RE: [Traveller_TNE] Re: Low Tech Stuff

-----Original Message-----
>Earth couldn't do it because we're truly alone. However, the
>United States, United Nations, etc are always going to some
> Third World country with high-tech and durable gear that
> will filter water, etc. I can imagine a MegaCorp in
> Traveller that specialises in 'helping' the lower
> tech Brothers climb up the tech ladder.

I disagree. Sure, a nearby Megacorp *could* choose to help a lower tech
world by giving them a TL12 fusion plant, but they won't - for exactly
the same reason that the US, UN and EU haven't started building
desalination plants in Mozabique and Kenya. Those countries can't afford
it, and no rich country is prepared to make charity on that level.

I'm not sure what you mean that the US and UN are always going to some
Third World country with high-tech, unless you mean the stuff that
armies or corps take with them for their own use. There are a couple of
charity organisations who have developed Appropriate Technology items
for third world countries, but they're all on the level of stoves, well
pumps and stuff like that. The economics just don't support passing high
tech to low tech countries; development is a long process that requires
infrastructure buildup. (Also, as outlined in the TNE World Tamer's
Handbook, even with investment, it takes time and people - both valuable
resources.)

That leads me on to India. Yes, India may well have guys repairing
satphones in the street, next to ox-drawn carts, but India is not a
low-tech country. It's a very high tech country with, importantly, a
huge economy. They have a space programme, nuclear weapons, submarines
and an enormous IT sector. The fact that they also have an impoverished
sector of the population who can't afford access to this tech doesn't
change that. They're a high tech nation - just not a monolithic one.
Largely, I suspect, this is because of the pace of their development -
their infrastructure development has lagged behind their technological
and economic achievements.

I used to think the Trav model made no sense - that you could have low
tech worlds next to high tech ones - but I've come to change my mind.
Low tech worlds will stay low tech because they can't afford high tech.
Or because they once were high tech but their economy has collapsed. Of
course, one has to bear in mind the difference between Trav and
historical development - a low tech society in Trav knows that fusion
power is possible, and may know the theory. It's not about what you've
figured out how to do, it's about what you can afford the infrastructure
to support doing.

I think when it boils down to it, a GM will always be able to invent a
reason why it's in a high-tech world's interest to bootstrap a nearby
low-tech world, but equally it shouldn't take much effort to come up
with an explanation as to why they don't. And so long as that's true,
the model can make sense.

Nick

===================================
[joel]

Good points, Nick.

Here's my take on it.

How did these worlds come to be? The 11,000 worlds. Grandfather and the
Ancients transplanted SOME of the humans and uplifted animals around in a
seemingly random manner.

But the other 99% of the worlds - how did they come to be? Colonists?
Corporations? Religious separists?

There is a REASON these people picked a planet. A reason founded in
economic reality. Why got to Planet Gorgon if there is just mud there? Is
the mud good for anything else? Is there Lanthium in it? Why are there
people there?

And why would an organisation of any sort - government, religious, etc -
make a LOWER tech level than the t.l. of the colonist ships? If we went to
Mars, would we take wooden carts and telegraph poles? No. We'd bring as
much high tech stuff (for us) as we could cram onboard the ship. Why bring
a 1950s walkie talkie that weighs 20 kilos when a 2007 model is 1/100 the
mass and 100x more reliable?

So why would people load up a colony expedition and bring along all that
"old fashioned" low tech?

Does any country on this planet still make vacuum tubes? Why would a colony
on another world bui;d a vacuum tube factory?

So, I don't understand how TL1 and TL2 and TL3 worlds exist. Period.
Unless they are Red Zones and they have forgotten they are part of the
Imperium.

Now, if a planet was settled, then they have an economy. They have a system
of buying and selling. Something. They trade something. There is an
economic and business reason for the colony being founded. Rare Minerals
(that aren't in thousands of asteroids in 10,000+ solar systems), something.

So, if they have people, and an economy, and something that makes the people
worth being there in the first place, then they can buy a TL12 fusion plant.

Does my logic make sense?

When I was talking about U.S./UN taking high tech gear to third world
nations, I was speaking of (for instance) high-tech water filtration pumps
designed by NASA and used to help recover clean water from filthy rivers.

-Joel