Victoria/Lanth

[McPerth]

I'm curious. If Maintaining a TL-4 technology requires a fair amount of easy access to metal. And, as you postulate, the LACK of those metals lowers the TL, the question becomes "How did the planet RISE to the higher TL in the first place?

Could not be posible that the IISS initially assumed it to be TL 4 due to their use of dirigibles, and latter realizing its true TL was closer to 2 in most other fields, while the dirigibles were only posible due to the easily harvested hydrogen bags?

 

[rancke]

Could not be posible that the IISS initially assumed it to be TL 4 due to their use of dirigibles, and latter realizing its true TL was closer to 2 in most other fields, while the dirigibles were only posible due to the easily harvested hydrogen bags?

No, because the two different UWPs are both for 1105.

Also, the article states "Technological level is 4 -- external combustion engines, but severely hindered by lack of metal resources on the world". [p. 16-17]


Hans

 

[tjoneslo]

Also, the article states "Technological level is 4 -- external combustion engines, but severely hindered by lack of metal resources on the world". [p. 16-17]

You can go a long way with ceramics and concrete for a low pressure external combustion steam engine. Ceramics have some interesting failure modes, but with correct advice, better impurities filtering and good firing techniques you can make ceramics as strong as most metals.

What's harder to replace is the conductors used for the TL-3 telegraph and the TL-4 electricity power systems.

 

[rancke]

You can go a long way with ceramics and concrete for a low pressure external combustion steam engine. Ceramics have some interesting failure modes, but with correct advice, better impurities filtering and good firing techniques you can make ceramics as strong as most metals.

So that's what they're doing then.

What's harder to replace is the conductors used for the TL-3 telegraph and the TL-4 electricity power systems.

They won't use thelgraphs the way we did on Earth. No telegraph wires worth what gold wires would have been worth on Earth stretched between cities. But teleggraphs (or phones?) connecting different parts of the same complex. Perhaps primitive radios for long distance communication instead of telegraphs?


Hans

 

[aramis]

You can go a long way with ceramics and concrete for a low pressure external combustion steam engine. Ceramics have some interesting failure modes, but with correct advice, better impurities filtering and good firing techniques you can make ceramics as strong as most metals.

What's harder to replace is the conductors used for the TL-3 telegraph and the TL-4 electricity power systems.

graphene can be made with TL 4 equipment... and is a conductor.

 

[Vladika]

Perhaps primitive radios for long distance communication instead of telegraphs?
Hans

Why not fiber optics? If you can make glass you can make glass rods.

One thing I seriously like about CotI is a great bunch of people thinking outside of the box.

In spite of our all to many stupid arguments this is one hell of a think tank. Governments and Corporations can't BUY this kind of imaginative outpouring.

Right after one person says something can't be done three others find a potential solution.

When TEOTWAWKI comes I hope to have a few of you guys around.

 

[aramis]

Why not fiber optics? If you can make glass you can make glass rods.

One thing I seriously like about CotI is a great bunch of people thinking outside of the box.

Fiber Optic requires a bright light and a decoder... and REALLY pure glass. It can be, as with telegraph, manually decoded. Unlike telegraph's electricity, you can't readily convert light to sound via a motor. Which means needing to have a dedicated person on watch who isn't unobservant... or semi-conductors for light sensors.

 

[robject]

So, my first question is, what size is Victoria?

Victoria is a moderate-sized planet measuring 11,000 kilometers (8000 miles) in diameter at the equator; equatorial circumfurence(sic) is 34,400 kilometers.

The easiest answer is that "8000 miles" is a typo, and Marc meant "6800 miles".


Support: The UPP gives a size of 6, but also:

11,000 kilometers x 1 mile / 1.6 kilometers
= 6,800 miles.


Consider that he took the diameter of a Size 6 world, and figured out kilometers:

Size 6 world = 9600 to 11,200 km.

Then he picked a diameter of 11,000 km, and started writing.

"Victoria is a moderate-sized planet measuring 11,000 kilometers in diameter at the equator;"

Then he gets distracted, and perhaps later is in a hurry to insert the miles in a parenthesis. He does the calculations and comes up with 6800, so while his brain is thinking:

"Victoria is a moderate-sized planet measuring 11,000 kilometers (6800 miles) in diameter at the equator;"

His hand instead types:

"Victoria is a moderate-sized planet measuring 11,000 kilometers (8000 miles) in diameter at the equator;"

 

[Timerover51]

Hmmm, at 6850 miles, 11,000 Kilometers divided by 1.6 (more accurately 6835 miles), I could see rounding it up to 7,000 miles. That works better with the dense atmosphere.

The article does indicate that the planet used a heliographic system for rapid long-distance communication.

Given the reason for the formation of the mesas, obsidian should be available in reasonable quantities, which would make a good substitute for metal for wood-working and weapons.

Might have to play with this a while and then post something under My Traveller Universe.

 

[tjoneslo]

Based upon nothing, I'm thinking the Ancients asteroid bombardment was more ice asteroids (i.e. comets or kuiper belt objects) rather than the more traditional stony or nickel-iron asteroids.

It would explain the dense atmosphere, as the bombardment would add a huge number of volatiles to the atmosphere, leaving the odd carboxl toxins in the low lying areas. But no obvious and accessible lumps of iron or other metals.

If Victoria is really as metal poor, and has a light core as the text implies, the default atmosphere should be somewhere between thin and standard in density. Over geological time the atmosphere should revert, but for a world of size 6, that may be a few million years.

 

[tjoneslo]

graphene can be made with TL 4 equipment... and is a conductor.

All of the graphene production techniques I've seen only manage small pieces (10mm or smaller), rather than 100m to 1km pieces needed for a working telegraph.

 

[Timerover51]

I have been doing some research on Project Gutenberg on technology up through roughly 1920, and I came across the following in the Scientific American Supplement No. 362 for December 9, 1882.

The discovery of aluminum was at last made by Wohler in 1827, who succeeded in 1846 in obtaining minute globules or beads of this metal by heating a mixture of chloride of alumina and sodium. Deville afterward conducted some experiments in obtaining this metal at the expense of Napoleon III., who subscribed £1,500, and was rewarded by the presentation of two bars of aluminum. The process of manufacture was afterward so simplified that in 1857 its price at Paris was about two dollars an ounce. It was at first manufactured from common clay, which contains about one-fourth its weight of aluminum, but in 1855 Rose announced to the scientific world that it could be obtained from a material called "cryolite," found in Greenland in large quantities, imported into Germany under the name of "mineral soda," and used as a washing soda and in the manufacture of soap. It consists of a double fluoride of aluminum, and only requires to be mixed with an excess of sodium and heated, when the mineral aluminum at once separates. Its cost of manufacture is given in this estimate for one pound of metal: 16 lb. of cryolite at 8 cents per pound, $1.28: 2½ lb. metallic sodium at about 26 cents per pound, 70 cents; flux and cost of reduction, $2.02; total, $4.

Basically, aluminum is capable of being produced at Tech Level 4 by chemical means, not requiring electrolysis, although quite expensive. Victoria is described as "a metal-poor world", which presumably refers to Iron, as alumina is mentioned as a major component of the world closest to the Sun, so Victoria would have a high component of alumina as well. As the population is descended from sub-light colony ships, it would seem reasonable that some knowledge of lower Tech Level technology would have been carried by the ships and put to use on the planet. Therefore, I would say that Victoria would be able to produce small quantities of aluminum, although it would be costly. Another probable resource for use in weapons and tools would be obsidian, based on the reason for the mesa formation.

If you assume that aluminum would be as available as copper during the Bronze Age, then a Tech Level 4 society based on aluminum would be possible. Some small steam engines could be made, with low-pressure aluminum boilers fueled by wood. Quite a lot of things can be built with wood when you look at technology in the US circa the colonial period and early 1800s. The main difference is the lower durability and need to continually replace and repair parts.

 

[Rabbit 3]

So that's what they're doing then.


They won't use thelgraphs the way we did on Earth. No telegraph wires worth what gold wires would have been worth on Earth stretched between cities. But teleggraphs (or phones?) connecting different parts of the same complex. Perhaps primitive radios for long distance communication instead of telegraphs?


Hans

Semaphore stations on high locations located miles apart which keep each other in view using telescopes?
There are a couple of novels by various authors that use the idea and the British Royal Navy actually built such a system to link London with Portsmouth during the Napoleonic Wars.
Another similar possibility is heliographs.
Both systems would be somewhat vulnerable to bad weather but are about as efficient as telegraphs otherwise.
Semaphore systems in particular could be built mainly of wood to conserve metal.

 

[Timerover51]

Semaphore stations on high locations located miles apart which keep each other in view using telescopes?
There are a couple of novels by various authors that use the idea and the British Royal Navy actually built such a system to link London with Portsmouth during the Napoleonic Wars.
Another similar possibility is heliographs.

France had a very well developed system of semaphores during the Napoleonic Wars, which is where the British got the basis of their system. Also, there is a chapter in Caspar Goodrich's book on the British campaign in Egypt in 1882 covering the British heliograph service, which was also well developed.

In both cases, it would be line-of-sigh, daylight only communication, but a system using shutter lanterns would be useable at night, visibility permitting.

And if you allow for production, albeit expensive, of aluminum, then telegraphs using aluminum wires would be quite possible. Given the reason for the formation of the Mesas, sulfur should not be a problem to obtain for use in batteries as sulphuric acid.

 

[Rabbit 3]

In both cases, it would be line-of-sight, daylight only communication, but a system using shutter lanterns would be useable at night, visibility permitting.

Old railway semaphore signaling systems used to have lamps (oil originally, later electric) located behind coloured red/green shutters which showed different colours depending on the position of the signal arm.
So a semaphore system also could have some night capability.

 

[Timerover51]

Old railway semaphore signaling systems used to have lamps (oil originally, later electric) located behind coloured red/green shutters which showed different colours depending on the position of the signal arm.
So a semaphore system also could have some night capability.

Probably easier to use shutter lamps, like the US Navy signal lamp used heavily in WW2. They have been around a while. See the following.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_lamp

 

[Vladika]

Semaphore was used by the Rothschild Family to learn the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo and, before divulging the news to even the British Government, used the knowledge to make a killing in the London financial markets.

They had a PRIVATE semaphore system in place, including on ships across the English Channel. Now if a private system can be built, and maintained, surely a Planetary Government could do no less.

 

[Rabbit 3]

On the subject of semaphore systems this makes interesting reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_line
So it looks like for long range communication a Chappe style system, perhaps incorporating some telegraph technology to bridge more difficult terrain or where there is frequent weather problems might be the way to go for Victoria.

 

[Jame]

I would wonder why they haven't gone to bio/organic tech there.

 

[Timerover51]

I would wonder why they haven't gone to bio/organic tech there.

Hmm, had not really thought of that. Not sure if there is enough concentrated population to do that. You have two major regions separated by a strait, and then those are further broken up into mesas. That tends to promote self-sufficiency, and not a lot of experimenting.