TL breakthroughs.

[mike wightman]

How do you explain the higher TL breakthrough tech that Traveller presents in the TL table?

We know about the TL paradigm shifts that have happened historically - but what happens in the far future?

My thoughts, and a lot of MTU stuff in this. I will use LBB1-5 with occasional omissions.

TL 8 CT gives us null grav modules and fusion reactors.

note that the CT maneuver drive doesn't appear until TL9 (not using HG2 here since the maneuver drive is invented at TL7 under that tech paradigm)

Higgs field research decoupling mass from gravitational attraction perhaps?

TL 9 we get maneuver drives and jump drives - maneuver drive first, jump drive as a genius or lucky breakthrough following on from maneuver drive research. Implied is the development of radiation protection screens from the maneuver drive technology, artificial gravity and acceleration compensation may kick in here too. Note also that power plants increase in efficiency due to the use of grav technology within the reactor perhaps.

This is the first magic tech level. I handwave it as being able to manipulate the Higgs field in a way to generate acceleration at short range.

TL 11 Meson gun breakthrough - this implies that the scientific principles behind true manipulation of the strong and weak nuclear forces are being understood.

TL12 Nuclear damper technology makes an appearance - in ship/city screens against nuclear weapons and probably also included in fusion reactors to explain the efficiency improvement at this TL. The meson screen is also developed.

So we have force fields that can affect the nuclear scale interaction of matter. Superdense armour.

TL13 Nuclear dampers may now be installed in battlefield vehicles.

TL14 Bonded superdense.

TL15 Another breakthrough in fusion efficiency, we already have grav and damper tech so how do we explain yet another efficiency improvement? Is the development of bonded superdense an indication that superdense fusion chambers allow more efficiency?

TL16 disintegrators - a final iteration for damper tech

TL17 antimatter - what if at this TL you can actually change matter to antimatter via the science behind damper manipulation. Cheap antimatter manufacture is the breakthrough here. Total conversion of matter/antimatter to energy is the payoff.

What comes next?

What I'm trying to come up with is a way to explain the technology breakthroughs as a continuum of technological achievements:

chemical energy -> nuclear energy -> total matter/energy conversion

particle theory -> particle/wave duality -> field theory

EM manipulation -> Higgs field -> gravity -> nuclear forces

that sort of thing.

So how do you explain the technology breakthroughs in your game - handwavium, no one asks, too different to understand so no chance of explanation...

 

[BytePro]

No one has ever asked.. what you have is pretty much what the table in CT implies to me as well, but I stay clear of the implementation details which could cause contradictions and suspension of disbelief issues. Good science fiction knows what to leave to the imagination...

 

[McPerth]

Some of those breacktroughs, though, vary with the rules.

As examples, in MT, both fusion power and anti-grav came at TL9. In MgT, particle accelerator turrets came at TL8 (they are TL14 both, in CT/HG and MT). Curiously enough, also in MgT, they need a triple turret (according to HG), that appears at TL9...

 

[Dragoner]

The epochs of my TU are:

TL 0-4 Pre-Industrial
TL 5-8 Industrial
TL 9-11 Post-Industrial (the beginnings of an interstellar society)
TL 12-15 Interstellar (post-scarcity)
TL 16+ (beginnings of trans/post-humanism; eg AI's etc.)

Things like antigravity are the ability to distort/manipulate the fabric of space, such as emulating mass; so a minor push against it pushes back with greater force, etc. (so that even relatively weak ion drives would seem powerful). This breakthrough is what leads to cheap clean fusion, Jump drive and much of the other future tech.

 

[warwizard]

As individual worlds may have some technologies that lag and others that proceed faster so may societies also have a lack in some technologies. IMTU I'm working up a campaign for the Terrans in the pre interstellar wars period.

I give them jump drive and fusion plants but their fusion plants are cold fusion based. They can sense gravity, but can do nothing about changing it. Their starships are logical extensions of NASA manned missions to the moon with tissue paper thin walls backed by aerogels, and physical particle shielding deployed in the direction of travel, which is not very fast as they are not using any gravetics. They have good Fusion rockets, and daedalius drives suplemented by Nuclear thermal rockets for use in atmospheres of inhabited planets.

In short I do not make gravetics as a prexisting requirement to being able to get jump drive or of reaching fusion power technologies.

 

[McPerth]

In short I do not make gravetics as a prexisting requirement to being able to get jump drive or of reaching fusion power technologies.

Do you make fusion power a prerequisite for jump drive, though?

 

[warwizard]

McPerth,

Power is power whatever the sourse as shown by the Annic Nova adventure, where a photovotalic array is used to gather the energy to activate the jump drive without needing any hydrogen fuel at all. The jump drive requires a large surge of power applied to the jump drive however that is done, I don't really care, the difference between a TL 8 fission and a TL 9 Fusion (In T4 FF&S) is only a matter of needing twice as large of a power plant to produce the same energy output.

 

[Timerover51]

McPerth,

Power is power whatever the sourse as shown by the Annic Nova adventure, where a photovotalic array is used to gather the energy to activate the jump drive without needing any hydrogen fuel at all. The jump drive requires a large surge of power applied to the jump drive however that is done, I don't really care, the difference between a TL 8 fission and a TL 9 Fusion (In T4 FF&S) is only a matter of needing twice as large of a power plant to produce the same energy output.

Actually, it is the Annic Nova adventure that convinced me that the power requirements for jump were totally off the wall, so I have cut back drastically on fuel required. The main need now is fuel for maneuver drives, not jump. For ship's power, a ton of liquid Hydrogen goes a very long way.

I also keep thinking about something like the Annic Nova being standard for colony of Droyne, and favored non-Droyne have a chance to get one.

 

[mike wightman]

No one has ever asked.. what you have is pretty much what the table in CT implies to me as well, but I stay clear of the implementation details which could cause contradictions and suspension of disbelief issues. Good science fiction knows what to leave to the imagination...

Good point.

It's why I steer clear of using dark matter and dark energy as handwavium just in case next week they are proven to be the 21st century equivalent of the ether

 

[mike wightman]

Some of those breacktroughs, though, vary with the rules.

As examples, in MT, both fusion power and anti-grav came at TL9. In MgT, particle accelerator turrets came at TL8 (they are TL14 both, in CT/HG and MT). Curiously enough, also in MgT, they need a triple turret (according to HG), that appears at TL9...

Yup, note that I mentioned ignoring the High Guard drive TL table since it makes the maneuver drive a TL7 invention

Each edition messes with the TL table a bit.

 

[mike wightman]

Things like antigravity are the ability to distort/manipulate the fabric of space, such as emulating mass; so a minor push against it pushes back with greater force, etc. (so that even relatively weak ion drives would seem powerful). This breakthrough is what leads to cheap clean fusion, Jump drive and much of the other future tech.

I like this.

 

[mike wightman]

As individual worlds may have some technologies that lag and others that proceed faster so may societies also have a lack in some technologies. IMTU I'm working up a campaign for the Terrans in the pre interstellar wars period.

I give them jump drive and fusion plants but their fusion plants are cold fusion based. They can sense gravity, but can do nothing about changing it. Their starships are logical extensions of NASA manned missions to the moon with tissue paper thin walls backed by aerogels, and physical particle shielding deployed in the direction of travel, which is not very fast as they are not using any gravetics. They have good Fusion rockets, and daedalius drives suplemented by Nuclear thermal rockets for use in atmospheres of inhabited planets.

In short I do not make gravetics as a prexisting requirement to being able to get jump drive or of reaching fusion power technologies.

You have an interesting setting in development there. I've enjoyed reading your other threads about it.

Do you have a handwave for how cold fusion works or do you just say "it works"?

 

[McPerth]

McPerth,

Power is power whatever the sourse as shown by the Annic Nova adventure, where a photovotalic array is used to gather the energy to activate the jump drive without needing any hydrogen fuel at all. The jump drive requires a large surge of power applied to the jump drive however that is done, I don't really care, the difference between a TL 8 fission and a TL 9 Fusion (In T4 FF&S) is only a matter of needing twice as large of a power plant to produce the same energy output.

True, power is power, but various sources define the JD as a fast burning fusion plant, so hinting that fusion a prerequisite for it (even if fusion power as such may not be, at least at sized that allow it to be used in spaceships.

 

[Timerover51]

True, power is power, but various sources define the JD as a fast burning fusion plant, so hinting that fusion a prerequisite for it (even if fusion power as such may not be, at least at sized that allow it to be used in spaceships.

If that is the case, then the Annic Nova adventure is even more of an anomaly, as it clearly is not using liquid hydrogen for fusion in large quantities. However, it also was the adventure published in the first issue of the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society, and also part of the first double adventure published. Either it uses a jump drive significantly different than that used elsewhere, making it a far more inviting salvage target, or there is simply no set view of what is required for making a jump in the rules. I suspect that the latter is the case.

 

[rancke]

If that is the case, then the Annic Nova adventure is even more of an anomaly, as it clearly is not using liquid hydrogen for fusion in large quantities. However, it also was the adventure published in the first issue of the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society, and also part of the first double adventure published. Either it uses a jump drive significantly different than that used elsewhere, making it a far more inviting salvage target, or there is simply no set view of what is required for making a jump in the rules. I suspect that the latter is the case.

IMTU I had the Annic Nova built around an Ancient artifact, a fuel valve leading to a pocket universe full of fuel.

I'm told that T5 includes rules that allow for designing the Annic Nova. Presumably (or should I say hopefully?) that includes a self-consistent Grand Unified Jump Drive Explanation.

I'm eagerly waiting to hear it.


Hans

 

[aramis]

IMTU I had the Annic Nova built around an Ancient artifact, a fuel valve leading to a pocket universe full of fuel.

I'm told that T5 includes rules that allow for designing the Annic Nova. Presumably (or should I say hopefully?) that includes a self-consistent Grand Unified Jump Drive Explanation.

I'm eagerly waiting to hear it.


Hans

The GUJDE says it's power alone that's the issue, and that the fuel is used in a high power, low efficiency over-clock of the main powerplant. The tonnage of the JD is mostly just the stuff to convert that power to jump.

 

[warwizard]

You have an interesting setting in development there. I've enjoyed reading your other threads about it.

Thank you, I'm hoping some folks will kick in their ideas for the H/W to perform the missions listed in my posting in the T4 section. I have my ideas but I want to see somebody else's before I throw mine out there.

Do you have a handwave for how cold fusion works or do you just say "it works"?

TNE Fire Fusion and Steel page 67 and 68 Fusion of Potassium + Hydrogen to produce Calcium, and Duterium to helium have been shown to happen, we just need the engineering to make a practical power plant out of the processes hinted at in the experiments. No handwavium needed.

 

[Timerover51]

Thank you, I'm hoping some folks will kick in their ideas for the H/W to perform the missions listed in my posting in the T4 section. I have my ideas but I want to see somebody else's before I throw mine out there.

After looking at your posts in the T4 section, have you ever seen a book called the Space Traveller's Handbook, by Michael Freeman?

 

[warwizard]

T5 was mentioned, and it does address this issue, three more weeks and the veil will be lifted and we can discuss this more fully.

 

[Dragoner]

I like this.

Thanks, it is at least a nod to Newton while doing a handwave. It is because of grav plates on ships mostly.