Tl2+?

[Whipsnade]

The adventure is set in Year 1000, shortly after the interdict has been lifted and while the Scouts are still working on contacting the Knorbians. At this point, Tecnoclasts and Technodules are still duking it out and the Church is nowhere near as powerful as it becomes later. Technology has reached TL2 more or less naturally, and I don't see all that many 'altertech' inventions yet. Instead, some people are trying to lay down railway tracks by day and other people are ripping up railway tracks by night.

Hans,

Okay. Karsten won somehow despite Cinnavane's imports and the Karsten emperor saw some benefit in allying himself with the Church.

Jump forward a decade or so before 1000 and the latest IISS report on Knorbes begins We've got good news, bad news, and worse news...

My bad. That's supposed to read "Jump forward to a decade or so before 1000". (I've fixed it in the original post.)

I'm going to have to think that one over. My knee-jerk reaction is that I don't like it, but I've had that reaction to many ideas that I embraced after getting used to them.

It's your setting and thus your call. I was just thinking of some way to make the Knorbian technophobes more sympathetic to the players. A theocracy enforcing TL2 "altertech" limits with arrests and trials is going to need all the sympathy it can get.


Regards,
Bill

 

[atpollard]

Some Horse Powered Ferries (click for links):



And another:

 

[atpollard]

Centerville Horse Drawn railroad:



Disney main street trolley

 

[atpollard]

Farming:

 

[Icosahedron]

As ATP has pointed out here and I have argued recently in another thread, there is little to prevent a world from progressing very rapidly from TL0 to TL4 once the knowledge is available, and little to prevent knowledge from spreading if communication lines are open - hence the fundamental problem with Traveller's infamous ability to have TL2 worlds next door to TL15 worlds...

As I see it, the two main barriers to progression will be population limitations - not having enough people available to create the technological infrastructure, and religious/political pressure. Slavery would be a mechanism to alleviate the population problems and hence accelerate progress, though it can also act to reduce the need for technology.

What the TL ultimately becomes depends on what the church wants. Without restraints, it will go to TL4 fairly quickly. If the church doesn't want a W3 TL4 society it will have to rule against certain inventions that conform to W3 but make things too easy.

An obvious target for the church would be imports. High tech, compact, near-frictionless clockwork devices could raise the standard of living (and people's expectations) and might need to be restricted; clockwork typewriters, phonographs, washing machines, etc.

Maybe TL2 is just a current snapshot of the society on its way up, maybe steam isn't banned but has yet to make a significant impact on a wide scale?

Whatever the situation, I can see underground 'guilds' of DIY electricians and radio buffs trying to make life easier for themselves and their families and I can see a thriving black market in batteries, motors, wire, light bulbs, comms, palmtops, DVD players, MP3 players, etc etc...

I can also see breakaway communes declaring political and intellectual independence.

What is the church's ethical standpoint against the introduction of high-tech hospital facilities and pharmacutical manufacture?

 

[rancke]

Okay. Karsten won somehow despite Cinnavane's imports and the Karsten emperor saw some benefit in allying himself with the Church.

You see this as a problem? Quantity has a quality all of its own, and I've carefully not specified the relative size of Karsten and the smaller nations. How many technological goodies can a TL2 society afford to buy? And siding with the Church turns Karsten's naked territorial aggression into a Holy War enthusiastically backed by a lot of his subjects.

My bad. That's supposed to read "Jump forward to a decade or so before 1000". (I've fixed it in the original post.)

That's how I read it in the first place.

It's your setting and thus your call.

Given that I hope one day to foist this setting on all canon-worshipping members of the Traveller community, I'm certainly not going to reject any suggestion out of hand. But, Bill, after thinking it over, I just don't think the Scouts would chose a slave-holding country for First (re)Contact, no matter how xenophillic it was. Imperial dukes may prefer high-tech worlds capable of contributing to the common defense to low-tech worlds, but anti-slavery is one of the fundamental principles of the Imperium.

I was just thinking of some way to make the Knorbian technophobes more sympathetic to the players. A theocracy enforcing TL2 "altertech" limits with arrests and trials is going to need all the sympathy it can get.

Or it makes for a good source of antagonists.


Hans

 

[rancke]

As ATP has pointed out here and I have argued recently in another thread, there is little to prevent a world from progressing very rapidly from TL0 to TL4 once the knowledge is available, and little to prevent knowledge from spreading if communication lines are open - hence the fundamental problem with Traveller's infamous ability to have TL2 worlds next door to TL15 worlds...

And hence my attempt to come up with a non-technological, non-economic reason to eshew steam and electricity.

What the TL ultimately becomes depends on what the church wants. Without restraints, it will go to TL4 fairly quickly. If the church doesn't want a W3 TL4 society it will have to rule against certain inventions that conform to W3 but make things too easy.

An obvious target for the church would be imports. High tech, compact, near-frictionless clockwork devices could raise the standard of living (and people's expectations) and might need to be restricted; clockwork typewriters, phonographs, washing machines, etc.

Those are just the things I'd like to have, to make the society different from any known historical models.

Maybe TL2 is just a current snapshot of the society on its way up, maybe steam isn't banned but has yet to make a significant impact on a wide scale?

No, the big fight between the technoclasts and the technodules took place shortly after Year 1000. Knorbes has stagnated at that level for over a century.

Whatever the situation, I can see underground 'guilds' of DIY electricians and radio buffs trying to make life easier for themselves and their families and I can see a thriving black market in batteries, motors, wire, light bulbs, comms, palmtops, DVD players, MP3 players, etc etc...

A thriving community of evil blasphemers who will call down another divine punishment if they're not stopped? Nice!

I can also see breakaway communes declaring political and intellectual independence.

And I see the Empire's elite troops making short work of them. :devil:

What is the church's ethical standpoint against the introduction of high-tech hospital facilities and pharmacutical manufacture?

That it leads to Biological Tampering and must be nipped in the bud!

Drugs now... if the salesman guarantees that they're purely natural products, that might be OK.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

Drugs now... if the salesman guarantees that they're purely natural products, that might be OK.

That one will be a hard sell. A 50% child mortality rate is one thing if NOTHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT, it is quite another thing to watch your child die because the Church bans vaccines or anti-biotics that you know exist, are easily affordable and are probably available on the black market.

Now you have a reason for that underground heretical movement to exist and be tolerated by the masses.

 

[CosmicGamer]

As I see it, the two main barriers to progression will be population limitations - not having enough people available to create the technological infrastructure, and religious/political pressure. Slavery would be a mechanism to alleviate the population problems and hence accelerate progress, though it can also act to reduce the need for technology.

I've seen slavery mentioned more than once but can not figure out how this increases the population, manpower, or technology level. Are you importing slave scientists?

The population of 'beasts of burden' for traveling and performing work would be something to consider.

What would the tech level of a quaker society be?

What is the tech level of those tribes I'm always seeing in National Geographic?

Are there not 'third world' (whatever that means) nations that still don't have electricity or water in the majority of residences? What is the tech level of these locations?

I don't believe there is a 'fundamental problem with Traveller's infamous ability to have TL2 worlds next door to TL15 worlds' because we already have a fairly wide range of tech levels right here on the same world.

 

[rancke]

That one will be a hard sell.

I guess. People refusing medical treatment for their children because they believe it is against God's Will sounds crazy. That would never happen in real life.

A 50% child mortality rate is one thing if NOTHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT...

What makes you think child mortality would be that high? The Knorbians would know about germs and sterile procedures. Historcal mortality rates also resulted from unsanitary living conditions and inadequate food.

...it is quite another thing to watch your child die because the Church bans vaccines or anti-biotics that you know exist, are easily affordable and are probably available on the black market.

Vaccines can be produced at TL0 if you know how. Antibiotics likewise, although it may be a problem to refine it.

Now you have a reason for that underground heretical movement to exist and be tolerated by the masses.

Yes, because religious beliefs make people act so rationally.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

Vaccines can be produced at TL0 if you know how. Antibiotics likewise, although it may be a problem to refine it.

I'm not looking for a fight here, but I think that you underestimate the actual dificulty in mass producing vacines and antibiotics using muscle power and plant extracts. These are simply not 'all natural/holistic cures'.

"Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000 BC. The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year during the 18th century (including five reigning monarchs), and was responsible for a third of all blindness. Of all those infected, 20–60%—and over 80% of infected children—died from the disease."

Germ theory and sanitation will avoid the cases of "2 children out of 15 survive to adulthood" common in TL 2-3 Earth, but even as late as the 1900's a typical parent could not expect all of their children to live.

"It is estimated that 1.3 percent of children born in 2000 will die before they reach the age of 20, compared to 10.9 percent of children in the early 1930s."

In Traveller, every starship that lands could bring a potential epidemic that will eliminate 25-30% of the population without vaccinations and antibiotics.

The only point that I am making is that Medicine is one area where TLs higher than 2 will probably prevail.

 

[Whipsnade]

You see this as a problem?

Hans,

Not at all. I was stating it as a fact. Karsten wins and her emperor adopts the tenets of the Church for whatever reason.

All I was doing with my slavery suggestions was attempting to put a better face on the Church of Wisdom and giving the Empire of Karsten an edge aside from size. You're going to have a hard sell with your players concerning both. They will be on-world while the struggle between Karsten and Cinnavane is still occurring.

How many technological goodies can a TL2 society afford to buy?

Not any at all. However, there would be lots of people interested in helping a polity survive against an aggressive technophobic empire for free. Unless that polity has some flaw that is.

And siding with the Church turns Karsten's naked territorial aggression into a Holy War enthusiastically backed by a lot of his subjects.

And liberating slaves would be yet another reason for backing him. You've already mentioned how the Church isn't universal in 1000, people laying down and other tearing up railroad tracks. Karsten and her official church need a "recruiting" angle.

But, Bill, after thinking it over, I just don't think the Scouts would chose a slave-holding country for First (re)Contact, no matter how xenophillic it was.

The IISS may not have any choice in the matter. Karsten, under the Church's influence, may have spurned all offers and only Cinnavane, facing destruction, was open to off-world contact. Setting up in Cinnavane gave them an on-world presence, not in the place where they would have liked, but at least on the planet. The IISS could have also "sold" their presence in Cinnavane to the Imperial government as encouraging emancipation within Cinnavane and her allies.

... Imperial dukes may prefer high-tech worlds capable of contributing to the common defense to low-tech worlds, but anti-slavery is one of the fundamental principles of the Imperium.

Which is why Karsten's unification of the world, while a still a loss, isn't seen as too a great loss. If the IISS had been able to save Cinnavane and her allied from Karsten's conquest, along with sparking emancipation in those nations, they'd have had slave free, technophilic polities on Knorbes that would eventually begin contributing the the realm's common defense. Instead, the IISS is faced with a planet-wide empire whose state religion's central tenet is technophobia.

I was suggesting that the IISS circa 1000 had a bad choice and a worse choice. We know the Imperium practices with psychohistory and other forms of social engineering, perhaps the IISS analyzed the situation and predicted they had a better chance of changed Cinnavane's society than Karsten's religion. After all, over a century later Knorbes is still in the grip of a technophobic Church.

These suggestions are all whimsy on my part however.

It's almost certain that some sort of lavery, serfdom, or churldom would arise as part of Knorbes' collapse. We saw that happen in TNE. Real world history shows that, at the technological levels you posited for 1000, in order for any of the planet's polities to have dense urban populations or engage in significant low-tech "industrialization" that some form of slavery, serfdom, or churldom would make things easier.

I thought we could use those historical trends to put a good face on an aggressive empire and it's technophobic religion while also throwing any players a moral curveball. They're going to step into the setting, learn about Karsten and the Church of Wisdom, and immediate choose to side with Cinnavane. A single air/raft full of riflemen and grenades can play merry hell on any TL2 battlefield not to mention the havoc it could cause to a TL2 logistic system. A repugnant cultural practice such as slavery would give any group of players pause before they started playing Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen in favor of Cinnavane.

YMMV.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Maccat]

I assume the vast majority of people will be involved with producing food. Using europe as an example there was a lot of feudalism in play, land ownership vs land rights vs rights to what comes from the land, or even by one's own hand!

Traditionally the church took tithes a % of crops (as did feudal lords). Milling will be a big issue, Mills also took a % of crop as fee, and even went so far as to add lead and such to bulk up the volume (!). So windmills, watermills, horsemills, *literally* grinding grain. Baking/cooking, there are areas being deforested just for wood to cook with on a fire, or stay warm enough not to freeze.

No electricity or steam, what is the lighting situation?! Oil from whales/seals, grain/veg oil, rendered animal fat, for lamps? Then again if they use soy they get lotsa extra oil, maybe the church has sole rights (or resources?) for hydrolizing soy protein? Cotton works great as well, lotsa oil, residue for animal feed, and of course the fibers for textiles/cloth (you can even have lil kids chained to the looms, all missing limbs from getting caught in them, as happened) Then again distilling maybe the lamps use booze, or methanol, that would be sugar and yeast based more though.

Traditionally (heavily influenced here by Lewis Mumford) things like weather (for the crops) tithe (for next years seed corn) heck water handling just for irrigation as domains of the religious 'class'. Scouts say providing planting/Wx predictions could be a godsend. Oh maybe they manage the woodlands as well?

You mentioned Quakers, and from the nature of worlds around, having a nice breatheable air, water and such, be it TL2 or not, has strong desireability to people I would think. Like suburban or hobby farmers? I also can't help but think that having a pool of peoples, low-TL/educated with weird cultural attitudes or no would be of some value to other worlds, even just as a source of labor. Does the planet import/export people, as slaves or free travellers or what? i.e. would the religious government make a contract to have mining laborers for a period of ___ years, say 500 people, in return for ___, or have they that say/control/sway? Do they limit leaving, or entering? etc. I can't help but think of the movie Zardoz here for some reason lol.

 

[Whipsnade]

I've seen slavery mentioned more than once but can not figure out how this increases the population, manpower, or technology level. Are you importing slave scientists?

CG,

Slavery, serfdom, and churldom were my ideas, not Hans'.

We've seen a tendency for those practices among post-collapse societies in Traveller. TNE is littered with slave holding societies for example. I was suggesting that some, not all, of the post-collapse polities on Knorbes practice slavery, serfdom, and churldom for two reasons.

The first is agricultural production. At TL2, unless you tie farmers to the land somehow you're not going to have sufficient production of foodstuffs to support substantial groups of "specialists"; workers like smiths, scribes, soldiers, and the like. Rome and other classical societies were able to support fairly dense urban populations and large armies because of slave-based agriculture. Slaves in other parts of the economy, especially mining, were an important factor too.

My second reason was the most important and it has to do with "leveling" the players' perceptions. Hans' Knorbes setting will have the players landing at a new starport in a small nation on a backwards world. That small nation and her allies are eager to receive whatever help they can from off-worlders because they're being threatened by a larger, aggressive empire with a technophobic state religion. If your players are anything like mine were, the first thing they'd do is launch some sort of operation to help the smaller polities.

Aside from what an air/raft could do on a TL2 battlefield, I shudder to think of the hell a band of players in an air/raft could wreak across TL2 supply lines or the damage they could do to the infrastructure of a TL2 empire's capital city. Money for arms, especially against a TL2 opponent, wouldn't be as big a problem as it first seems either. A carbine costs 200 Cr and 100 rounds another 1000 Cr. You can outfit a thousand man regiment for slightly more than one million, a relative pittance when you remember the cost of things like starships, speculative cargoes, ATVs, and the like.

Finally, with the world now officially re-contacted, what's to prevent Cinnavane and her allies from paying mercenaries with land or mineral rights? There are canonical merc tickets in which the hiring party does just that. There's also no reason why megacorps or smaller businesses would subsidize Cinnavane's defense for certain consideration. Again, there are plenty of canonical examples of that. All those examples are why I felt Cinnavane needed to be "balanced" with regards to Karsten. There are just too many reasons for the players, the IISS, and many other third parties not to intercede in Cinnavane's favor.

I also find it very troubling that the Imperium itself, which has Marine detachments flying about in their own ships and Unified Army brigades readily available for long deployments, would fail to intervene to prevent the destruction of the polity it has recently recontacted by an aggressive, technophobic polity. When you remember one of the Imperium's concerns, that worlds should help defend the realm, allowing a technophobic polity to unify Knorbes while doing nothing borders on the strange, especially when the Imperium can do so much to a TL2 opponent with so very little. I can see the Imperium failing to intervene in time during a TL11 war involving bio-bombs aboard hypersonic ICBMs and SLCMs. I cannot see the Imperium failing to intervene in a TL2 war when the campaigning season is tied to the actual seasons and armies march 20km on a good day.

I don't believe there is a 'fundamental problem with Traveller's infamous ability to have TL2 worlds next door to TL15 worlds' because we already have a fairly wide range of tech levels right here on the same world.

Neither do I, mostly because I believe that the description of TL in the rules is not the same as the description of TL in the OTU setting.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

I'm not looking for a fight here, but I think that you underestimate the actual dificulty in mass producing vacines and antibiotics using muscle power and plant extracts. These are simply not 'all natural/holistic cures'.

I'm not really making any estimates, because I don't have many facts to base them on. Do you have any facts that shows that it can't be done at that TL?

"Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000 BC. The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year during the 18th century (including five reigning monarchs), and was responsible for a third of all blindness. Of all those infected, 20–60%—and over 80% of infected children—died from the disease."

This was before the invention of the smallpox vacchine. I've looked for figures for the 19th Century, but couldn't find any.

Germ theory and sanitation will avoid the cases of "2 children out of 15 survive to adulthood" common in TL 2-3 Earth, but even as late as the 1900's a typical parent could not expect all of their children to live.

"It is estimated that 1.3 percent of children born in 2000 will die before they reach the age of 20, compared to 10.9 percent of children in the early 1930s."

I'm not saying there wouldn't be avoidable deaths; I'm suggesting that such deaths wouldn't be numerous enough that religious convictions wouldn't make them tolerable. "Yes, it's sad, but it's better than another divine punishment. Who knows if anyone would be left alive if we provoked another Rain of Death?"

In Traveller, every starship that lands could bring a potential epidemic that will eliminate 25-30% of the population without vaccinations and antibiotics.

Actually, techniques for visiting virgin field populations without causing epidemics were worked out back around the time of the Interstellar Wars.

The only point that I am making is that Medicine is one area where TLs higher than 2 will probably prevail.

Could be. I have little or no idea of how vaccines and antibiotics are mass produced. If machines that don't use electricity can be used, they will be.


Hans

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

I'm not looking for a fight here, but I think that you underestimate the actual dificulty in mass producing vacines and antibiotics using muscle power and plant extracts. These are simply not 'all natural/holistic cures'.

It's not that hard, nor high-tech. All you need is a canteloupe and the right strain of penicillin, and you've got yourself a personal antibiotics factory right there.

Penicillin is effectively a TL0 crop. The only reason it didn't show up until TL3-4 or so is because the theoretical knowledge base hadn't been established to give researchers the idea to go out and look for it yet.

Germ theory and sanitation will avoid the cases of "2 children out of 15 survive to adulthood" common in TL 2-3 Earth, but even as late as the 1900's a typical parent could not expect all of their children to live.

"It is estimated that 1.3 percent of children born in 2000 will die before they reach the age of 20, compared to 10.9 percent of children in the early 1930s."

Interestingly, the 1930's is the last decade before antibiotics were introduced into the general population. The period from about 1930-1949 saw the US infant mortality rate cut in half -- in no small part due to the introduction of penicillin to the masses. During about the same period, maternal mortality declined by an even greater number (just over 70%).

The increase in hospitalized births during this time also played a major role in these declines, no doubt; but one of the chief reasons they wanted childbirth moved to hospitals at the time was because that was where access to the new antibiotic therapies was most easily available -- and prior to the 1940's, almost half of all childbirth-related deaths was due to cases of "blood poisoning" (i.e. sepsis).

 

[boomslang]

Water-powered computers ought to be interesting.

I envision an enormous wood-and-iron difference engine inside a mill-house, laboriously clanking and grinding away for days on end.

And of course, no one gets their numbers crunched during the winter months -- only when the spring thaw lets operations resume.

I am so ready to get into a swordfight amongst the machinery of a mill-wheel-powered difference engine, I have visions of the concept art and storyboard panels dancing in my head...

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

While a the designs are little too "high tech" for Hans' immediate needs, ATPollard's nifty posts reminded me of this site.

Be prepared to lose a couple of hours!


Regards,
Bill

 

[Icosahedron]

Originally Posted by CosmicGamer:
I've seen slavery mentioned more than once but can not figure out how this increases the population, manpower, or technology level. Are you importing slave scientists?

Since I think you were responding in part to my post, I'll drop my 2Cr in here.
I agree with Bill:

CG,
The first is agricultural production. At TL2, unless you tie farmers to the land somehow you're not going to have sufficient production of foodstuffs to support substantial groups of "specialists"; workers like smiths, scribes, soldiers, and the like. Rome and other classical societies were able to support fairly dense urban populations and large armies because of slave-based agriculture. Slaves in other parts of the economy, especially mining, were an important factor too.

Slavery doesn't increase the whole population, but by enforcing longer hours for less pay onto a portion of society, it allows another group more time and money to indulge themselves in free thought and invention. How many deckplans could you create if you had a slave doing all your chores for a dollar a day?

This happens to some degree in all societies, but those who openly adopt slavery push the gap between rich and poor somewhat wider than would otherwise be acceptable.

The downside is that necessity is the mother of invention - there is no need to invent a clockwork dishwasher if you have a slave and a bowl of water.

 

[Commander Truestar]

Just my take on a few items...
First, I was taken by the number of posters who think that a low tech world would not contribute to the defense of the realm. Certainly, such a world is not building starships or even immediate components of starships. But...
There are many worlds who produce these things and/or provide technically compitent crew but who need food. Clusters of worlds not only trade based on technical goods but on food and "bread basket" worlds are treasured. So supporting the anti-tech empire in its land grab may be a way of securing favorable food for tools trade agreements with a world that is not trading for methods of creating home grown pollution!

And my take on the "slavery" issue...
It was long believed that the pyramids of Egypt were among the many monuments created by vast armies of Hebrew slaves. Being of modern and Jewish upbringing myself, I was very open to archeological information which revealed that this was not at all the case. Today, only a few die hards hold to the belief that slaves built these many monuments while those who pay heed to historians and archeologists have accepted the evidence that huge armies of citizens and adhearents to the Pharonic religion of Egypt raised these great works.
So accept the plagues and the great wars that followed. Also posit that the new religion grew not only from its "purification" roots but from its drive to cleanse through "natural service". The many farmers and workers are not slaves but devout adherants submitting to the work to clense themselves or even maintain their purity.
As seen from the outside(the player point of view) they seem slaves but thwart every attempt made by the players to "liberate them" or to explain that there ia a better life out there.

Knowledge is also a question.
While not hard to do even with only three-w tech, is education something the Empire is willing to spend energy on? How educated are people and how much of the avalable industry is devoted to communications and information spreading? One earlier poster questioned the willingness of parents to allow their child to die in the name of techno-purity when they know a cure exists, but do they? With her working as a willing crop worker on a farm while her husband works providing muscle power to "work machines" on a farm even near the starport...do they know of this cure? Do they mix with folk cursed by the use of forbidden technology? Do they pay heed to or even care to learn of the tales told by blasphemers? So even if they are quite well educated, they might so believe in their faith to the point of accepting the existing mortality rate and eschew the unclean offers and "snake oil cures" of those not purified by belief.

And finally, the Drugs/child mortality issue..
Even in this age of Earth we regualrly see those who turn from science to faith for a cure or solution...even if that solution is a clean death "in accordance to God's will". Less than a month ago a drama was played out here in the United States where a mother and son fled rather than have the son treaded via chemotherapy.
Note that this is a small group of people surrounded by a more medically forward looking(in my point of view) society. That choice must have been incredibly hard to make but if you take those same devoute believers and blend them into a like-minded society... Well, the choise to ignore the whispers of evil technophiles about "supposed cures" that may or may not help while abosolutly making you a trator to all you believe... This decision is adifferent story and I see many more parents accepting it in the name of the great God Purity.

So the world need not be a slave abusing unclean hell hole ruled by a despitic Emperor but a pragmatically run global empire here the masses are raised to service and civil cooperation through the mechanisim of religious devotion. Slaves are replaced by devoute workers, removing The Imperium's major objection to such a setting while the devote farmers produce a huge amount of food to feed the technophilic worlds for parsecs around them.

Just a few thoughts

Marc