04-21-2018, 03:53 PM | #31 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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Last edited by David Johnston2; 04-21-2018 at 04:28 PM. |
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04-21-2018, 03:57 PM | #32 |
Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Mojave
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
I think TL8+2 is best thought of as super optimized technology from our current day, where TL10 is based off of possible technology that could realistically happen in the future. An example would be that the TL8+2 world uses an super advance transistor technology using rubber logic and the TL10 world would use quantum computers.
So my thoughts are that divergent TLs are what ifs of the base TL with more advance version of the base technology or super optimized version. |
04-21-2018, 04:32 PM | #33 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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04-21-2018, 04:38 PM | #34 | ||
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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"A valid form of FTL travel may mean distorting space-time (e.g. making a worm hole) to get from A to B without going on a spacelike curve locally. There is a distinction between going faster than light locally and getting from A to B faster than light globally." Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? Another option is have a "bubble" of space around the ship and that (with the ship inside) is what goes FTL (Warp Speed, Scotty? Star Trek's FTL Drive May Actually Work, The Science of Star Trek - Warp Drive) Quote:
So what the physical laws "known" for TL5 and TL6 are irrelevant for the label of Superscience as it depends on what we know at TL7-8 (Early TL9). For example, take the so called "reactionless" drive in Steampunk. Strickly speaking it was not reactionless by Newtonian physics of the day: it pushed against the 'aether' and that push required energy so it wasn't violating the law of physics as understood back then. Because there was no limit on how fast something could travel under Newtonian FTL was possible; that method of FTL got thrown out with Einstein. Last edited by maximara; 04-21-2018 at 06:21 PM. |
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04-21-2018, 07:52 PM | #35 |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
One thing I think is important to keep in mind: There is superscience that violates physical laws by creating an effect we believe to be impossible. Then there is superscience that violates physical laws by creating effects we know or believe to be possible in a manner we believe could not produce them - such as clockwork machines matching or exceeding what modern computers can do, or rockets with performance that would require operating temperatures no real material could survive.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
04-21-2018, 08:04 PM | #36 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
Nonetheless, I don't think it counts as superscience if the author is simply being overoptimistic about the limits of the technology.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
04-21-2018, 08:26 PM | #37 |
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
I suppose it comes down to how overoptimistic you're being. Saying I can get to the moon using a chemical rocket the size of a bus is one thing. Saying I can get to Alpha Centauri in a reasonable time using chemical rockets is another.
Last edited by TGLS; 04-21-2018 at 08:31 PM. |
04-21-2018, 08:35 PM | #38 |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
I'd agree if we were discussing the original purely in its own right. But when judging a tie-in work (such as a game setting) that chooses to run with the now-debunked theory, I think you have to.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
04-21-2018, 08:59 PM | #39 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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Here is a game based on, say, wuxia films, or superhero comics, or just high-end action movies. The GM decides that people who are hit suffer extreme knockback and fly across the room. This of course violates the law of conservation of momentum. Is that superscience, and do we need to invent a gadget or a superpower that allows the "enhanced momentum punch"? Or do we just say that this is an aspect of a cinematic campaign? Here is a private eye campaign where detectives, as in some classic noir stories, get punched into unconsciousness and half an hour later get up and charge back into action, none the worse. Of course this is medically unrealistic. Is it superscience? If not, then why does it become "superscience" when a gadget is involved? Sometimes it's just the way stories are told in a particular genre or idiom.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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04-21-2018, 09:24 PM | #40 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Tech Level Confusion
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