How can a TL4 person use TL12 devices

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

This is a TL frigging 12 weapon. At TL 12, toasters are smarter than unmodified humans. A weapon might have been made to teach it's user.

I'd play the AI as being frustrated at these humans all the time. "I have the power to destroy a planet and you're using me to hit people over the head. And this gives me such a ringing in my right audio receptor." Something like Marvin without being quite so depressed.

"It speaks like a man! It is accursed! Destroy it!"

[Michael Cule]

I think that as with any hi-tech gizmo the problem for users who don't have the technical background to know just what it is doesn't come when the device is being used for a purpose they understand. Often it will have been designed to be easy and intuitive to use. Swords are swung and pointing a blaster at something is only different from pointing a musket at it in degree.

The problems arise either when you accidentally trigger something you didn't know it could do ("My sword just divided my enemy into two smaller versions of himself") or it requires some input or maintenance that you don't know how to give ("There's a red light on the side and it keeps beeping...") or it just goes wrong for no apparent reason.

My octogenarian aunt keeps panicking when she tries to learn to do something new on her PC or tablet because she lags perhaps a single tech level behind the current day. A person who is a whole eight tech levels behind may not even be using the artefact for its intended purpose. ("Look at the barbarian! He is swinging that transmodulator like a club!" "Let us pray he does not trigger the disbobulating function." "Ooops, too late!")

[Jonas]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

TL 12 humans aren't remotely human. With thousands of years of genetic engineering and teaching technology behind them, they would make us look like upright monkeys.

I think that entirely depends entirely on the settings specifics. :p

[Rysith]

Originally Posted by Crzyraccoon

Even if the AI would speak such think, it would be speaking in a language not known to the new TL4 people, so if there is an AI, they would have to understand its language first

I am reminded of the scene in Diamond Age where the Primer (which, admittedly, was built for education instead of hitting things) realizes that it's current user can't read and reconfigures itself to teach literacy before moving into more advanced topics. Or the adventurers might (as you mentioned) have to hunt down modules for it (or other devices!) to learn how to use it and interact with it's training programs. Imagine an expedition to the ruins of a school to pick up a device that could teach them how to read and speak the TL12 language, and then another adventure to get it powered up and operational for long enough to actually use it!

Alternately, it could be that the PCs need to teach the weapon their own language, and then struggle to have it express TL12 concepts in a language that only has words up to TL4. That of course, would require having it activated for a while...

Re:Limitations, I can think of a few that seems interesting roleplaying wise, and would serve to discourage but not prohibit it's use:
- An enemy, or enemy group, has a device that can locate it when it is activated. The PCs know that if they use it, within the next day or so the Hand of the Temple or whatever will be swarming all over where they were, so they had better keep moving and make sure that nobody there knows where they went...
- A similar concept, but it's actually a TL12 force - maybe ancient arms-control robots, who object to the use of the weapon by someone unauthorized (and the PCs, of course, can't even apply for the correct permit). If they use it, an unstoppable force will come down on where they were.
- As part of it's natural programming, the weapon tries to communicate with other devices (blah blah Internet of Things blah) nearby, of which there are many (just not in usable form - there could be a random scattering of nanotechnology in the dust, for example). Since most of them are unmaintained and broken, the weapon's attempts to activate them manifest as random 'magical' effects in the vicinity - things burst into flame, objects appear, colors change, people become sick or cured. Keeping in active for any length of time is going to make the PC's lives very strange, and probably get them a bad reputation
- The device requires power for even it's most basic functions, and requires constant recharging. Using the device means finding and using a recharging thing (which could mean 'leave it in the sun for a day' or could mean 'adventure to the heart of these ruins') before being able to use it again.

Michael Cule's suggestions about interactions that the PCs didn't know were possible is also good. I think that making sure that it's full capabilities are never known or reliable is important to keeping it as 'the TL12 artifact' rather than 'the really nice sword that also shoots lasers'.

One idea that I had for dealing with the overshadowing issue would be to make the device instead be enough devices for each party member to have one (tuned to their character's particular abilities by happy coincidence), and later on have them discover how to hook them up into a single, more powerful device (or several different configurations, paired with the characters again) so that in 'normal' use everyone has a TL12 thing they can use, and in dramatically appropriate situations they can choose (or argue about) one of them to unleash the device's full power to deal with one problem (and probably create another).

[Gedrin]

No speaker. No video projector.

The TL12 device now has to communicate via it's own lights and functional emitters...at least until they find the "flat rock that talks".

Also, even though it's a TL12 machine intellect, it might not know that much that's useful. Assuming it has a laser, it might know things about laser maintenance, targeting, and some physics to help with that. It might know about materials to fix itself, not that such are available. However, it's not going to know how to make good steel (nothing in its culture is made of steel) or how to explain TL12 math to present the physics in any sort of useful format.

Finally, while an AI would be expected for a significant weapon, this might not be a "significant weapons system" by TL12 standards. I wouldn't want to go into battle with an AI in my gun, suit, medkit, clothing, and coms. One grenade and six people die. It might be human+ai (more likely cyborg) and some expert systems. The weapons "AI" might just be an expert system.

That said, assuming other objects, and networking...even a basic item will be an artifact detector (providing the designer doesn't assume an external display). Something as simple as cellphone bars or a light that blinks or changes color with signal strength could lead curious people to other artifacts. Those other artifacts could be the external display and other things that unlock the basics that make the original artifact much more useful.

Oh, and if it is an AI, it might well decide to embark on cultural engineering for the betterment of the human population. TL12 moors and ethics will be radically different from those at TL4. The AI might well have no idea of the consequences of it's programs. Given the type of machine the AI resides in, and it's original information and purpose, there's no real reason to expect it to be an expert on much other than it's original function.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Crzyraccoon

So I plan on making an TL12 weapon that was once belong to a long lost alien civilization and is now discovered by the new people from a TL4 society that will can be used with the melee weapon skill but will require technology skills to unlock new powerful abilities abilities, but what will adventurers need exactly to uncover them or if the the weapon itself could teach them its bits.

I've read B478-479 but and just want some more input and hear stories if you ever done or played this.

If they need IQ-type technology skills to unlock new abilities, they probably can't do so. Like, if there are features of the weapon that require Physics/TL12, or even Computer Use TL/12...that's just not going to happen unless the weapon spends centuries uplifting the society to TL10+ so that it's chosen has a somewhere near workable starting position from which to learn.


If they just need to learn DX-type skills that tell them how to trigger an ability without requiring that they grasp why it works or what it really does, then a modest on-board AI could easily teach them (if so inclined) and they might even be able to learn by trial and error. Though trial and error with a TL12 weapon is liable to be the sort of thing best conducted a hundred miles from anywhere, by someone you don't like much, who sends copies their research notes to a remote location before trying anything. And that's for a relatively civilized TL12 weapon. Meaner ones you probably want to make sure not to be on the same planet with.

[Crzyraccoon]

Originally Posted by Rysith

Re:Limitations, I can think of a few that seems interesting roleplaying wise, and would serve to discourage but not prohibit it's use: - An enemy, or enemy group, has a device that can locate it when it is activated. The PCs know that if they use it, within the next day or so the Hand of the Temple or whatever will be swarming all over where they were, so they had better keep moving and make sure that nobody there knows where they went...

Having the weapon itself can create enemies on its own, when people see a group using the cool toy that can slice armor like paper, it definitely going to create greed and jealousy around the land. I'm scared if the PCs will kill each other for it, let alone other NPCs. Imagine if a TL8 person found a TL12 weapon from a lost alien civilization, thugs, governments and secret agencies would be right on his/her tracks. When the party found the weapon, they could keep as a secret which would prevent any potential enemies with the cost of the Secret disadvantage.

[Crzyraccoon]

Oh just should point out that the Gadgeteer advantage is available but not the Quick Gadgeteer.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Crzyraccoon

Having the weapon itself can create enemies on its own, when people see a group using the cool toy that can slice armor like paper, it definitely going to create greed and jealousy around the land. I'm scared if the PCs will kill each other for it, let alone other NPCs. Imagine if a TL8 person found a TL12 weapon from a lost alien civilization, thugs, governments and secret agencies would be right on his/her tracks. When the party found the weapon, they could keep as a secret which would prevent any potential enemies with the cost of the Secret disadvantage.

You don't even need ultratech for this. There's a classic Kipling story, "The King's Ankus". . . .

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Jonas

I think that entirely depends entirely on the settings specifics. :p

True, but without knowing that they explicitly avoid rational medical technology, we should assume they use all of TL 12. Shouldn't we?