Generation Ships

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Respectfully, can you explain why you beleive this?

If we're contemplating a 200 year voyage and look back over the last 200 years of our history it is only democracies that have endured that long.

The generation ship has a different set of variables than the last 200 years on Earth. For a start the generation ship only has one government unless things have already started to go horribly wrong. Also, the ship can't afford to have economic growth.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The generation ship has a different set of variables than the last 200 years on Earth. For a start the generation ship only has one government unless things have already started to go horribly wrong. Also, the ship can't afford to have economic growth.

That last thing is actually rather major. Every successful society in human history has done it by taking advantage of other less powerful ones.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So it was in that spirit that you repeatedly asked other people to cite sources supporting their beliefs?

No, that was before I caught on.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The generation ship has a different set of variables than the last 200 years on Earth. For a start the generation ship only has one government unless things have already started to go horribly wrong. Also, the ship can't afford to have economic growth.

Not as you understand economic growth. However, if those living on the generation ship become more efficient in their use of reasources or discover or develop new and better ways to do things, that could function like convention ecconomic growth in a non-conventional setting.

Propose the development of a form of VR which had a rich profound sensuous quality. Luxuries enjoyed in the VR setting could be both profound and richly satisfying. People might except a more spartan daily life in reality for a much more luxurous life in VR than even kings and emperors could have experienced. Reasources saved by the more spartan living conditions, could be used elsewhere as the comunity/ship sees fit.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That last thing is actually rather major. Every successful society in human history has done it by taking advantage of other less powerful ones.

Not always the case. Some societies have been able to exploit stronger societies with great success. But, while in transit, the comunity that lives in a starship wouldn't be able to exploit others, no others would be near enough to exploit, so the point is moot.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Not always the case. Some societies have been able to exploit stronger societies with great success. But, while in transit, the comunity that lives in a starship wouldn't be able to exploit others, no others would be near enough to exploit, so the point is moot.

I meant as in the generation ship society will be unlike anything that has ever existed on earth... A small successful society not relying on the backs of others.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Lamech

... I can't believe I didn't realize that sooner. Yeah, I think this kills a full TL8 genship. So no other choice than TL 8/9 then?

The way I tend to see tech levels, TL8 is stuff that exists today, at least in prototype form. Anything that is in the process of being developed, but couldn't plausibly be manufactured commercially (assuming demand, which is not always there*) within the next couple of years is probably TL9.

We're not that far from being a TL9 society. Considering that TL8 started in the 80s, one might say that a paradigm shift worthy of being called a TL change in GURPS either has occured or is still in the process of occuring. If TL8 is computers in all homes, TL9 could be computers in every pocket. Alternatively, if we want TL8 to be constant access to information and the Internet, TL9 is when the Internet stops being just a resource to be accessed by special means and becomes ubiqitious to the point of not only one, but multiple tools or toys routinely carried by most people being more or less constantly connected.

In any event, that means that any form of spaceship drive that could drive a spaceship out of our solar system without astronomical waste is probably TL9.

*There is lots of stuff that is solidly TL6-8 technology but just isn't manufactured except as hypothetical special orders, either because the real world lacks the kind of threats or challenges that would make it useful or because cheaper or more effective technologies exist to fulfil the demand. A good example is a full plate and mail harness of some combination steel/titanium/ceramic armour, with kevlar/aramid/other composite backing. Such armour would give good performance against monster claws, fangs, beaks and suchlike, as well as against swords, spears, arrows, guns and other threats. It's possible to make it at TL8, but in a normal world, as opposed to a Monster Hunting one, ceramic and composite body armours that cover vital areas from gunfire and shrapnel are both cheaper and usually more effective.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In any event, that means that any form of spaceship drive that could drive a spaceship out of our solar system without astronomical waste is probably TL9.

Just as a technical note there's a differnce between "out of the solar system" and "to another star in pracical time". If TL8 Orion drives could be built to match expectations (and there hasn't been the slightest work on this beyond paper studies) then a ship could be propelled to beyond solarr escape velocity.

Thisd is more like building a long-term space habitat and then sending it just _away_ rather than going anywhere in particular.I don't think you can build the long term habitat at any TL8 that isn't an unrecognizable alternate.

[Flyndaran]

Spaceships says that the Oort cloud is 10,000 A.U.s out. That would still take many years for an Orion Drive to pass.
The solar system is BIG.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Just as a technical note there's a differnce between "out of the solar system" and "to another star in pracical time". If TL8 Orion drives could be built to match expectations (and there hasn't been the slightest work on this beyond paper studies) then a ship could be propelled to beyond solarr escape velocity.

My point, though, was that given how far away from production Orion drives are in our reality, they appear to be TL9 technology. The paper studies and theoretical possibilities of one TL will often become the technology in common use at the next, which is what governs the assignment of TLs in GURPS. There is nothing in the rules that says that some TL9 gadgets may not exist right now in the real world, in the form of prototypes available only to those with very specific Social Advantages, amounting to Perks like Early Adopter or some specialised form of the High TL Advantage.

We're close to TL9, no matter what measure we use. It's to be expected that we know how to build some TL9 gadgets, if we could just work out some of the kinks.