07-21-2018, 12:22 AM | #191 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: What TL is the original Star Trek?
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This isn't even a situation like that of Lensmen where they held on to vacuum tube technology all the way up to TL 11. While there's a mention in passing that Star Trek's Earth may have been using transistors several decades longer than we did, they did in fact move on to something else and we don't know how or if it's different from integrated circuits in anything but name. It is far more meaningful to say that they are retarded in biotechnology and cybernetics because they're a safetech society than it is to say "they diverged in the 60s", because of course they did. Last edited by David Johnston2; 07-21-2018 at 12:25 AM. |
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07-21-2018, 12:52 AM | #192 |
Join Date: May 2009
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Re: What TL is the original Star Trek?
Captain Pike might not have had surgery to control his wheelchair. Maybe the technology to control it was in the wheelchair. Captain Kirk was able to talk to the Companion using the Universal Translator which could read minds and translate from the Companion.That was a lot smaller than the wheelchair. The Jetsons episode that had the device that probed George's body wasn't anywhere near the size of Nanotechnology. If that was the episode that was talked about.
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07-21-2018, 02:17 AM | #193 |
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: England
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Re: What TL is the original Star Trek?
I think the point at which the difference between TL(7+3) and TL10 becomes important is when civilisations with different technological progressions meet each other. Otherwise it's just TL (Star Trek TOS), as someone said upthread.
I'm curious whether TNG/DS9/VOY would be TL(7+5) or TL(8+4) or just TL12; they're a canonical safetech TL12 according to Ultra-Tech, but given that they're further into the future from TOS you could justify saying it was actually TL(7+5), or since the show was based on early TL8, TL(8+4) could make sense. I'm trying to think of cases where the split TL would make a difference; obviously a dimension-hopping "Infinity Patrol meets Captain Kirk" would, but even the difference cultures in Star Trek seem to have similar technologies to the Federation; the Klingons and Romulans might have cloaking devices, but they appear to be roughly the same TL whether that's split or not. |
07-21-2018, 06:06 AM | #194 | |||
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: What TL is the original Star Trek?
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'From these definitions, devices labeled TLx or TLy should be real inventions; devices labeled TL(x+1), TL(y+1), or TL(y+n) should be fanciful' ie superscience. But the very next line states "But it's not that simple. Real inventions of the early 20th century that fit the 19th century's technological idiom, such as airships, are classified as TL(5+1); devices that apply real 19th-century technology in cinematic ways, such as the lunar shell (p. STM83), are classified as TL5" Then you have the little gem of "Sulfanilamide is classified as TL(5+1), but it was also a TL6 medication; no penalty should apply to the skills of Chemistry/TL6 or Physician/TL6 for working with it." Having TL(5+1) in some cases not be divergent tech just muddied the waters about what divergent tech is in GURPS. Just say that TL(5+1) and TL6 could coexist instead of doing this handwaving. Quote:
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In fact, it is this stuck in the past mentality of sci-if in the 1980s that was the whole reason behind The Gernsback Continuum short story. Scifi was largely still stuck in that 1930s like reality and would largely remain there. Part of it IMHO from the late 1970s on was the get on Star War bandwagon mentality which was inspired by the likes of Flash Gordon and Buck Rodgers and so was bringing with it a 1930s view of high tech. The broken clock situation is true of all science fiction. Everybody talks about HG Well's prediction of the atom bomb in The World Set Free but ignores the details he got wrong. But science fiction tends to be a social commentary or adventure/horror romp with the technology just window dressing going as far as to ignore things that mean that the story simply cannot happen as presented. This why you see canals on Mars well past the point where it was clear there weren't any even before Mariner 4. Look at the huge rockets that people land on planets in the scifi up to the 1960s. The spider episode of From Earth to the Moon points out this is ridiculous as space travel is all about weight - so why take a whole rocket to the surface when you can take a smaller vehicle? Heck we are seeing a revival of this. Look at Doctor Who's "Kill the Moon" which when you get right down to is a retelling of a story that appeared in EC comics from the 1950s. Of course Doctor Who left any effort at tech predictions a long time ago but it shows that science fiction will tend to throw out any semblance of prediction for the sake of a good story. Last edited by maximara; 07-21-2018 at 06:18 AM. |
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07-21-2018, 06:41 AM | #195 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: What TL is the original Star Trek?
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Traveller fits well as TL10 safe-tech with certain super-science and awful computer tech. Calling it TL9 still requires the super-science, still requires the safe-tech, still requires the awful computer-tech, and requires a whole lot more exceptions into the bargain - GURPS' smallest TL9 fusion generators are too big for late Third Imperium models.
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07-21-2018, 07:13 AM | #196 | |
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Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: What TL is the original Star Trek?
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The whole purpose of a table is to provide a quick glance reference and yet here are huge swaths of empty space in the Traveler 5e TL tables which defeats the whole purpose of tables in the first place And don't get me started on the insanity of Society and Environ having TLs (never mind that even a brief look shows Traveler is talking nonsense there. Kingdoms and Cities don't appear until the middle ages?!? Say what?) I can see that back in the days of the original Traveler (1970s) but in 2015?! GURPS borrowed the idea of your TL system so why not borrow how the TL is organized from GURPS? And of the love of sanity correct the TL decriptions so the early TLs don't look 12 kinds of stupid because it makes you wonder on how good the future TLs are. Last edited by maximara; 07-21-2018 at 07:20 AM. |
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07-21-2018, 06:28 PM | #197 | |
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)
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Re: What TL is the original Star Trek?
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You've made some good points there and I will concede that your argument is not based on the "look" of the technology, but rather sound logical arguments. I still have some concerns about calling Star Trek TL7+3 for example as opposed to simply TL10. I think looking at the nitty gritty of individual episodes is the wrong approach as it leads ultimately to contradictions. I think the right approach is to look at this from a wholistic perspective and concentrate on broad themes and what Gene Roddenberry intended. It was clear that Roddenberry intended for humans to be centre stage, not be genetically modified superhumans or cyborgs or replaced by artificial intelligence. He also wanted his characters to face challenges that resonated with audiences in the 1960s. It wouldn't work for every threat to be an anticlimax because McCoy could simply use medical science to reverse every problem. So it is reasonable to conclude that Star Trek has a relatively low TL for medicine and this idea seems to be consistent throughout the original series. In other areas, like transportation, computing etc. this does not appear to be the case. What they have is TL10+ with additional superscience elements. The intention was for Star Trek's miraculous technology to be a consistent extension of our own real world technology not a weird divergence like steam punk. I think that is why we see things retconned in later series and movies where the original series contradicts our real world history.
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07-21-2018, 08:38 PM | #198 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: What TL is the original Star Trek?
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I think what has happened in our own lifetimes (mine, at least; I don't know if you were watching television when Star Trek was originally broadcast) is that technology and science have progressed in ways that Roddenberry's writers didn't anticipate—which has both given us devices that they never anticipated (the way Verne and Wells never anticipated liquid fuel rocketry or radio) and made some of its projections less credible (for example, it's now clear to us that Earthlike planets with oxygen atmospheres without life make no sense at all). So Star Trek is a technological future that isn't going to happen, and the early path from 1966 to Stardate whatever has already not happened. So classic SF in the style of the 1960s is just as retro now as steampunk is. Of course, within a single timeline, you could just as well call a world with Babbage machines TL6 or 7, or call the Federation TL10 or 11, as use the + notation. That notation's main use is to represent how the tech looks to agents of a paratemporal agency who have to figure out those alternate worlds. Though I would suggest a secondary use: To remind the reader that the world's technological history diverged from ours a way back, and that just because the GURPS tech books say you have radio at TL6 or networked computers at TL9 doesn't mean that your game world has those devices—the technology isn't dictated by looking gadgets up in a GURPS book but by worldbuilding.
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07-21-2018, 09:19 PM | #199 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: What TL is the original Star Trek?
The difference is that that Star Trek's divergences are far more subtle outside of the cosmetic features of switches and superfluous chirping noises. I mean people were carrying tablet-type devices and by design we have no clear idea of their capabilities and limitations. They're just something officers scribble in as part of their work. The only weird thing is that the captain doesn't have is own PADD and instead needs to have a hot chick carry one for him.
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07-21-2018, 09:40 PM | #200 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: What TL is the original Star Trek?
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In fact, if anything, the cosmetic features make Star Trek look more familiar than it actually is, because the people who created cell phones and other electronic devices were all influenced by the original show, and went for a similar look and feel in their devices. Other than that, Verne and Wells looked a lot less unlikely in the late 1930s than they do now. We're fifty years out from Roddenberry's future, and more than twice as far from Verne and Wells. So you'd expect more divergence, and if you don't allow for that your metric is biased.
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