TL 3 Army Skills

[epicenter00]

I couldn't agree more, with the medical as well as the riflery. I've often said it is important to rember that when using Earth, or Eurocentric History it is important to seperate cultural notions from TL.

While there is a valid point to be made there, I'd argue the entire Traveller TL scale is Eurocentric. While advancing TL in one given area could be (arguably) seen as independent of any given culture's view of history, certainly the broad TLs at the planetary or social scale of Traveller are not just Eurocentric, they're basically modeled after Eurocentric history as taught in American schools.

Trying to break away from Miller et al's TL scale is certainly do-able, but even in many non-European historical cultures (especially, say, China or during the "flowering of Islam" periods), you already run into less-than-palatable cases of "TL X in this area, TL Y in this area, TL Z in this area."

Also, even if this TL3 world is in contact with a much higher TL, I don't see the local powers that be spending their wealth on training medics, but on trying to get their hands on better weapons. AK-47s (or their future counterpart) will be much higher on the priority list for those supplying the army than anti-biotics and pain killers.

While societies certainly are known for that trait, historical societies in particular, it is also possible to imagine societies where life might be more valued. It's also possible to imagine societies basic discovery-and-knowledge propagation might be better. It doesn't even require the usual deus ex machina of offworld contact.

Going to real-world examples: The antibiotic properties of penicillin in the form of bread mold could have been noticed and the knowledge propagated and applied (for instance, if the printing press were discovered in Europe at the time the Chinese did instead of Gutenberg). To take a page from the US Civil War, a field surgeon who was boiling horsehairs for use in stitches might have noticed that those stitches tended to become infected less and tried the same on his surgical instruments and made some interesting discoveries. The combination of the two would have already been revolutionary for field medicine.

 

[aramis]

Essentially, surgical sterilization occurred because a particular US doc didn't like dirty instruments, and so rinsed them between patients, both for better grip and to keep them shiny... his OCD resulted in much higher patient survival, and very quickly, adding a quick wash between patients spread since the patients lived in visibly higher numbers.

It just takes one guy with the right OCD behaviors to discover that cleanliness leads to higher patient survival. Galen made the same observation, for crying out loud, over 1500 years earlier.

Practices can be lost; the Romans kept surgeons and those surgeons kept clean, but were not taught why, so when the roman empire fell, the practice went by the wayside. Galen's admonission for cleanliness was rediscovered in the US Civil War, but could have been rediscovered any time between had the right OCD been a surgeon...

 

[Icosahedron]

When I'm looking at TL, I generally figure whether the TL is advancing or recessing and then look at what is the best that TL can hope to achieve and what technology is most likely to improve/get lost.

The question for me is, what defines TL?

If a TL1 'Roman' culture uses off-world know-how to:

Sterilize its medical instruments,
Create steam-powered cottage industries,
Locally manufacture simple batteries, motor/generators and dirigibles,
Equip its armies with smoothbore firearms,

is it still TL1, or are these the prime markers of TL4?

EDIT: And what changes would these 'innovations' make to the population code? I certainly can't see it taking 2000 yrs+ for this civilization to reach TL7, Pop7...

Which takes us to a different thread...

 

[rancke]

The question for me is, what defines TL?

Most workable (i.e. useful for a referee) definition: "The level of technology employed in daily life by the general population."

If a TL1 'Roman' culture uses off-world know-how to:

Sterilize its medical instruments,

Still TL1.

Create steam-powered cottage industries,
Locally manufacture simple batteries, motor/generators and dirigibles,
Equip its armies with smoothbore firearms,

is it still TL1, or are these the prime markers of TL4?

TL4.


Hans

 

[RKFM]

The question for me is, what defines TL?

I think you need to separate technological knowledge from technological know-how. I know how a TV works, but I'm not capable of building one, and without the production capacity to make things like vacuum tubes/transistors it wouldn't matter if I did know how to build one.

Likewise the medical example, I could render some first aid/battle dressings. But without antibiotics and plasma I wouldn't be as effective.

IMTU tech level equals what can be locally produced.

That's why I usually go by LBB3 early edition tech level chart. Which doesn't equate a time period, just what technological advances appear at various tech levels.

To Hans:
LBB3 has the heliograph appear at TL1 (though I think on Earth it wasn't really used until the 19th Cen.) I think Communication skill could be used for this.

 

[Peter Schutze]

legionary works are better under Civil Engineering (MGT Trade-C.Engr.) than Mechanical.
>The skill I'd want to include, the name I'm not so thrilled with

Field Engineering is closer to the legionary construction …. Combat engineer is more demolitions / obstacle oriented while civil engineer makes people think of the more extreme tasks the legions did like Hadrians wall or constructing permanent civic buildings

Keep in mind Im referring to the 20 year term citizen foot legion like Julius Caesar’s and not the 300AD era mounted mostly barbarian army. Medical skill like many other knowledge levels declined during the barbarianisation period of the (western) Roman empire

>Medic 1 - I'd put this at the Combat Lifesaver/Field Medic level of medical training. This is an individual that is trained to stabalize a critical injury with basic lifesaving techniques so the wounded do not die on the battlefield, but can survive long enough to make it back to the field hospital.

Most legionaires performed battlefield triage ‘either a stab in the throat or bind his wounds’ but I’d wait to 2nd term before issuing it as a skill. Also keep in mind that historically more people of necessity had basic trauma medical skill than hold “first Aid” qualifications now.

>Medic 2 - I'd put this at the Paramedic/PA/Certified Nurse level of training. More advanced than a basic lifesaver and able to do some minor surgery (cauterisation) if absolutely necessary.

Decurion & Centurions …. ie 3 or more term NCOs could keep you alive with things like cauterising wounds

Medic 3 - A full up Doctor.

Not a military trained skill. Doctors and priests accompanied the legion but not really part of it.

Actually I suggest a great article in Mongoose traveller's mag on medicine .... especially since it links TL to skill level and just as importantly what the skill means at various TL ie high TL medical skill might not apply because military 'field surgery' is usually a "put him in the autodoc" rather than a skill

 

[Icosahedron]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icosahedron View Post
The question for me is, what defines TL?

Most workable (i.e. useful for a referee) definition: "The level of technology employed in daily life by the general population."

Quote:
If a TL1 'Roman' culture uses off-world know-how to:

Sterilize its medical instruments,

Still TL1.

Quote:
Create steam-powered cottage industries,
Locally manufacture simple batteries, motor/generators and dirigibles,
Equip its armies with smoothbore firearms,

is it still TL1, or are these the prime markers of TL4?

TL4.

Hans

In that case, there should be few, if any, worlds with TL 1,2, or 3, and probably not many with TL 4 - 8.

As soon as a group of tool-users descend from the trees and become 'educatable', they can progress from hunter-gatherers to farmers quite quickly, build a couple of cities with integral electricity grid with the aid of the local Steam-Blacksmith, and develop to the point where they can manufacture electronics, fusion power and gravitics just about as fast as the population and infrastructure can expand - which as we've discussed elsewhere, could be a doubling every couple of generations.

 

[rancke]

In that case, there should be few, if any, worlds with TL 1,2, or 3, and probably not many with TL 4 - 8.

Worlds with TLs 0-4 would mostly be interdicted or otherwise isolated. As for TL 5-8, the bucolic world that considers itself perfectly adequately served with its relatively backward bucolic technology is a common SF trope. Sometimes they remain backward not from choice but from inability to bootstrap themselves and lack of funds to buy help.

As soon as a group of tool-users descend from the trees and become 'educatable', they can progress from hunter-gatherers to farmers quite quickly, build a couple of cities with integral electricity grid with the aid of the local Steam-Blacksmith, and develop to the point where they can manufacture electronics, fusion power and gravitics just about as fast as the population and infrastructure can expand - which as we've discussed elsewhere, could be a doubling every couple of generations.

Two of the non-interdicted worlds with tech levels around 4 in the OTU that I've spent a lot of time detailing have low tech for reasons that have nothing to do with learning. One (Knorbes/Regina) has a religious objection to any technology that is not powered by "Work, Wind, or Water" as they put it ("Work" means muscle power (later amended to include springs -- they have some quite sophisticated clockwork devices)). The people of the other world (Borite/Sindal) have a philosophical abhorrence of mass production. They don't mind computers or spaceships at all... as long as they're hand-build . And indeed, their leisured class tend to build laser rifles and air/rafts for a hobby. Still, the bulk of the population mostly use TL3-5 devices. Then there is Rorre, which is peopled by technological renunciates.



Hans

 

[Maccat]

meh I'd use supplement 4 citizens of the imperium barbarian career, it has
carousing brawling blade bow gun (yes!) mechanical survival recon streetwise, Ed 8+ medical (yes!) interrogation tactics leader instruction and Jack-of-Trades. Auto skills sword, blade, leader.
Alternately could work up some sub-set oif scout i'd imagine, what with hunting and equestian and all.

 

[Sacoap]

My Uncle was in the army during WW2 and I know he was somewhere like egypt but not sure where,there doesn,t seem to be anything on Ancestry or find my past about WW2 unless they died,how do I find what regiment he was in etc
Shelagh

 

[Jame]

I think that Medic is a good skill for TL 0-3, because it can represent splinting bones and herbal remedies (which in my view are prime TL 0 methods).


I myself would say that TL 8 is the lowest level of actual interstellar community tech, as then you could have spaceships. (But then I think that Traveller's tech is slightly skewed towards keeping what should be TL 8-9 tech up towards higher TLs - the bioscanner in MGT is my primary example for this.)

 

[david.wendelken]

I really don't think medical belongs in there at TL3. Doctors were very rare and no "field medics" (as we think of them today) in the ranks.

Also, marksmanship was not a skill that was cultivated in the ranks of European armies at that time, as units fired in mass. In fact, the fire commands for the British Army during this period were "Ready, Level, Fire" indicating that there was no exspectation for the soldier to actually pick a target in the opposing unit. Only soldiers in actual Rifle units were trained to pick specific targets when they fired. So, if someone had a marksmanship skill, it would probably be from hunting prior to entry into the Army.

Just my thoughts.

FYI, the Byzantine army had medics assigned to its units.

 

[far-trader]

FYI, the Byzantine army had medics assigned to its units.

Quite right, not sure how this got missed until now

From wiki (better than my memory and easier than typing )...

Regular trained legionaries were known as milites and were the equivalent in rank of the modern private soldier. Included in the ranks, aside from the milites, were the immunes, specialist soldiers with secondary roles such as engineer, artilleryman, drill and weapons instructor, carpenter and medic. These men were still fully trained legionaries, however, and would fight in the ranks if called upon. They were excused from some of the more arduous tasks such as drill and fatigues and received better pay than their comrades in arms.

 

[Icosahedron]

As I think has been mentioned upthread (I'm not going back to check) unless the TL3 world is a reservation, there will be imports, and top of the import list will be education materials, medical supplies and pharmacuticals.

The only place you're going to find a 'sawbones' in charted space is on a reservation world, and even there there might be some form of humanitarian intervention (I'm not sufficiently aware of the OTU's Prime Directive in relation to reservations to comment).

 

[david.wendelken]

My Uncle was in the army during WW2 and I know he was somewhere like egypt but not sure where,there doesn,t seem to be anything on Ancestry or find my past about WW2 unless they died,how do I find what regiment he was in etc
Shelagh

Write the army and ask.

 

[david.wendelken]

While there is a valid point to be made there, I'd argue the entire Traveller TL scale is Eurocentric.

Actually, the AUDIENCE for Traveller was Eurocentric at the time of publication (and probably still is). Thus, the quick and dirty TL explanation was given in Eurocentric terms.

 

[aramis]

Write the army and ask.

the actual place to ask is the NARA-NPRC

National Personnel Records Center
Military Personnel Records
9700 Page Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63132-5100

http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/military-personnel/index.html​

 

[david.wendelken]

the actual place to ask is the NARA-NPRC

National Personnel Records Center
Military Personnel Records
9700 Page Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63132-5100

http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/military-personnel/index.html​

Speaking of "Euro-centric", that answer is "American-centric".

Given that the US Army did not conduct large-scale military operations from Egypt (that would be members of the Commonwealth, the Free French, etc.), I chose not to assume the poster is American.

There may have been some special purpose units there in small numbers, but I don't believe the US Army had any significant troop concentrations in Egypt. Not even the US Army Air Corps.

 

[Dragoner]

The US had air units at the Battle of El Alamein IIRC.

 

[Easterner9504]

Ww2

Halverson Provisional Group (HALPRO) was 1st US unit in Egypt in 11/42. was traveling to China but never made it.



TL capabilities are a functionality of ADMIN. Persia, Rome & China with vast bureaucracies could maintain large armies fully supplied in the field. Once Rome fell and reading & writing vanished much tech was lost though some new things were adopted like compass, astrolabe and windmill. So Rome was more advanced than Middle-age Europe in the sciences and math based engineering the Medievals still kept inventing new things.

So Darriens would have kept their admin so are TL16 on (ahem) paper while Haldera are Solomani living in domes recently conquered in turn by Zho's and Halkans (aka Florians) are TL3 as they suffered complete failure at some point.

There are still TL 0-1 peoples on Earth. Some seem to wear PLANET HOLLYWOOD shirts and carry AK-47's but would be stumped at building a plow.

Am. Indians were TL 0 but they knew what iron knives, arrowheads and guns were and did what they had to do to get them.