Vegascat originated some discussions of what professions would be necessary. Of course, one would primarily need a leader who could sing like Lorne Greene, and chances of success would be higher if he had a gun and a rope and a hat full of hope. Following the Foxfire core principles might help , but then again it might not.
I will argue that skillsets are more important than professions in a colony setting. In historical small towns, multiple social functions were often satisfied by the same person (e.g. the banker might also be the barber).
Then what skillsets are necessary?
Assume the basic Traveller rules. Then I conclude that the rules are far too vague and need to be thrown out entirely and replaced with something much more detailed.
Are skills like "Operate bulldozer" and "operate concrete kiln" full time jobs? No. They are skills. The number of skills would have to be related to the number of artifacts modeled by the rules. If one has thousands of artifacts, each of which requires training, experience,and periodic refreshing, one might have a relatively realistic vision of the complexity necessary for a colony.
Also, compare the amount of professional training and testing that goes into certifying a union electrician versus a physician. Electricians have definite skills, but physicians go through a very rigorous social vetting as well as intellectual and practical training.
I doubt that any colony would be able to function if each individual had only one set of skills. I suspect that the doctor would have to be cross-trained in soldiering, the electrician would have to know practical chemical engineering, etc.
It might be possible to group skillsets into rough divisions. Of course, a detailed model of underlying scientific/technical theories and facts would be needed. A physician would be able to apply good molecular biology knowledge as a bonus to both some medicine checks and some research biology checks.
It might be possible to have knowledge skills and lab skills, both of which would be needed for particular tasks.
Here is a very short and partial list of tasks, not skills
Medical Tasks:
Paramedic, emergency surgery, midwiving, dentistry, etc.
Construction Tasks:
Assembly, measurement, marking, etc.
Military Tasks:
Stealthy maneuver, spotting, shooting, etc.
Mechanical:
gun repair, gun creation, watch gear grinding, block/tackle, etc.
etc. etc. etc.
Traveller provides a highly abstract system centered on rolling two d6s. I don't think one could have a story that embraced the complexities of colony building without a much more finely grained representation of game events.
Assuming one were willing to sink in the tremendous efforts required to build such a new system, one would probably start with the more detailed depiction of tech levels mentioned in my earlier post on Drakon's Inspiring Infrastructure. Then one would probably use history and some physics and ecology to model the ecological history of technology. It would be necessary to allow multiple paths to a given level of technological effectiveness, and to be objective about some of the odder turns of technological history.
(E.g., recall the Chinese had repeating crossbows with grid sights long before Europe dreamed of such things....)
Given a fine-grained depiction of historical tech, and if desired future tech, one could then enumerate a list of events in historical earth communities which were relatively isolated from parent societies.
Then one would attempt to formulate a history simulation, possibly extrapolating it forward in time for future technology. At this point the specific artifacts, behaviors, social structures, tasks, and skills would have to be listed. Grinding out a first draft would be easy, but revising it would be painful.
Finally, someone would have to playtest it, or else run it through a computer to map out various search spaces. Considering that it would probably be more of a simulation at first, it might be possible to make an accurate simulation and then simplify it to make it more entertaining and game-like for popular publication.
All of that is a lot of work, and I'm not planning on doing it any time soon.
I will argue that skillsets are more important than professions in a colony setting. In historical small towns, multiple social functions were often satisfied by the same person (e.g. the banker might also be the barber).
Then what skillsets are necessary?
Assume the basic Traveller rules. Then I conclude that the rules are far too vague and need to be thrown out entirely and replaced with something much more detailed.
Are skills like "Operate bulldozer" and "operate concrete kiln" full time jobs? No. They are skills. The number of skills would have to be related to the number of artifacts modeled by the rules. If one has thousands of artifacts, each of which requires training, experience,and periodic refreshing, one might have a relatively realistic vision of the complexity necessary for a colony.
Also, compare the amount of professional training and testing that goes into certifying a union electrician versus a physician. Electricians have definite skills, but physicians go through a very rigorous social vetting as well as intellectual and practical training.
I doubt that any colony would be able to function if each individual had only one set of skills. I suspect that the doctor would have to be cross-trained in soldiering, the electrician would have to know practical chemical engineering, etc.
It might be possible to group skillsets into rough divisions. Of course, a detailed model of underlying scientific/technical theories and facts would be needed. A physician would be able to apply good molecular biology knowledge as a bonus to both some medicine checks and some research biology checks.
It might be possible to have knowledge skills and lab skills, both of which would be needed for particular tasks.
Here is a very short and partial list of tasks, not skills
Medical Tasks:
Paramedic, emergency surgery, midwiving, dentistry, etc.
Construction Tasks:
Assembly, measurement, marking, etc.
Military Tasks:
Stealthy maneuver, spotting, shooting, etc.
Mechanical:
gun repair, gun creation, watch gear grinding, block/tackle, etc.
etc. etc. etc.
Traveller provides a highly abstract system centered on rolling two d6s. I don't think one could have a story that embraced the complexities of colony building without a much more finely grained representation of game events.
Assuming one were willing to sink in the tremendous efforts required to build such a new system, one would probably start with the more detailed depiction of tech levels mentioned in my earlier post on Drakon's Inspiring Infrastructure. Then one would probably use history and some physics and ecology to model the ecological history of technology. It would be necessary to allow multiple paths to a given level of technological effectiveness, and to be objective about some of the odder turns of technological history.
(E.g., recall the Chinese had repeating crossbows with grid sights long before Europe dreamed of such things....)
Given a fine-grained depiction of historical tech, and if desired future tech, one could then enumerate a list of events in historical earth communities which were relatively isolated from parent societies.
Then one would attempt to formulate a history simulation, possibly extrapolating it forward in time for future technology. At this point the specific artifacts, behaviors, social structures, tasks, and skills would have to be listed. Grinding out a first draft would be easy, but revising it would be painful.
Finally, someone would have to playtest it, or else run it through a computer to map out various search spaces. Considering that it would probably be more of a simulation at first, it might be possible to make an accurate simulation and then simplify it to make it more entertaining and game-like for popular publication.
All of that is a lot of work, and I'm not planning on doing it any time soon.
