Super Ultra Tech

[kafka47]

Traveller is built itself upon fairly coherent technological curves and technological assumptions built upon Hard pseudo Science Fiction premises (i.e. our current understanding of physics does not allow antigrav but should we discover how to manipulate a graviton, maybe).

Ok, let us us push the envelope even further than Ringworlds, Dyson Spheres, Portable Disintegrators & White Globes, system-to-system transmat that all have been mentioned in the OTU.

What would Super Ultra High Tech be in the Traveller Universe? Otherwise, assuming that the Traveller Universe's laws of physics apply.

 

[mike wightman]

Devices that mimic the effects of psionic powers.

Imagine a self aware suit of powered armour that grants the wearer teleportation, telekinesis, clairvoyance etc.

Then miniaturised versions of the same.

You don't need the suit anymore, it's worn as a bracelet or other ornament. It can project a repulsor/telekinetic field, absorb incoming energy by directing it into another dimension etc.

Then bio/nanobot versions of the above.

You catch a cold, and then have all these niffty powers.

Then the above written into the cellular structure of organisms.

You're born like that.

 

[kafka47]

BTW, I did not use "Super" as prefix. Ultra, Ultra High Tech just sounded silly...so, I am not trying to find out how superpowers can be duplicated, Clarke's law notwithstanding.

 

[sgbrown]

Jump Cars

Matter -Anti matter powered Jump Cars - with Cyro Suspension (wouldn't sell many if you called it a low berth.) No grav car is truely complete unless it's also interstellar capable once the 100 dton barrier breaks down.

 

[Plankowner]

Trans-Galactic and even Inter Galactic Jump Drives. What good is the Andromeda Galaxy if we can't go there. MegaParsec Jumps.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by kafka47:
BTW, I did not use "Super" as prefix. Ultra, Ultra High Tech just sounded silly...so, I am not trying to find out how superpowers can be duplicated, Clarke's law notwithstanding.

I'm not talking super powers either - IMHO every single psionic ability is a result of ultra high technology.

 

[flykiller]

You catch a cold, and then have all these niffty powers.

or someone hacks the nanobots and your field of vision fills with pop-ups that don't clear until you buy the product they advertise or vote for a particular candidate or volunteer for slavery to some dictator.

ain't all positive.

 

[epicenter00]

I'd imagine beyond things like Ringworlds and Dyson Spheres, stuff would get really weird. I find even TL14+ in Traveller starts pushing it for really imagining what society would be like. TL20+? When you have total control and knowledge of crude things like physics and human psyhcology and you can just program out stuff you don't like...I'm not even sure we modern-day primitives could understand such a society.

For instance:

What about "Black Hole Retirement"?

Perhaps when you grow old, if you're not content with just passing on, your body is changed in ways that 'primitives' at TL15 wouldn't understand and you're simply dumped into a black hole. There is superhigh gravitic technology to preserve your life inside of there, up to a point. Right up to the point where time stretches out then stops having any meaning at all, then your body is shed, but your consciousness never really "dies" because time stops having any meaning and you can happily think and consider with other intelligences like yourself there. Dozens of different species are in there, and without the shackling of biology, there would be a true "meeting of the minds." Perhaps using some sort 'gravity pulses' they can even communicate with those outside, directing experiments, manipulating societies, and generally being consulted by their descendants.

 

[clementk]

Late Lensmen novels meet early B5 ascension likely. Not sure what all that entails right at the moment (don't have GURPS Lensmen handy nor any Lensmen novels) but that's what comes to mind. A vision of very high techonology before Transhumanism and Nanotech really came about as concepts.

 

[marvo]

For me it would be something like the Culture books of Iain M Banks. Spaceships are so large that living on a planet is unnecessary. Medical nano- technology can rebuild cells from the ground up so illness and disease are non-existant. Memory and personality are backed up by a device in your head and can be transfered to a new body, machine or anything else you want. Immortality is the norm.

 

[SJWaldock]

Ah, so the only sure thing then would be taxes

 

[Icosahedron]

Originally posted by CardinalBiggles:
Ah, so the only sure thing then would be taxes

Taxes? No, I'm sorry, Mr John Smith died last year after liquidising his assets. My name is Joan Smythe, I bought his house with an unexpected inheritance. I'm afraid I can't help you.

 

[Hemdian]

I have a situation in my current campaign where the players have misjumped into a much older part of the galaxy. Races older than the Ancients have come and gone. In their wake there is a large area where every biosphere has been contaminated by "xenofusic syndrome". This is essentially a virus that mutates the host into an alien hybrid. Was it a way to colonise the area? Was it a bioweapon? Who knows. To combat the spread of xenofusic syndrome the races of the area have come up with two approaches:

You can be completely sealed off from the environment in a special suit with strict filters on any material passing in to you ... to reduce what is needed everything but the brain is removed and this is put inside a robot body (aka Cybermen).

Or you can have your DNA removed ... your cell nucleuses replaced by nanites. This latter option opens up the possibility of enhancements.

The PCs have gone down the second path without realising it. They were given a metal ball (the size of a cricket ball) by some local aliens to aid communication (the PCs thought it was a low-level telepathic device). Over a couple of weeks these aliens seemed to become proficient at speaking Anglic ... but in fact the ball was a nanite dispenser and it was the PCs who were 'learning' the alien local language. Or, more accurately, it was the PCs who were being reprogrammed with the local language.

And for the players the penny hasn't quite dropped yet.

Regards PLST

 

[stofsk]

Star Wars level FTL travel, sensors and communications. The Holonet is real-time, and galaxy wide - an absolutely astounding feat, considering the causality-breaking traits of FTL in general.

FTL travel in general - cross the galaxy in a few hours. (This wouldn't be possible in Traveller, due to the peculiarities of Jump drive - however, if it were possible to 'control' a misjump then you might have something analogous)

Battlewagons that are 19km long. Not sure if it would be possible in Traveller, since million dton dreadnoughts are high-end, and Star Destroyers (mile-long) would eat them for breakfast.

Absurdly powerful conventional weaponry (the Acclamator-class troopships seen in AOTC have 200 GT per shot turbolasers - and these are troopships, the Imperator-class Star Destroyers seen in the original trilogy exceed in combat performance) that can scour a planet into molten slag in an hour's bombardment. Absurdly powerful superweaponry - nothing exceeds the Death Star in the ultimate "⌧ you".

Now, that might seem morbid - but it's only possible due to Wars' absurd power generation capability, which is truly impressive, and far in excess of antimatter or anything Traveller-high end.

Urban planning (Coruscant is covered entirely in cityscape, there are literally trillions of people on it alone - and it's not the only city planet in the GFFA). There are planets in Traveller that are capable of tens of billions of people. It's possible to roll at most 90 billion population. But a trillion, or trillions?

Lightsabres. Blasters. Shields. Droids. The last one is possible, but the Third Imperium seems to have a problem with robotics. Or at least the canon does, I don't.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Zero-point energy. Gravity control to a ludicrous degree (stable quantum black hole garbage disposals in every kitchen), weapons based on shooting a quantum black hole at a target designed to decay at the same moment it strikes the target (like a very powerful meson gun). Megatraveller Jump Projectors advanced to the point where they can safely jump a ship up to 36 parsecs. AI technology so advanced that you can have a personal "friend" AI that interacts with you as a hologram (or a robot, like in the anime "Ergo Proxy"). Matter creation almost at will, like the replicators from Star Trek.

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

What comes to mind for me is programmable viruses...ultimate miniaturization.

You don't need a toolkit-just think of the device or weapon you want and it is produced using nanomachines altering the immediste environment.

Practical immortality-real time updates of your memories, with just a sample needed at any public station to reconstruct your entire body after a fatsl accident. Regeneration for anything less than total destruction.

Project your consciousness over FTL distances, to any receiving station-a suitable host body is grown for you.

Heightened perception-see jumpspace (without going crazy), gravity waves, etc.

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />You catch a cold, and then have all these niffty powers.

or someone hacks the nanobots and your field of vision fills with pop-ups that don't clear until you buy the product they advertise or vote for a particular candidate or volunteer for slavery to some dictator.

ain't all positive. </font>[/QUOTE]Based on Traveller cannon, Technology does not seem to eliminate human vices. The TL 15-17 Imperium still had both good and bad leaders. Imagine an "annihilationist sect" with "black hole garbage disposals" to work with.