Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8

[sir_pudding]

I'm working on the writeup for my upcoming campaign The Blight Years. This game takes place a few centuries after a near human extinction and civilization has bounced back (albeit under constraints on areas suitable for settlement and severely restricted population density). The area in which the campaign takes place (in northern California and Oregon) is now able to maintain a TL5 industrial base but lacks the population to support TL6+. However, some knowledge and artifacts survive from before the apocalypse and they have some limited indirect trade with a TL6 culture.

What kinds of technology that's technically higher than TL5 should they still be able to produce (if any)?

What sorts of firearms are they likely to manufacture (and can I get away with just renaming some existing models)?

[Walrus]

Centuries can change a lot. Consider XX century which changed TL 6 to TL 8.

So, I'd start with defining the nature of apocalypse and its long-term natural (non-social) consequenses (as well as technogeneous disasters).

[Dustin]

Copies of the TL6 culture's in-use firearms seems most likely. Alternately, the TL6 bolt-action rifles that load from an integral box or tubular magazine (M1903, Mosin-Nagant, etc) seem more like refinements of design than anything that strictly requires TL6 metallurgy or machining.

Similarly, being able to skip past the experimental stages will allow many of the TL6 conceptual advances to occur early, especially in medicine (blood typing, vaccination, antibiotics) and power (electrification, doubly true with the considerable hydroelectric possibilities of that region). Radio communication is also likely to be advanced ahead of the TL 5 industrial base.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Dustin

Copies of the TL6 culture's in-use firearms seems most likely. Alternately, the TL6 bolt-action rifles that load from an integral box or tubular magazine (M1903, Mosin-Nagant, etc) seem more like refinements of design than anything that strictly requires TL6 metallurgy or machining.

Similarly, being able to skip past the experimental stages will allow many of the TL6 conceptual advances to occur early, especially in medicine (blood typing, vaccination, antibiotics) and power (electrification, doubly true with the considerable hydroelectric possibilities of that region). Radio communication is also likely to be advanced ahead of the TL 5 industrial base.

I would tend to agree with most of these, albeit with reservations. These are exactly the areas I would expect a greater level of advancement over the TL base (at least if they are operating at late TL5) there will however be problems with implementation.

Electrification is the standout here, I would think that imported or copied generators tied into local millworks would be a given. However given the problems with population and productive capacity it is likely these will be small scale local setups rather than a full blown grid. The manpower demands associated with large hydro dams and long distribution lines are probably beyond this group.

The other areas seem to offer fewer hang ups, spark gap radios (as an alternative to optical or electrical telegraphy), reliable breach loading firearms (and simple repeaters) and a few less infrastructure intensive medical innovations seem possible although the actual goods may come at a premium.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Walrus

So, I'd start with defining the nature of apocalypse and its long-term natural (non-social) consequenses (as well as technogeneous disasters).

Yes, I've done this. That 's not what I'm asking. I'm asking if for example CPR is possible at TL5 (I don't see why not) and if they'd use centerfire cartridges.

[CraigM]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I'm working on the writeup for my upcoming campaign The Blight Years. This game takes place a few centuries after a near human extinction and civilization has bounced back (albeit under constraints on areas suitable for settlement and severely restricted population density). The area in which the campaign takes place (in northern California and Oregon) is now able to maintain a TL5 industrial base but lacks the population to support TL6+. However, some knowledge and artifacts survive from before the apocalypse and they have some limited indirect trade with a TL6 culture.

What kinds of technology that's technically higher than TL5 should they still be able to produce (if any)?

The major change isn't going to depend on the gadgets but on the surviving ideas.

Germ theory, basic sanitation, universal suffrage, food and drug safety standards, assembly-line production, universal education and literacy...the survival of any of these concepts or many similar things would have a massive impact on the society. In turn, that is going to have a strong influence on the manufacturing capability they possess, and therefore the technology they produce.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by CraigM

Germ theory, basic sanitation, universal suffrage, food and drug safety standards, assembly-line production, universal education and literacy...the survival of any of these concepts or many similar things would have a massive impact on the society. In turn, that is going to have a strong influence on the manufacturing capability they possess, and therefore the technology they produce.

The game takes place in a loose confederation of city states, some of which will be democracies with universal suffrage, and so on while others are despotic. As a whole it lacks sufficient federalism to enact anything like federal food and drug safety. Due to the nature of the apocalypse (which continues to keep population density low) full TL6+ factory mass production simply isn't possible.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is meant to be a Western of sorts, and I'd like the technology to more or less feel like the gilded age.

[Phantasm]

It seems as though it's able to sustain TL6 technology on the small scale.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

What kinds of technology that's technically higher than TL5 should they still be able to produce (if any)?

What sorts of firearms are they likely to manufacture (and can I get away with just renaming some existing models)?

I can see them maintaining brass cartridge firearms, usually in the revolver, pump-action, and lever-action models. Almost any of the guns from High-Tech that are produced from 1870 to 1910 would be able to be used as-is with a name change, I think. (IMO, gun technology hit TL6 by 1870, not 1880, although the rest of the technologies didn't hit TL6 until 1880.)

I can see them able to refine crude oil into gasoline, kerosene, and lubricants, although plastics may be out of the picture still. Computerized anything are out, of course, but I can see one town scavenging the countryside for metals, melting them down, and selling the ingots or using them in their own manufacturing (they may be one of the local bullet suppliers).

[Agent]

Well...from my recent bits of research...an example of one TL 6 smokeless powder is Poudre B, made from nitrocellulose (cellulose from various sources - cotton, wood plus nitric acid) plus 2% paraffin (oil byproduct), and ether (ethanol and sulfuric acid).

I don't think there are any smokeless powders as 'easy' to put together as black powder (assuming a source of sulfur...).

Saying only black powder is chemically possible tends to eliminate most TL 6 capabilities as far as firearms. Because smokeless powder is certainly where a good bit of the bump in velocity and power comes from. Perhaps just in whatever 'phase' the society happens to be at - maybe they'll get smokeless powder technology in several years if they last.

There is the matter of the primer. The easiest is probably potassium chlorate but it is quite corrosive over the long term. Maybe even the short term.

Mercury Fulminate is the other option, if mercury is indeed available, which is non-corrosive in the form that potassium chlorate is, but weakens over time. Apparently not even all that long of a time.

The other more TL 6 plus primers seem much harder to manufacture.

The cartridge case and primer itself seem either easy or hard, depending on if one has or can make the machining equipment.

Lead bullets (i.e. just the bullet) are of course immensely easy to make. A campfire and a mold. Muzzleloaders seem destined to be used by some lower tech groups because of the simplicity.

Airguns are a fairly logical alternative assuming the know-how is available and the steel machining capable of building air reservoirs that can hold 2500+ psi. And the air pumps. But if so, it's attractive to just need air and muscle and lead instead of cartridge cases, powder, etc.

[adm]

A major problem with black powder to keep in mind, is fouling building up in the barrel. A significant number of automatic actions will not allow for this, and may have a variety of amusing, annoying to downright dangerous malfunctions. On the other hand AK-47s and STEN guns will likely work just fine with black powder, and the first Maxim guns were designed for it, if you can make enough ammunition for them.

Don't forget other ways to make fixed fortification weapons, such as steam.