Reasons for low TLs

[Fritz_Brown]

In trying to generate an eight sector MTU I have encountered all the normal anomalies when doing LBB system generation - especially LBB6 extended system generation. One of the things encountered is large disparities in TL in adjacent systems. This is especially odd when the low TL system is what would appear to be a garden spot: 865643-2, and the adjacent system is TL C.

How can these things be explained? I have three possibilities to start off. Please post your ideas.

1) Physical isolation. A J3 away from everybody in a max-TL-B TU. (Though this means there isn't a TL-C world next door, it is an explanation for low TLs in a hi-TL galaxy.)

2) Primitive alien race, with Prime Directive/Red Zone/Reservation in effect. No tech because noone is allowed to "interfere".

3) The world is at a nexus between warring parties. It is a strategic node, and is regularly fought over by the competing polities. Because of this, the system is a regular battleground. Hence, the people tend to live simpler lives with simpler tech. (Plows are easier to fix than robotic combines after the bombing is over.)

What do y'all think?

 

[far-trader]

What's the starport of that renaissance world? Rich, Agricultural at least at a glance I think. Maybe it's a protected world for some reason. The only source of Cabaka root in the sector, a highly valued item very susceptible to changes in the biom so no industrial or other tech is allowed to mess it up?

EDIT: I should explain the reason for my question. I figure there are minimum TLs associated with Starports, regardless of the die roll. Starport A = TL9 minimum, Starport B = TL7 minimum, Starport C = TL5 minimum, Starport D = TL3 minimum. Unless that world has a Starport E or worse the TL should get a bump imo. If it is Starport E or worse then there is some reason for nobody going there. It's worthless, or dangerous, or inconvenient. Or like your suggestion, the scene of regular fighting, either as a denial of holding by either side for it's strategic value (always one side or the other getting kicked off before they can establish a presence. Or as a good place to fight it out without endangering valuable systems, a kind of a warped DMZ.

 

[TheEngineer]

Hi !

One option, which should not be neglegted, is that a society might be willingly life on a reduced TL. And remember, that the TL describes production capabilities.
So even a society, which uses high tech features like genetically enhanced agriculture, some sophisticated medical centers and advanced imported energy production technology, could appear as TL2.

IMHO this approach leaves a bit more variety and also represents the aspect, that technology offers people a choice, how they want to live.
Thats why I don't have any problem with a A-starport on a TL1 world.
What you have to remember is, that the world depends on imports to keep up the imported TL features.

TE
pro green engineering

 

[Spinward Scout]

If it's not on a trade route, and the TL-C world IS on a trade route, that might make some sense. I was asking something similar a couple of weeks ago.

Spinward Scout

 

[Gnusam Netor]

A garden planet with low tech and low population could be a vacation spot too. System Mallorca would probably have a lower tech than the "pocket empire" Spain.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Yes, TE, I forgot to mention the cultural/religious/political self-limiting idea. (I had thought of it, then forgot by the time I posted. )

Scout, I don't want to restart the LBB2 econ wars here , but (barring physical isolation) why would being off a trade route make a huge difference in the TLs? I don't mean a couple of levels, but something like TL-2 v TL-C. I suppose the other planet could be at an artificially high level because of the trade route (examples?).

Gnusam, would they have lo-tech because of self-limiting factors, then? Just because it's a nice spot to vacation doesn't mean they can't produce/maintain hi-tech goods. Would it be a "get away from it all" kind of spot?

BTW, good responses! I'm just digging for more...

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Oh, and F-T, the LBB6 system adjusts TL for the starport level. (Wish it worked the other way around....) But, let me take the nugget in your question and rephrase: Why would noone want to go there, dooming the system to a low TL?

 

[Andrew Boulton]

It's a nightmare trying to get UWPs to make sense.

 

[tinker123]

Perhaps you could borrow from Alan Dean Foster's Midworld, a planet where veg grows at an accelerated rate. The people live somewhere in the middle levels of the huge trees, away from the scavengers that feed on the rotting stuff at planet level, and the flying predators that inhabit the treetops.

Apart from the poisonous plants, the carnivorous plants, the explosive plants, and the sharp-pointy plants, off-worlders also get killed by the vast diversity of life that eats the plants (and each other).

It would take constant work to clear an area for any kind of manufacturing, and even to maintain a class X downport. Maybe there's a class C highport, so that the licensed farmers can skim down and collect the natural anagathics of the jujuberry plant? They have effectively a much higher tech level than the evolved humans who live in the trees....

 

[TheEngineer]

If something looks strange you mostly could use political or cultural aspects as potential explanations. Usually drifting pretty far away from logic, those aspects provide enough oppertunities for settings, which appear impossible from a technocratical or scientifical view.
E.g. real worlds provides such a large set of totally weird and finally failed engineering projects ... one just start to think: what kind of did those people take...

So, don't try to implement more logic in the TU than actually is present in the real world.

@Fritz: Sorry, don't understand the last question

Regards,

TE

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Explaining one or two odd worlds is okay, but try doing a whole sector...

 

[Pickles]

Explaining one or two odd worlds is okay, but try doing a whole sector...

That's right. Say, shouldn't you be somewhere else, doing just that? :devil:

Just call me your S***a conscience ...

 

[far-trader]

Oh, and F-T, the LBB6 system adjusts TL for the starport level. (Wish it worked the other way around....)

Yep, just wasn't sure how die purist you were being. I've seen results that don't make sense because of other modifiers in the TL roll. If it were the other way around I imagine the results would be very similar

But, let me take the nugget in your question and rephrase: Why would noone want to go there, dooming the system to a low TL?

I like the deadly garden idea above a lot

Or maybe there's something simply inimical to advanced tech there. Some atmospheric compound or condition that attacks electronics. Some natural radiation that messes up circuits. Or some electrical field or discharge that can't be (easily) shielded against.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

That's right. Say, shouldn't you be somewhere else, doing just that? :devil:

Just call me your S***a conscience ...

Been busy doing renders for Marc

 

[atpollard]

Been busy doing renders for Marc

Sure, duck the issue by using the "M" word.

 

[pendragonman]

These are all great ideas for low tech. If no one else is going to use some of these, I am going to bogart as many as I can:smirk:

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Sure, duck the issue by using the "M" word.

I think we need a name-dropper smiley...

 

[epicenter00]

Actually, if it's a great world literally right next door some industrialized hell-hole, I can think of any number of covers for silliness of generating systems using nothing but Ifni's dice.

* Perhaps the world is a post-post Industrial world - maybe it was once a huge industrial powerhouse, but as they trashed the environment of their own world, they realized that moving industry to a nearby system, accessible by J-1, which wasn't a great world to live on, but companies realized that the turnover time for having items made then transported back to homeworld was cheaper than maintaining factories on homeworld. Over time, much of the population of the world emigrated to the industrial world (where the jobs were). Meanwhile, decades-long cleanup efforts have borne fruit on the original world and it's now pleasant place to live once more but still protected by stringent industrial and pollution laws and now serves mostly as a center for non-industrial activities like education, art, vacations, a retreat for the wealthy, and a retirement community. Perhaps there are government subsidized vessels that run population constantly between the worlds, making it easy for even lower-middle class people to make hops to the original world once or twice a year.

* The system originally was settled to mine some extraordinarily resource rich (but inhospitable) world/belt/gas giant in the same system by the system next door which was a reasonably hospitable planet in its own right but had mined itself out. Perhaps the TL2 world is too Earthlike and had a plethora of native diseases and pests which made colonization a secondary consideration, save for some squatters and so on. Eventually, the need to feed and entertain the burgeoning population of miners in the system led to development of the world, but its primary industries are geared towards leisure and agriculture.

* There's some sort of condition on the world that makes it hostile to high-tech. Perhaps at some point, bacteria and molds underwent a mutation that made it eat plastic/superconductor materials/steel.

* Disasters, natural or man-made. Perhaps an enormous dinosaur-killer asteroid smacked into the planet a few decades back. Relief and evacuation efforts are mostly over, with some survivors living a desperate life on the world. The soot/ice age conditions have subsided, but not much has been done with the world, though the neighbor world has plans. Alternatively, perhaps the two worlds had a particularly bitter war and the TL2 world lost. There's still kill-sats in orbit with sophisticated sensors that watch for signs of rebuilding and drop nukes from orbit when it finds them.

* There's spooky causes: Once upon a time the world was populous and productive. However, some decades ago, some sort of mass public hysteria (a la the so-called "Mary Celeste Syndrome") led to rioting and a desperate desire for everyone to leave the world or kill themselves at some point. Nobody really knows the cause of it, though there's many theories, but nobody is that certain, and even scientific humans are superstitious - perhaps nobody is that keen to find out what happened. There's still survivors on the world, but their civilization is essentially gone.

 

[Gnusam Netor]

Gnusam, would they have lo-tech because of self-limiting factors, then? Just because it's a nice spot to vacation doesn't mean they can't produce/maintain hi-tech goods. Would it be a "get away from it all" kind of spot?

I don't know, I would say that a vacation planet would be able to maintain, but not produce, what the industrial planet next door produces. However, if someone says: "the highest TL commonly used on the planet" i wont argue.

That can't explain the TL-2 vs. TL-C discrepancy though. I would say that the UWP-TL generation should be reworked to include
* systems next door.
* The planets primary "role" among the local systems
* trading partner's TL.

(actually i think "pocket empires" have some rules about this)

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Ooooh, good stuff!

TE - cultural explanations can explain away so much lunacy... :nonono: I don't know which question you don't understand, though. That's all right, you're giving great ideas.

Perhaps you could borrow from Alan Dean Foster's Midworld, ...

Great big snippety for MTU. Now, where to put it.... :devil: Edit: Oh, and I got to thinking of Deathworld as a possibility today, too. end edit

epicenter, good ones. The dinosaur-killer idea is a variation on the warfare one (in one sense), but something I had not thought of.

For all those with the idea of plastic/electronics-eating bugs, wouldn't that spread to nearby worlds fairly easily?

Gnusam, by "get-away-from-it-all" I meant a place where you wouldn't be living in a hi-tech environment. One of the most popular vacations for hi-speed executives today is somewhere you can't get a cell phone signal, and they have no faxes or computer hookups.

All, I know I get trapped in the mentality of thinking "general level of available tech" because I get to thinking in terms of historical parallels (rather than the specific items available). Some of you are doing a good job of avoiding that trap - thank you.