Tech Levels in Traveller5

[robject]

Fun Stuff!

You don't need metallurgy at all. You can carve woodblocks into moveable type. You can cast clay ones, too. (Carve negative into a waxed slate or board. Press clay into it, let dry. Remove clay, and fire, possibly glazing, scraping the glaze from the working face before glaze firing.)

It can be done entirely with stone/bone tools.

The Phaistos Disk -- if it isn't a forgery -- is an example of using Minoan seals (you know, the kind used to impress wet clay or wax with a symbol or coat of arms or whatnot) to write stuff. Not a printing press, but quite handy nevertheless. Solves the problem of people who learn to write after they're adults (after all, these folks didn't need to be primarily or even typically literate).

Of course, the Chinese had woodblock art, and woodblock characters for "printing" for a long time.

I don't know if the Shriekers' Sun Worshipper Empire had moveable type. The Great Retreat does. Both writing systems are logographic.

The issue for Aztec/Nahuatl is that it is primarily logograms, with some phonograms in a syllabary, and some rebus writing as well.

And no need for printing... not much need for writing in general either.

Mayan has a more refined syllabary... but...
The issue is similar to the Korean Hangul, except that instead of single sounds per component, it's single syllable per component. 76 syllables KNOWN, most with 3 forms, and those forms are usually (1) a full block form, (2) a half block form, and either (3a) a quarter block form or (3b) a 1/3 block form. A single word usually fills one block. Mayan also still has logograms.

And Mayan writing was done by artists... creative calligraphers. So they did artistic things with their writing system that doesn't work completely well with static forms - conflation, composition, fusion, fun stuff all.

Not that they couldn't've standardized. But they didn't need to... they were craftsmen being paid for their craft -- like when an artisan is paid by a noble for a work of art, or like where public writings are like the Book of Kells - it has to be Truth and Beauty, mass-consumed, but not mass-produced.

 

[robject]

This one is going into 77 Patrons

"Mightier Than"

Patron Encounter

Trader.
Linguist skill (or just Scholar) required.
No ship required.

Luuran Gidiskeg is the owner of a fledgling merchant line. He approaches the players with a typical problem: the Madalidakdar, an indigenous TL 0 civilization, is threatened by world exploitation rights legally obtained by Ling Standard. Luuran has an abiding interest in independent civilizations and language; however in this case he is convinced that the Madalidakdar have a treasure trove of philosophical treatises which (here it comes) would bring wealth to a savvy trader like Luuran and his fledgling merchant line.

Luuran wants the players preserve their philosophy through voice recordings, and transcribe it into Anglic. He has a list of "The Twelve Treatises", and is willing to pay up to Cr10,000 for each recovered item, depending on reasonable objective criteria / skill checks. He will provide one of his ships with its crew if needed.

1. All is as stated. The Madalidakdar are isolated on one continent in a fairly uniform (and decaying) culture. Finding a center of learning takes a few trips with no major problems.

2. The Madalidakdar are scattered across the globe in small, linked states hugging the coastlines. Many of the states have variant philosophies of obviously inferior value (to the characters' point of view, but measurable and verifiable by a shipboard expert system). Proper skill checks will verify the best sources and their locations. Submitting inferior treatises will be noticed, with a reduction in awards. However, submitting these treatises alongside the "purest" forms will actually increase the overall payment to the players.

3. As 1, except the Madalidakdar's most revered philosopher is still alive but has been captured by an unscrupulous ship's crew working under Ling Standard's banner. (This crew or ship might be one which has irritated the characters before.) Delivering him from their clutches will win the undying gratitude of his people, and also him, and he will hand over to them the actual writings he has been jotting down, in exchange for photocopies (which will last longer in natural conditions anyhow).

4. As 2, except the Madalidakdar's most revered philosopher is still alive and willing to make a deal: he will hand over all of the written material he possesses ("handwritten first edition by his own hand"!) in exchange for their help in building (and teaching the making and use of) what can only be described as a TL0 printing press: a non-metallic contraption using animal ink pressed onto flattish, cured leaves.

5. As 1 or 2, except the original Twelve Treatises are lost. None of the variant treatises look "pure" or particularly "great". Nevertheless, there is a market for them, so collection can go on for as long as the players are able. If the locals are willing to part with them, some written treatises on broad, flat leaves can be traded for desired materials (and sold for quite a lot on the exotic native uniques market).

6. As 1 or 2, except the Madalidakdar appear to have recently gone extinct. Some nomadic tribes may still exist in states of varying barbarism. Writings will be rare, as their paper leaves cannot survive long in tropical climates, and inscriptions will be in relatively inaccessible places. However, their extinction coupled with the rarity of their writings multiplies the value of their texts by a factor of ten: if perchance the majority of a treatise were recovered, Luuran would pay a cool Cr100,000 credits for it.

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[JFGarber]

"Mightier Than"

Patron Encounter
< snip> ere recovered, Luuran would pay a cool Cr100,000 credits for it.

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This is going into the rebooted exploration campaign. Good stuff.

 

[kilemall]

6. As 1 or 2, except the Madalidakdar appear to have recently gone extinct. Some nomadic tribes may still exist in states of varying barbarism. Writings will be rare, as their paper leaves cannot survive long in tropical climates, and inscriptions will be in relatively inaccessible places. However, their extinction coupled with the rarity of their writings multiplies the value of their texts by a factor of ten: if perchance the majority of a treatise were recovered, Luuran would pay a cool Cr100,000 credits for it.

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We are going to have our own 'papyrus leaf' problem with the paperless society- media and data on inaccessible outdated formats that can only be run by machines running OS and programs 20 years gone, the internet's raw sewage generation obscuring what gets lost year after year, 'rewriting history' is cheap, and of course when AIs with owner agendas gets involved, you have the Computer Zero problem.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmTWhvWgST0

 

[robject]

We are going to have our own 'papyrus leaf' problem with the paperless society- media and data on inaccessible outdated formats that can only be run by machines running OS and programs 20 years gone

Already a problem with "home" video (VHS). The 8-bit computers of the 80s had a recovery-palooza over the last two decades as people scrambled en masse to digitize e.g. Commodore diskettes into raw digital formats (in UTF-8 mainly). That task is essentially complete now, and the hardware will soon reach its half-life (but not yet). Hardware and software clones of the Commodore 64 exist.

UTF-8, by the way, is likely to remain supreme awhile, due to its utility, and will stick around long after it has been surpassed.

Popular platforms will survive in various ways.

Companies with a stake in the digital media industry are already trying things, such as PDF/A. I scanned in a few hundred pages of texts a couple months ago, and put them all into PDF/A, which apparently embeds all resources necessary into a self-contained package. So: "scan and OCR to PDF/A and email" is a great conversion mechanism today.

the internet's raw sewage generation obscuring what gets lost year after year,

This is less of a problem and more of an opportunity for data mining to mature as less of an art form and more of a science.

 

[Timerover51]

His example was that a time traveler could go back to the American Civil War period and with a description and a little direction have a working submachinegun built. It would be much heavier, and bulkier; not as effective and far less reliable, but it would be possible.

In the American Civil War period, you would have had two possible cartridges which were in production to use: the .56 Spencer and the .44 Henry, both rimfire cartridges. While either could be used for a submachine gun, the .56 Spencer would have had about twice the recoil of the .45 ACP round of the Thompson submachine gun, with the .44 Henry quite close in ballistics to the .45 ACP round. Given the industrial capability to build the .44 Henry lever-action repeater and the Spencer lever-action repeater, I question whether an 1860s version of a submachine gun would have been any heavier or bulkier than the Thompson. The biggest difference would be the requirement for a curved magazine to hold the rimmed ammunition. The early rimfire ammunition did have problems with the primer not being efficiently distributed around the rim, which did cause a misfires. However, with a blowback submachine gun, you could make the entire outer rim of the bolt act as the firing pin, and avoid that to a great degree.

Putting a side loading gate into the Henry, as well done with the 1866 Winchester, basically a Henry with the side loading gate, would give you a weapon with close to the sustained firing rate of a submachine gun in terms of rounds per minute. The biggest problem would be the amount of smoke emitted by each cartridge, eventually obscuring the target. Otherwise, I fail to see any problems with making a .44 Henry equivalent of the Thompson.

 

[Timerover51]

There are some major problems with the Tech Levels in Traveller 5, but I will cover more about that in a separate thread.

 

[Condottiere]

Make it a prototype.

 

[kilemall]

My issue with Tech Levels is more in the higher end then lower end- seems to me TL12 should be more like TL10.3, TL15 11.6 etc.

Compression on the low end vs. expansion on the upper end.

Course on a practical business level there is that whole 'backwards compatibility' with a whole huge backend of material, I'm not seriously suggesting a revamp at this late stage, only a comment on something that has always bothered me about the system.

 

[mike wightman]

This is how I'd consider doing it:

TL0 - stone age
TL1 - agriculture, animal husbandry
TL2 - metal smelting
TL3 - gunpowder and glass
TL4 - the steam engine, electricity
TL5 - electromagnetic wave theory (radio etc.)
TL6 - quantum physics and general relativity, atomic energy
TL7 - what ever we discover in the next century or so
TL8 - jump drive, gravitics
TL9 - strong force manipulation (damper technology)
TL10 - beyond third Imperium technology and hence another decimal scale.

I can't help but think that CT should have had a 1-6 TL scale, there's a certain thing about the numbers 1 to 6 in CT.

TL0 - stone age, fire
TL1 - animal husbandry, agriculture, metal smelting, wind and water power
TL2 - gunpowder, glass, electricity, the steam engine
TL3 - electromagnetic wave theory (radio etc.), internal combustion engine, powered flight, steam turbines
TL4 - general relativity, quantum physics, atomic power, computers
TL5 - gravitics, jump drive, strong force manipulation
TL6 - beyond third Imperium technology

You could have a 1-6 subscale within each TL bracket...

 

[robject]

I can't help but think that CT should have had a 1-6 TL scale, there's a certain thing about the numbers 1 to 6 in CT.

Sort of how Fading Suns did it?

 

[mike wightman]

Fading Suns, Alternity probably a couple of others...

(I edited my last post by the way - take a look)

 

[robject]

Saw that. Clever in using subscale to get finer resolution on a very coarse 1-6 scale.

 

[Condottiere]

Tech levels could be based on major technological breakthroughs, like gunpowder, steam, electronics, gravitics.

 

[Timerover51]

Tech Levels should also have minimum population levels to support a given Tech Level. If a population level is lower than that required, then that planet is dependent upon Higher Tech Level imports. Also, there should be a maximum population level for the lower Tech Levels.

Tech Level "0", implying a hunter-gatherere level of subsistence, should not have a higher population level than say 10% of the available land area in square miles, and that is pushing it a lot. By available land area, I mean area that is not mountain or desert, and very limited populations in tundra.

You might be able to support Tech Level 3 with a population in the thousands, but that would again be stretching it, more like a population in the tens of thousands. Higher Tech Levels would require populations in the hundreds of thousands and anything over Tech Level 5 should require a minimum population of tens of millions to hundreds of millions. You should also have a reasonably Earthlike planet.

 

[mike wightman]

I agree up to a point, I think a progressively higher population base is needed to advance through the early TLs. Now for the but, high TLs can be achieved/sustained using automated labour and robotic factories therefore a low population can have a high TL.

 

[aramis]

Tech Levels should also have minimum population levels to support a given Tech Level. If a population level is lower than that required, then that planet is dependent upon Higher Tech Level imports. Also, there should be a maximum population level for the lower Tech Levels.

Tech Level "0", implying a hunter-gatherere level of subsistence, should not have a higher population level than say 10% of the available land area in square miles, and that is pushing it a lot. By available land area, I mean area that is not mountain or desert, and very limited populations in tundra.

Those presume a lot of desire to be Hard Sci-Fi. Something which Marc has said (recently) was never his intent.

Further, some of the needed information isn't generated by Traveller systems. (Even under WBH and WTH, the biome distribution isn't autogenerated, and due to a variety of choices to make, is generally hard to generate.

We can, however, simplify it to a theoretical maximum...
given
A = 4 π r²
(x*1000)² = x² * 1000²= x² 1e6
A_Siz = S² * 1.257e7
Psustainable[/p] = S² * 1.257e7 *0.1 = S² * 1.257e6 So...

Siz	TL0 population	Full range P
0.5	312,500.	5
1	1,257,000.	6
2	50,265,482.	7
3	113,097,335.	8
4	201,061,929.	8
5	314,159,265.	8
6	452,389,342.	8
7	615,752,160.	8
8	804,247,719.	8
9	1,017,876,019.	9
A	1,256,637,061.	9
B	1,520,530,844.	9
C	1,809,557,368.	9
D	2,123,716,633.	9
E	2,463,008,640.	9
F	2,827,433,388.	9

Full range means that, at 0-9 Hydrographics (but still sufficient humidity for crops), the maximum pop will still be in this Pop Code value. ANd it only goes up from there... So, sa long as pop is below that, don't worry about it... It's a heap of hassle for only limited realism gains. And, above TL 9, there is little reason to need more than a handful of people or so to feed the makers (automated factories)...