced industries to generate the wealth for the corporations that sell those goods to the consumer societies that have a ridiculous idea for eternal economic growth based on planned obsolescence.

Why do subsector dukes not incentivize worlds to move 10 million people from high population worlds to every world in the subsector? Or institute an incentive program to boost population growth rates.

Shipping fusion reactors for cheap energy etc should allow for industries to be set up in ever system, every system could harvest the raw materials from asteroids and moons. Every system should be TL15 and self sufficient...

What incentive is there for all these TL15 self sufficient systems to trade with each other? What incentive is there to rely on the Imperium for military protection when you have a population of 10 billion and can manufacture your own fleet?

Why would these TL15 worlds pay taxes to the Imperium?