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?

 

[kilemall]

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.

Not a good example, that didn’t actually do the bootstrap, more the teaching American industrial process and us ordering and selling stuff. The education system, laws and cultural supports had been up and running for decades, that’s a big cost independent of the equipment and start up.

I would argue that the social setup is very key to maintaining TL.

Another factor is non-industrial, which tells me below a certain pop they are importing parts and not making anything that isn’t absolutely essential. At that point it’s their exports that are paying for the air rafts/computer/etc parts imports.

 

[mike wightman]

I would argue that German TL was ahead of the USA, hence the nazi rocket program becoming NASA. German scientists and engineers were world leaders.

The US money was to rebuild the infrastructure that had been blanket bombed to oblivion, they already understood the science, engineering and technology.

 

[Badenov]

Not a good example, that didn’t actually do the bootstrap, more the teaching American industrial process and us ordering and selling stuff. The education system, laws and cultural supports had been up and running for decades, that’s a big cost independent of the equipment and start up.

I would argue that the social setup is very key to maintaining TL.

Another factor is non-industrial, which tells me below a certain pop they are importing parts and not making anything absolutely essential. At that point it’s their exports that are paying for the air rafts/computer/etc parts imports.

Well, no, it's not a perfect example, but it's the closest I could find easily. I read a bit further, and it looks like there was follow-on economic aid that continued investment for years after the Marshall plan had completed. But it did help. It also provided food aid, which a developing colony will need until their first local harvest comes in. And yes, the people being helped had to work pretty hard to rebuild.

For a Pop 3-5 world that's basically TL0 because their colony ships have just landed, I imagine theideal case is having basic TL12 fabrication equipment in the colony ship that can take locally obtained materials and manufacture simple things: shelters, vehicles, more resource harvesting equipment, and they can, at that point, make the simpler things, which can in turn be used to make more complex things, and it's not like they need to discover each TL as they go, there's probably a blueprint for build these things to enable these other things, and so on and so on, like a game of Civilization. The TL12 gear would need support from off-planet at the start, but you could totally grow the TL that way.

 

[McPerth]

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.

I don't believe this to be a good example for several reasons:

• On the favorable side, Germany had itsown people already trained to TL 6, and its remaining industry was also TL 6
• On the unfavorable side, the cost in fact was quite higheer, as Germany devoted also many resources to recover. US aid was useful, bu probably only a small part of the cost
• To compare, Germany raised from TL 5 to TL 6 between 1918 and 1936 without this high foreign aid, and despite having to pay heavy war reparations

Could mass poverty or famine have an impact?

Is this cause or cosequence (or a mix of both)?

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 …).

I guess this will be lessened at higher TLs, where robotized factories may take charge...

And this will take us (again) to the discussion of what do 5 inhabitants mean. It's permanente population or is floating population counted too?

I guess Diego García is now cutting edge tech on the way of repairing (at least, I don't know about manufacturing) military hardware. It has just over 4000 inhabitants (according Wilikipedia), but I guess the floating population in the US military base greatly outweights them (no idea about the numbers), and allows it to have this TL, despite being only a POP 4 island...

 

[Badenov]

I would argue that German TL was ahead of the USA, hence the nazi rocket program becoming NASA. German scientists and engineers were world leaders.

The US money was to rebuild the infrastructure that had been blanket bombed to oblivion, they already understood the science, engineering and technology.

This is one of the least well-described areas in Traveller: The difference between knowledge of TL and enconomic capability to act at a TL is never adequately explored. The post-war German knowledge of TL was at least equal to the west, and as you say, was higher in some areas. But their cities were bombed out, and manufacturing capability had been a primary target, so the economic capability TL was much lower. and that's the TL that needed to be restored. This is similar to a colony, which has knowledge of higher TL, and needs to build the economic capability.

I don't believe this to be a good example for several reasons:

• On the favorable side, Germany had itsown people already trained to TL 6, and its remaining industry was also TL 6
• On the unfavorable side, the cost in fact was quite higheer, as Germany devoted also many resources to recover. US aid was useful, bu probably only a small part of the cost
• To compare, Germany raised from TL 5 to TL 6 between 1918 and 1936 without this high foreign aid, and despite having to pay heavy war reparations

So a colonizing group would have knowledge of either its home culture's TL, or TL15, I'm not entirely clear. In this sense, knowledge means they have the training on how to build and do things at the TL and that will certainly be higher than the TL of a colony freshly landed on a planet. The Marshall Plan is, I admit, a poor example of the scope of rebuilding because the population of all the Plan recipients contributed substantial portions of their own reduced capabilities to rebuilding as well, which a new colony would not have.

But I don't have any other information on building infrastructure to go on. Can you take a TL12 fabrication plantof the sort you find in MgT1 Supp 14, Space Stations, and build it on the ground, and build bulldozers and cranes and build manufacturing plants and construction yards and bootstrap yourself up to the TL you were trained to?

 

[Spinward Flow]

For a Pop 3-5 world that's basically TL0 because their colony ships have just landed, I imagine theideal case is having basic TL12 fabrication equipment in the colony ship that can take locally obtained materials and manufacture simple things: shelters, vehicles, more resource harvesting equipment, and they can, at that point, make the simpler things, which can in turn be used to make more complex things, and it's not like they need to discover each TL as they go

Colonies are going to have to be "given" the capacity to develop In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU in NASA-speak).
You can't send EVERYTHING from the homeworld to the colony and expect the colony to "grow" (let alone, flourish) without using any of the resources at the colony's location.

Basically, colonies will START as "parasitic endeavors" by the colonizing power (stuff gets built and sent, never to return) to the homeworld economy. The trick is SENDING ENOUGH of the RIGHT STUFFS™ to enable a kickstart/bootstrap launch of a colony into self(-ish)-sufficiency, reducing the drain on the economy of the homeworld that launched the colony effort over time. If everything goes well, the colony will become self(-ish)-sufficient enough to not REQUIRE continuing investments from the homeworld in order to survive, but economic trading opportunities between the two parties develop that are mutually beneficial to both and which yields a "net positive" result over time on both sides of the ledger.

But the key to doing ALL OF THAT is ... ISRU.
If there are no local resources to be used at the point of colonization, that location is NEVER going to be able to "take off" on its own and become self(-ish)-sufficient in a sustainable way.

Without ISRU, a colony (or outpost) will NEVER become self-sustaining.
Even with ISRU ... not all colonies (or outposts) can become completely closed loop self-sustaining.

There's a LOT of Boom & Bust cycling going on out on the frontier/fringes of civilization.

 

[Badenov]

Colonies are going to have to be "given" the capacity to develop In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU in NASA-speak).
You can't send EVERYTHING from the homeworld to the colony and expect the colony to "grow" (let alone, flourish) without using any of the resources at the colony's location.

Yes, exactly.

*snipped*

Without ISRU, a colony (or outpost) will NEVER become self-sustaining.
Even with ISRU ... not all colonies (or outposts) can become completely closed loop self-sustaining.

So, if the colony provides some vital resource, such as Planet X, the Shaving Cream planet, it may be worth the resources to keep it going.
I do wonder at some of the places that get maintained for no clear reason. Presumably it's better to have Our boots on the ground than someone else's.

There's a LOT of Boom & Bust cycling going on out on the frontier/fringes of civilization.

Yes.