What if the tech levels came in at their originally stated decades?

[Werner]

Tech level 8: circa 1980s
Tech level 9: circa 1990s
Tech level A: the 21st century

What would our world look like with this assumed technological time table? We'd have a colony at Alpha Centauri by now since we would have the Jump 1 drive and maneuver drive by this time. With air/rafts our cars and highways would be obsolete. There would have been no Persian Gulf War since oil would be worthless since the advent of fusion power at tech level 8. With all these inventions coming in so fast, economic growth would have been enormous, the US Space Shuttle would never have flown, as the maneuver drive would have made it obsolete in the 1980s.

What do you think would have happened?

 

[mike wightman]

TL8 is air/rafts and fusion powerplants - not to mention man portable laser weaponry.

With this technology alone we could have bases on the Moon and Mars, there would be no climate emergency as fossil fuels were long ago phased out.

We could be building industrial complexes in orbit and on near Earth asteroids, and we would be farming said asteroids for their mineral wealth rather than strip mining Australia and China.

We would be driving around in electric cars.

Early TL 9 gives us the maneuver drive which opens up the whole solar system to exploitation - so bases on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, strip mining the asteroid belt.

O'Neill cylinders and an Earth orbital ring are beginning construction, environmental damage to the Earth has now been cleaned up.

The jump drive grants rapid access to the far solar system and the resources of the Kuiper belt, and we would be exploring nearby star systems.

 

[BRover]

More like 2015 in "Back to the Future II"?

They had grav vehicles and "Mr Fusion"! (VERY small fusion plants--even if they only put out a gigawatt or so! But DEFINITELY unrefined fuel!)

 

[Diveguy]

Tech level 8: circa 1980s
Tech level 9: circa 1990s
Tech level A: the 21st century

What would our world look like with this assumed technological time table? We'd have a colony at Alpha Centauri by now since we would have the Jump 1 drive and maneuver drive by this time. With air/rafts our cars and highways would be obsolete. There would have been no Persian Gulf War since oil would be worthless since the advent of fusion power at tech level 8. With all these inventions coming in so fast, economic growth would have been enormous, the US Space Shuttle would never have flown, as the maneuver drive would have made it obsolete in the 1980s.

What do you think would have happened?

All potential observations except oil. Fusion power is great, but does nothing to address the need for hydrocarbons for synthetics, or other manufacturing needs.

 

[Timerover51]

Unless you also assume that somehow very small fusion plants with the ability to convert the fusion energy with incredible efficiency to electricity, you are still going to be using oil for transportation purposes. As for assuming colonies on Alpha Centauri, the question becomes will governments even be interested? Any new technology takes time to develop and become widely adopted and used. Then again, you still had a very active Cold War going on at the time, with the USSR heavily involved in this country known as Afghanistan, while the Arabs, seeing that their moment of riches would be ending, might make one last massive attempt to eliminate Israel and trigger a nuclear war, albeit one-sided, in the Mid East.

No, I for one do not see a "Golden Age" miraculously appearing. If you assume that the maneuver drive is a fusion-powered rocket, that means that you are going to need some way of powering, for forward motion, your grav vehicles, which i suspect, if in use, would be the playthings of the extremely wealthy, similar to personal jet transports now.

At the time, I never viewed those changes as remotely feasible, with no "willing suspension of disbelief" on my part.

Also, mankind is still mankind.

 

[kilemall]

All potential observations except oil. Fusion power is great, but does nothing to address the need for hydrocarbons for synthetics, or other manufacturing needs.

Which will likely move into space gene engineered hydrocarbon farms, and/or exploiting Titan.

 

[Werner]

Unless you also assume that somehow very small fusion plants with the ability to convert the fusion energy with incredible efficiency to electricity, you are still going to be using oil for transportation purposes. As for assuming colonies on Alpha Centauri, the question becomes will governments even be interested? Any new technology takes time to develop and become widely adopted and used. Then again, you still had a very active Cold War going on at the time, with the USSR heavily involved in this country known as Afghanistan, while the Arabs, seeing that their moment of riches would be ending, might make one last massive attempt to eliminate Israel and trigger a nuclear war, albeit one-sided, in the Mid East.

No, I for one do not see a "Golden Age" miraculously appearing. If you assume that the maneuver drive is a fusion-powered rocket, that means that you are going to need some way of powering, for forward motion, your grav vehicles, which i suspect, if in use, would be the playthings of the extremely wealthy, similar to personal jet transports now.

At the time, I never viewed those changes as remotely feasible, with no "willing suspension of disbelief" on my part.

Also, mankind is still mankind.

Why wouldn't governments be interested in establishing colonies on Prometheus' which has a dense but breathable atmosphere by OTU canon? That is better than anything in the Solar System, with Jump-1 that would be two jumps to get there, you just carry extra fuel and make another jump, no big deal. Two weeks there, two weeks back!

In this timeline, I'd say the US Space Force is established in 1984 under President Ronald Reagan as part of his Defense build up and the Strategic Defense Initiative, cheap lasers make SDI much more significant as does cheap access to Space. The Soviets follow suit and build their own Space Force, the writing is on the wall, traditional ICBMs become obsolete in the 1980s, not that there aren't other means to deliver nuclear warheads to their targets.

Air/rafts make traditional airplanes obsolete as well, there won't be any 747s to crash into the World Trade Center in 2001, there maybe other things however. Air traffic control will be quite busy with all these air/rafts in the sky. The Chinese make a big expansion into space, but the United States plants its flag in the soil of Prometheus in the early 2000s. One interesting question is whether there are any natives on Prometheus, what does OTU canon say? Are there any extraterrestrial humans native to that planet?

So what about 2020 AD as a Traveller setting, we have all the service careers under different labels.

The Navy is the US Space Force or some other country's Space Force, such as the Soviet/Russian Space Force or the Chinese Space Force.

The Scouts are NASA, or some other space agency such as the ESA or RSA.

The Marines are the US Marines or some other marines repurchased for space.

The Army is the Army.

Merchants are Merchants, among them are American Spacelines and Delta to name a few passenger carriers. Spaceships will replace airplanes for intercontinental journeys.

Boeing and other traditional companies like Airbus will produce spaceships.

Kind of like Space 1889 except in the 21st century.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

/

Medicine

TL 7 - Medical Slow
TL 8 - Slow, Truth (the good stuff) in 1980's Cold War and black ops!
TL 9 - Fast and Combat (!) for 1990's Iraq, Blackhawk Down situations, and black ops, whoa nilly!
TL A - Slow Antidote

 

[Werner]

So Traveller 2020, what does this look like? It is an alternate timeline where all this tech happened on the schedule originally spotted by the Classic Traveller books, when the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s were in the future. Let's just graft what actually happened from 1980 to 2020 that doesn't involve this technology onto the timeline, basically we have the same Presidents of the United States, the same leaders of other countries, the Soviet Union falls apart in 1990 and is replaced by Russia and the post Soviet States, and China rises becoming the second largest economy in the World after the United States. The new technology affects the economy and every day life but not so much as to swing the general political situations in these countries, so this does not devolve into political discussions.

So in short, we are living in today's world but with Traveller tech level A technology. Let's say you get up this morning and look out the window, what would you see that is different from what we would actually see in our world?

I'm not sure what effect Traveller technology would have on the Covid 19 outbreak, maybe it would not happen and maybe it would not, the origin of this virus is out of a lab in China, was it genetically engineered? We don't know I suspect the new technology for creating the virus would counteract the new technology for combating the virus, so we still would be in a lock down in many places and wearing masks.

SpaceX would be building real Starships with Jump-1 drives. I think the Starship would look the same, it would be made of shiny stainless steel, have a fusion power plant, maneuver drive, and hydrogen tanks capable of fueling 2 jump-1 jumps needed to reach Alpha Centauri. Elon Musk would be building a city on Prometheus at this time, making regular launches from Boca Chica, Texas, and Cape Canaveral. There would be no Superheavy booster, as one would not be needed. These Starships land and take off on their tails and they come with an elevatormfor ferrying crew between the inhabited section and the ground, looking like something from a 1950s science fiction movie.

I think Blue Origin would have it's own starships as would United Launch Alliance.

Chinese and American warships would be shadowing each other in space, the Russians would have their own fleet of starships, Germans and Japanese would have commercial starships of their own and a minimal fleet of warships as well. The United Kingdom would probably have the fourth largest space fleet after the United States, China, and Russia, but the UK's fleet would be more advanced than the Russians. The Israelis would boast a small space fleet of their own, just ahead of the Arab Nations. India would have the fifth largest fleet of starships followed by Japan.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

All of those political developments, including my suggestions, are dependent on who has the technology, when, and their policy goals. IF and I do mean IF each countries statements on nuclear policies reflect their actual intents.
Cut me aramis i if it goes to far. I only mean to show how technology might have impacted our recent history or upcoming futures

Israel, destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor long ago (1980) just before it was operational to prevent possible use of the reactor byproducts to make nukes. It is possible they would do the same to Iran, but are limited by the fuel efficiency technology of their aircraft. If they had a reliable maneuver drive, they would have technological ability to send a missile/bombing mission and possibly return the flight crew safely, barring Iranian defensive efforts. The same for the Iranians to do its stated intents if they held such technology. Who knows? But having such technology widens the options of the possessor.

The same for the Soviet Union and the US in the 80's If beam or pulse lasers really existed the way the do in Traveller, then each side that possessed the knowledge would know the true capabilities of a "Star Wars" defense shield. Maybe the USSR would collapse due to the political situation or their defense spending anyways. Or not. But the techs would make the decisions more involved even if not implemented.

 

[whartung]

All potential observations except oil. Fusion power is great, but does nothing to address the need for hydrocarbons for synthetics, or other manufacturing needs.

But outside of energy, the need for hydrocarbons is up there with most any other resource (steel, food, etc. etc.), and we're not having shooting "iron ore" wars.

This is a fun thought experiment.

With cheap fusion power comes clean water, which is life changing to a large chunk of the world population. World population surges a tick as the survivor rate expands, but social changes haven't adapted to smaller family groups yet. That's a generational problem.

With the M-Drive, asteroid mining becomes viable.

https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/rare-asteroid-estimated-to-be-worth-10-quintillion

Early air rafts, etc. remain regulated much like helicopters today. Only part of the reason you can't park a helicopter in your driveway is because of the noise, all of the safety issues etc remain. They will be more popular, but not ubiquitous until complete computer control happens.

Given that our IT technology has expanded arguably faster than what the Traveller time line suggests, it's arguable whether we'd have automated air rafts today or not. It MIGHT be easier (depending on how simple grav "flight" is), so they might exist, but it's not clear.

However, they will be more common. I can easily see limo services and such expanding with trained, licensed pilots, since they land in front of the house with a low hum instead of a rose garden shredding roar. But not necessarily for everyday use by John Q. Public. Simply, as big as the sky is, the air space is even more finite than the traffic grid.

Air travel would be much faster as flights could go suborbital and trans-sonic readily. I'd say any long haul trip would be at least twice as fast, overseas maybe three times as fast, but LA to Vegas will still take an hour.

Much like the Airport Shuttles we have today, where you sign up for one, get in a van with several other people, and drop each one off individually, I can see a similar service farther ranged. LA -> SF, or LA -> Vegas. For these short hop flights, an air shuttle is more efficient and reduces the need to go to the airport. The shuttle just picks everyone one, flies them to the destination, and drop them off. They also are limited due to security constraints. Nobody wants to see a van of 8 people blown up, for example, but "it's only 8 people, not 300". Much like we have lax security screenings on busses today.

Mars will because as or more accessible than Everest, and become an "adventure travel destination". Research is "easy" now, scientists can go wherever they want. Travel times are short, so much more viable for tourism, small settlements will happen, but it won't truly explode me thinks. Mars, in the end, will be a nice place to visit, but no one will want to live there.

In the sparsely populated areas of the planet, remote housing will increase since there's no longer a need for roads to get there. Like cell phone towers, small clearings will pop up as land is sold, and folks move out in to the wilderness with their log cabin, fusion generator, and air raft pad connected via the low orbit satellite internet. But this will be for the wealthy, or at least upper middle class. Fusion may be ubiquitous on a societal level, but it's not "free" by any means. FedEx nor the USPS will NOT deliver to these remote places. They'll have to fly in to "town" for packages and groceries.

Cities will still be energy limited, but this time simply by heat bloom. Unless whatever magic heat dampener that we don't mention being used in space craft is brought down to the terrestrial level. Even "free" energy gives off heat.

 

[Werner]

Oh I'm assuming technology is not limited by Traveller, more like Traveller technology is added to the technology we have in 2020, for example, telephone booths will be almost nonexistant as everyone will have a "cellphone", I put that in quotes because they will actually be hand held satellite phones, there will be no cellphone towers anywhere, the phones will look like our cellphones and be just as functional, only receiving signals from satellites instead of cellphone towers. Most air/rafts will be piloted, as people don't yet trust computers to fly them yet. If air traffic control is a problem, small air/rafts will fly in remote areas, larger bus sized ones in more densely populated areas. People will be stuck in their ground cars fuming in traffic as air/rafts fly overhead.

Air/rafts don't require runways, they would land at bus stations with large parking lots for people to park their cars at. I think there will also be trackless grav trains which are a bunch of air/rafts hooked up end to end forming trains that can fly into space and other points on Earth, landing at train stations, it is these that will replace jetliner. People get on them just like a train, only there are no tracks underneath, and they fly into the Freedom Low Earth Orbital Starport, which was built in the 1980s when Reagan was President, the Soviet/Russians have built their own star port during that decade, both are used internationally, China and Singapore also operate two others. Large capital starships dock at the orbital starports. The economics favor large starships.

 

[Werner]

All of those political developments, including my suggestions, are dependent on who has the technology, when, and their policy goals. IF and I do mean IF each countries statements on nuclear policies reflect their actual intents.
Cut me aramis i if it goes to far. I only mean to show how technology might have impacted our recent history or upcoming futures

Israel, destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor long ago (1980) just before it was operational to prevent possible use of the reactor byproducts to make nukes. It is possible they would do the same to Iran, but are limited by the fuel efficiency technology of their aircraft. If they had a reliable maneuver drive, they would have technological ability to send a missile/bombing mission and possibly return the flight crew safely, barring Iranian defensive efforts. The same for the Iranians to do its stated intents if they held such technology. Who knows? But having such technology widens the options of the possessor.

The same for the Soviet Union and the US in the 80's If beam or pulse lasers really existed the way the do in Traveller, then each side that possessed the knowledge would know the true capabilities of a "Star Wars" defense shield. Maybe the USSR would collapse due to the political situation or their defense spending anyways. Or not. But the techs would make the decisions more involved even if not implemented.

SpaceX in our timeline was formed in 2003, so let's say in this new timeline, what SpaceX does is invent the Jump-1 drive, before this cheap access to space already existed. NASA prior to this developed a one use only Jump-1 drive, the drive destroyed itself everytime it was used so NASA developed a 4 stage expendable jump-1 drive Starship at tech level 9, so the first stage jumped 1 parsecs, the second stage jumped the rest of the way to Alpha Centauri, the astronauts explored Prometheus and other planets, and then used two more expendable jump-1 stages to jump back to Earth and relay the information of their discoveries, which they also transmitted to Earth from the Alpha Centauri System prior to jumping back, just in case they didn't make it back. SpaceX developed a reusable Jump-1 drive which could jump multiple times so long as there was fuel available, thus greatly reducing the cost of Interstellar travel SpaceX started the first colony on Prometheus, followed by others in 2010 when China and Russia also learned the secret of the reusable Jump-1 drive.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Algae farms are probably cheaper than fracking or drilling, across sociological, economic, political and ecological levels; by product, soylent green.

2. You're compressing five technological levels, six to ten, into five decades.

3. Light industry might be able to keep pace, that is electronics, but heavy at best, would be widely spaced apart, depending a great deal on private and public research and development investment.

4. Assuming scientists don't have accidents whenever they figure out how to make a viable fusion reactor, and by some arrangement, fourteen cubic metres ones become commercially available, that resolves any possible energy crises.

5. Pretty much expect the Marine Corps to reequip with air/rafts.

6. Oil producing nations will have to harvest some other natural resource to make up the shortfalls to their budgets.

7. The moon will become the solar system's largest billboard.

8. And still, eighty percent of Terra's oceans will remain unexplored.

9. Unless, there's now a second Imperial Age, and a scramble for the ocean beds.

 

[Werner]

1. Algae farms are probably cheaper than fracking or drilling, across sociological, economic, political and ecological levels; by product, soylent green.

2. You're compressing five technological levels, six to ten, into five decades.

Not my fault, I didn't write those 3 traveller books
TL6 was from 1940 to 1969
TL7 was from 1970 to 1979
TL8 was from 1980 to 1989
TL9 was from 1990 to 1999
And TL10 was 2000+ called Early Interstellar.

3. Light industry might be able to keep pace, that is electronics, but heavy at best, would be widely spaced apart, depending a great deal on private and public research and development investment.

4. Assuming scientists don't have accidents whenever they figure out how to make a viable fusion reactor, and by some arrangement, fourteen cubic metres ones become commercially available, that resolves any possible energy crises.

5. Pretty much expect the Marine Corps to reequip with air/rafts.

6. Oil producing nations will have to harvest some other natural resource to make up the shortfalls to their budgets.

7. The moon will become the solar system's largest billboard.

8. And still, eighty percent of Terra's oceans will remain unexplored.

9. Unless, there's now a second Imperial Age, and a scramble for the ocean beds.

It is very difficult to live under water, you also have to figure out a reason why. It is much easier to build a city on the ocean surface than in the ocean depths, pressure builds up rather quickly. A cubic meter of water weighs one metric ton by definition, if you go 10 meters underwater you have 10 tons of water pressure pushing inward per square meter as there are 10 one meter cubes of water sitting on top of you, that is an additional atmosphere of water pressure equal to the sea level air pressure on Earth. Go down a kilometer and thats 1000 tons of water pressure on every square meter or 100 atmospheres, it is hard to build dome like structures that could resist that sort of pressure. A spaceship by contrast only has to hold within 10 tons of air pressure within.

 

[Condottiere]

You now have crystaliron available; always thought those glass domes were dodgy.

 

[Werner]

You now have crystaliron available; always thought those glass domes were dodgy.

I didn't say it was impossible, but what can you do from the bottom of the ocean that you can't do from its surface? I can't think of any good reason to live under 1000 tons per square meter of crushing water pressure, even if you could build a dome, is something goes wrong and the water leaks in, you are dead, on a floating platform, the worst you have to worry about is it sinking. So if you wanted to mine the ocean floor, you can do it using remote drones controlled from a floating sea platform on the ocean surface, or you can control it from an underwater dome 5 kilometers beneath the ocean surface under 5000 tons of water pressure per square meter, now which sounds safer?

 

[whartung]

1. Algae farms are probably cheaper than fracking or drilling, across sociological, economic, political and ecological levels; by product, soylent green.

Why? What tech empowerment makes these cheaper? If we have abundant "cheap" fusion, what's the drive for fracking and drilling outside of the needs of petrochemicals and hydro carbons beyond energy?

3. Light industry might be able to keep pace, that is electronics, but heavy at best, would be widely spaced apart, depending a great deal on private and public research and development investment.

Why?

5. Pretty much expect the Marine Corps to reequip with air/rafts.

Ground and airmobile blur to being no distinction, especially if grav can take armor.

 

[Werner]

Why? What tech empowerment makes these cheaper? If we have abundant "cheap" fusion, what's the drive for fracking and drilling outside of the needs of petrochemicals and hydro carbons beyond energy?


Why?


Ground and airmobile blur to being no distinction, especially if grav can take armor.

I think space navies will replace navies. Just look at what each country today spends on its navy and that is its budget for its space navy. In our would the United States Navy centers on its carrier groups, this will translate to space carriers holding subordinate craft such as fighters. I think the wet navy will pretty much be abandoned in favor of a space navy, aka the Space Force. Antigravity and maneuver drives will allow for large ships, the size of super carriers to operate in space, and if there is a trouble spot on Earth such as in the middle East or with China, then space carriers can do that job as well as wet Navy carriers. Space fighters, fighter bombers, radar ships and the like can take out targets on the ground as well as in space, though their will probably be a residual wet Navy since these technological advances happened so fast. The bulk of the Space Forces were probably built in the 1980s during the last decade of the Cold War, these cold war ships would later be retrofitted with jump drives once they became available, but I think the bulk of the Space Force assets will remain within the Solar System as that is where most people are likely to live, some Space Force ships will be assigned to frontier duty in the Alpha Centauri System, but 20 years is not a lot of time to start an Interstellar colony, so I think the population of Prometheus is likely in the low millions, not including any native siphons that might already live there.

So what does a Promethean look like? I don't think any of the source books have mentioned any natives of Prometheus, but what if there are some, let's say extraterrestrial humans for instance? It would make for a more interesting setting if there were natives to contend with. Probably more primitive than Earth humans, but so far no contact with the First Imperium as of 2020. What do you think?

 

[McPerth]

Cut me aramis i if it goes to far.

[m;]Unless I'm overriden, there will a certain amount of tolerance, as long as it is kept in this "alternative history/present", but be careful about politics.[/m;]