Traveller and modern electronics

[SteveS]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Are people trying to lo live longer obviously trying to make the human population benefit? Anagathics would have a high demand whether or not they benefited the population.

Individuals in many species, including humans, tend to behave for individual or family benefit. But to be evolutionarily viable, there must be substantial overlap in typical self-interested behavior and mass benefit behavior. Apparently pure altruistic behavior may come from the evolutionary need for mass benefit, but it only works that way if it is either uncommon enough or inexpensive enough that it doesn't have excessive cost to family benefit.

The point where that bumps into anagathics in Traveller is that it's both too new to Humaniti as a whole and too costly to individuals to have a widespread evolutionary effect. An example of the "too new" point is modern agriculture, which makes food so abundant in many parts of the world that evolutionary strategies to weather famine have turned into risk factors for obesity. An example of "too costly" is transplants, which are both financially expensive and limited by the supply of organ donors (except in the case of blood transfusions, which are financially affordable and reasonably abundant).

As long as anagathics are rare, the potential conflict between individual motivations and evolutionary advantage are not an issue.

Originally Posted by cptbutton

I'm not up on Vilani evolutionary history* but the one bit I recall is that life on Vland requires extensive processing to be edible for humans, leading to a very important "miller" class who were the experts on that processing.

Maybe there are very long term considerations that having oldsters around for 60 years instead of 30 help with. Like a shortcut on processing that has no immediate affect on health, but over many decades allows trace toxins to build up that damage fertility.

Or there are long ecological or weather cycles that need centenarians around to tell you about the last time this happened.
. . .

I think the long term cycle possibility is unlikely, because it seems like a simple enough body of knowledge to be carried through oral history.

The complexity of the miller class's work may be something that makes extreme longevity -- even if only in a small share of the population -- evolutionarily useful for Vilani. Maybe a community only needs one miller in a thousand to live 300 standard years, but even if extremely old Vilani are rare, the evolutionary adjustments that make them possible at all amount to a significant divergence from Solomani.

But if evolutionary changes in Vilani make extreme longevity possible in a primitive Vilani society, they may have the effect of making extreme longevity common in an advanced technological Vilani society -- with the side effect of gradually making Vilani society cautious and prone to stagnation.

Also, if the Vilani environment has factors that favor the possibility of extreme longevity, it's reasonably likely that some other human populations would have that same longevity. Why don't Imperial scientists recognize that? One, maybe those that did were assimilated them beyond recognition, destroyed them in an attempt to subjugate them, or destroyed them because that was easier than pacifying them. Or two, maybe some Imperial scientists do recognize that, but it's not sufficiently common knowledge to overcome the common belief that extreme longevity is a specifically Vilani trait.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by robkelk

GURPS Traveller: Humaniti has notes in some of the writeups that particular minor races refuse anagathics on ethical or religious grounds. The implication is that anagathics are available in sufficient quantities that such decisions actually need to be made.

That may be but it is not conclusive. It is common enough after all to morally decry an entertainment one is not capable of partaking of.

[warellis]

Originally Posted by thrash

Yes and no. Traveller economics (as written) have some weird inconsistencies. Cr200,000 per month is a lot of money for ordinary people, but it's the same order of magnitude as the mortgage payment on a free trader (Cr154,500/month). The setting doesn't treat ship owners as the multimillionaires they really are, however, and expects them to engage in petty crime and frivolous treasure hunting.

The best way to think of anagathics is probably as a credit suck -- something for successful adventurers to spend their loot on -- and a MacGuffin to drive adventures.

They really can't be multimillionaires, or feel that rich, because all of their money is tied up in their ship. It isn't something they can easily liquidate for cash.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by warellis

They really can't be multimillionaires, or feel that rich, because all of their money is tied up in their ship. It isn't something they can easily liquidate for cash.

Sure, it is: just ask any crew of PCs that captured a pirate ship, or found a derelict, if they expect to be able to sell it for cash. Similarly, a team that has come into enough funds to upgrade to a larger ship doesn't expect to have any trouble trading in their old one.

RAW (Supp. 4, p. 15) say a non-commercial ship with "lineage and paperwork of uncertain origin" will still bring 25% of face value on the open market -- which, if nothing else, implies the existence of an open market. Surplus scout ships (Supp. 7, p. 16; also non-commercial) can be purchased for 55-65% of original cost, at about 40 years of age.

[jason taylor]

If a free trader owner is considered less equiv to an American multi-millionaire and more equiv to a Genoese Patrician it makes more sense. The ruling classes of the modern Western World are(fortunately in most ways) considerably less-interesting-then they used to be.

What wouldn't make sense is a Firefly feel of a grubby spaceship filled with grubby people. They can swash their bucklers all they want in space but they should still give a good appearance. A ship should be reasonably orderly, the bridge should be as well tuned out as an office building and so on.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by thrash

Yes and no. Traveller economics (as written) have some weird inconsistencies. Cr200,000 per month is a lot of money for ordinary people, but it's the same order of magnitude as the mortgage payment on a free trader (Cr154,500/month). The setting doesn't treat ship owners as the multimillionaires they really are, however, and expects them to engage in petty crime and frivolous treasure hunting.

The best way to think of anagathics is probably as a credit suck -- something for successful adventurers to spend their loot on -- and a MacGuffin to drive adventures.

Have you met any crabbers? petty theft and rabble-rousing is not uncommon amongst them... Even the owners are prone to multi-thousand-dollar pranks. What you see on Deadliest Catch si actually pretty fair for much of that fleet...

... and while I've been on the benefice end of Sig Hanson having cash to blow after a good year, I know several guys who really want to see him go overboard.

From friends who've worked gold dredges, the gold dredgers make the crabbers look like saints...

Most of them, their whole net worth is the boat and the permit.

Traveller doesn't seem that much off...

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Have you met any crabbers? petty theft and rabble-rousing is not uncommon amongst them... Even the owners are prone to multi-thousand-dollar pranks. What you see on Deadliest Catch si actually pretty fair for much of that fleet...

... and while I've been on the benefice end of Sig Hanson having cash to blow after a good year, I know several guys who really want to see him go overboard.

From friends who've worked gold dredges, the gold dredgers make the crabbers look like saints...

Most of them, their whole net worth is the boat and the permit.

Traveller doesn't seem that much off...

For the matter of that, back in the old times, some pretty rich folk would have looked a lot different on the Frontier then they looked at home. Look at some of the Tai-pans in the China Trade. A lot of them were gentlemen at home and what amounts to white triad-chiefs abroad without missing a beat.

[SteveS]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

. . .
What wouldn't make sense is a Firefly feel of a grubby spaceship filled with grubby people. They can swash their bucklers all they want in space but they should still give a good appearance. A ship should be reasonably orderly, the bridge should be as well tuned out as an office building and so on.

I think a franchised hotel might be a better model for a small passenger ship (including the ten-room free trader). A franchised hotel is the property of a small business owner, typically a family who lives in an owner's suite. The property is expensive, particularly if it's on expensive land, but the owner family has their assets in the property and their income tied up with paying wages and the mortgage (and the franchise license fee), so their net standard of living is modest. When the mortgage is paid, suddenly they're rich -- except they're probably due for a major renovation.

The hotel lobby might be spotless and organized, or something that makes customers wish they had checked Yelp before making a reservation. The rooms are probably clean, or reputation might drive away customers, but it could look new or way overdue for renovation. And the owner's suite would look like a home, spotless or a dump depending on the owners' personality.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by SteveS

I think a franchised hotel might be a better model for a small passenger ship (including the ten-room free trader). A franchised hotel is the property of a small business owner, typically a family who lives in an owner's suite. The property is expensive, particularly if it's on expensive land, but the owner family has their assets in the property and their income tied up with paying wages and the mortgage (and the franchise license fee), so their net standard of living is modest. When the mortgage is paid, suddenly they're rich -- except they're probably due for a major renovation.

The hotel lobby might be spotless and organized, or something that makes customers wish they had checked Yelp before making a reservation. The rooms are probably clean, or reputation might drive away customers, but it could look new or way overdue for renovation. And the owner's suite would look like a home, spotless or a dump depending on the owners' personality.

Free Traders though make most of their money by freighting run-off from the big lines' schedule goofs. Holdspace will probably be kept clean but that is a matter of maintaining goods quality and hence effectively a function of security rather then comfort. Holdspace will not be particularly attractive.

If they are doing a sale at a dockside bazaar of spare goods("kintledge" as they used to call it)or anything else outside their contract, they would probably go out a few paces and pitch a tent especially as the ship is being scrubbed and refueled. I would picture a row of berths specifically for free traders and some space some ways out. The ship would presumably be visible as traders keep a lot of their advertising on the outer hull, but it would not be accessable except to ship and port personal. Beside the ship they would have a General Store/Hangout.

Passengers on Free Traders are a rare breed as few will want the hardships unless they are an eccentric Owen Lattimore sort. Or missed their ship and don't want to wait. Or were engaged in something sneaky(like rescuing their crazy sister or smuggling the hidden weakness to a new ship for instance). A few, perhaps a number of small passenger ships might be found, but Free Traders seem to specialize in stray freight.

[warellis]

Considering the difficulties of space travel in the Traveller OTU setting, and general Traveller ruleset/concept, how would something like colonists being transported somewhere be done?

By massive superfreighters or passenger ships?