Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd
The biggest information issue in Traveller isn't really one of electronics or even signal delay time, it's an assumption you can lack much more basic stuff that that.
Stuff that you should be able to look up in a hardcopy encyclopedia and decade old copy of the equivalent of the Statesman's Yearbook you bought on the subsector capital a few years ago is treated as if it was information you can't know. Arriving to find the UPP is years out of date, or that your cargo is complete junk because the local industries have started making in export volumes, or leveled up a TL, since the last commercial intelligence you have, or that something ordinary people do all the time is a capital offence against the local majority religion is nonsensical really. The people living on the world one jump away, you know the one you were just on, certainly knew that already, and somebody would been willing to sell you a guidebook.
Fundamentally I think it *is* a source story issue, but it's one still common to science fiction rather than a period artifact. Information is available as if the places you want to know about are 18th century frontiers or barely contacting tribes, because that's the model for a lot of sf, not even like they were even civilized commercial ports in the 18th century, let alone anything more modern or better documented.
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From what I remember from history errors are common enough in sociology to justify having tribes you know little about. A scout survey of a world with medieval level technology would have religions, tribes, and even whole empires they never found, taboos that can get a visitor killed that were missed and in general it will take centuries of contact before an Amber can be lifted. The IISS only has so many teams to scout a whole planet and they will get a lot of things wrong.
Imagine, for instance being a trader that visits a planet with a database that tells the local comparison to knowing about Prester John but forgetting about paper money?
There is plenty of room for goof ups no matter how sophisticated the electronics.
It's true wussy mega's who operate like bus schedules and never have to do any more then carry cargo on fixed routes through known areas have less problems. Free Traders get the niches which they don't and have to deal with such things to squeeze a profit.