Problems and Solutions of keeping Divergent TL paths Divergent?

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Not as long we know biology. We could not use our TL 11 computer knowledge to make sense out of of their TL 11 biological computers, but we could use our TL 11 biological knowledge to start to make sense out of it. Now it could be that we have slashed technology. We have TL 11 electronics but we're only TL 8 in biology, while they are TL 11 in biology and don't know diddly about electronics.

But if our TL 11 electronic computers are about as good as their TL 11 biocomputers, why would we bother?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by DAlillama

But if our TL 11 electronic computers are about as good as their TL 11 biocomputers, why would we bother?

I dunno. Maybe for certain purposes it would be better to have an EMP-immune computer than one who can't get encephalitis.

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Alternatively, you can get a certain amount of joy out of changing the ground conditions. The internal combustion engine is dependant on our world having loads of petroleum. If we were from a world that didn't have those readily extracted high-energy liquid hydrocarbon, the internal combustion engine simply wouldn't have been worth the bother to develop or copy if we had a nearly as good electric or steam engine.

First of all, there is going to be a lot of high energy hydrocarbons lying around, assuming the culture is, like us, carbon-based.

Second, we did have electric and steam engines as good as internal combustion engines. The internal combustion engine won, essentially, because oil refining was producing a lot of useless, highly flammable byproduct called "gasoline." Nonetheless, we've ended up with electric trains and electric/diesel trains, none of which are really petroleum dependent. Cars are a special case where we have a 70 year old infrastructure in place based on gasoline. But you don't have to google for five minutes to learn that electric hybrids are just as efficient, and they would be even better if they had economies of scale working in their favor and another decade or two of concerted development. In fact, we had several electric passenger cars poised to take off just a few years ago, but all were killed by their creators, notably GM's electric car.

So the gasoline engine isn't really the result of starting conditions so much as a virtual oligopoly which has only recently begun to weaken.

[David Johnston2]

[QUOTE=pawsplay]

First of all, there is going to be a lot of high energy hydrocarbons lying around, assuming the culture is, like us, carbon-based.

But it doesn't have to be liquid. Wood and coal do not work in internal combustion egines.

Second, we did have electric and steam engines as good as internal combustion engines. The internal combustion engine won, essentially, because oil refining was producing a lot of useless, highly flammable byproduct called "gasoline." Nonetheless, we've ended up with electric trains and electric/diesel trains, none of which are really petroleum dependent. Cars are a special case where we have a 70 year old infrastructure in place based on gasoline. But you don't have to google for five minutes to learn that electric hybrids are just as efficient, and they would be even better if they had economies of scale working in their favor and another decade or two of concerted development. In fact, we had several electric passenger cars poised to take off just a few years ago, but all were killed by their creators, notably GM's electric car.

So the gasoline engine isn't really the result of starting conditions so much as a virtual oligopoly which has only recently begun to weaken.

Hybrids are still fundamentally IC engines. They just use electricity to stretch out the fuel consumption. And the presence of all that petroleum is the starting condition that led to the oligopoly.

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

But it doesn't have to be liquid. Wood and coal do not work in internal combustion egines.

Wood and coal can be used to produce fuels that do. But yeah, I think an organic ecosystem does necessisitate a lot of liquid oil. Maybe in some exotic circumstances it wouldn't happen, but I think most of the time, hydrocarbons + compression = liquified hydrocarbons.

Hybrids are still fundamentally IC engines. They just use electricity to stretch out the fuel consumption. And the presence of all that petroleum is the starting condition that led to the oligopoly.

It's a starting starting condition, not the. I would be very cautious about asserting a causality there. You can't rule out the special place of Henry Ford in history, nor the happenstance that patent medicines using oil was affecting an industry that refined oil for more uses than lubricant or lamp fuel. Or the presence of an oil boom in America. Without an immediate surplus of gasoline at that specific time, and Ford and others ready to step in, it could easily have fizzled.

It's ultimately very similar to VHS versus Beta... betas were a better technology, but the circumstances weren't right. At the time Ford built his model T, probably more of the better models were steam or electric than IC.

The argument you are making is similar to claiming that without corn there would be no ethanol market. The fact that we have a supply of corn ethanol is happenstance, in fact, using corn ethanol under the current conditions is ultimately an energy loser. But it's a fuel of convenience at this time.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I dunno. Maybe for certain purposes it would be better to have an EMP-immune computer than one who can't get encephalitis.

Well, what I'm trying to figure out is, why does this always happens in home-made settings, but not in official ones. Tau, Kroot and Vespid tech is different. Warcraft dwarven, human and night-elven tech is different. Star Wars have rather bio-tech traders who sell clones - while everybody else can't even grow a replacement arm. The four races of EVE Online have different tech, even though they are not in a state of perpetual war. Star Control's races all have divergent tech, even though the Ur-Quan control the Heirarchy, and the Alliance is all about mutual help. The examples are everywhere. What's okay about them that I fail to make okay with all of my ideas?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Well, what I'm trying to figure out is, why does this always happens in home-made settings, but not in official ones. Tau, Kroot and Vespid tech is different. Warcraft dwarven, human and night-elven tech is different. Star Wars have rather bio-tech traders who sell clones - while everybody else can't even grow a replacement arm. The four races of EVE Online have different tech, even though they are not in a state of perpetual war. Star Control's races all have divergent tech, even though the Ur-Quan control the Heirarchy, and the Alliance is all about mutual help. The examples are everywhere.

Well no. They aren't everywhere. They're mostly in videogames where people are less interested in living in the world than they are in shooting the bad guys. Even then, there's no particular indication that the species in Star Control for example actually have divergent technology as opposed to simply a situation where Shofixti simply like flying around in one-raccoon flying bombs while Syreen find their "ribbed for your pleasure" ships most suitable for the use of their superpower. Note that the Star Wars clone arrangers are not an example of divergent tech but of more advanced tech. Most of their tech is functionally like anywhere else in the galaxy. They're just a bit advanced in the biology stuff. And given how fast technology advances in the Star Wars Galaxy, being slightly advanced converts into a centuries-wide edge in technological advancement.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well no. They aren't everywhere. They're mostly in videogames where people are less interested in living in the world than they are in shooting the bad guys. Even then, there's no particular indication that the species in Star Control for example actually have divergent technology as opposed to simply a situation where Shofixti simply like flying around in one-raccoon flying bombs while Syreen find their "ribbed for your pleasure" ships most suitable for the use of their superpower.

Actually, there are cases where a race would benefit from using another's tech. Yehat's shields are definitely a good replacement for Earthling PD lasers, and Utwig's shields are even better. The Arilou Skiff, which was a ship with one of the best drives in SC1, could've probably benefitted from Pkunk's technologies in SC2. Androsynth Guardians are just better, bang for buck, then Earthling Cruisers, and I'm sure geeks remember that Androsynth are actually an earthling bioroid offshot. The Suppox would've been better off taking any special technology instead of their silly manoeuvre drive.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Note that the Star Wars clone arrangers are not an example of divergent tech but of more advanced tech. Most of their tech is functionally like anywhere else in the galaxy. They're just a bit advanced in the biology stuff. And given how fast technology advances in the Star Wars Galaxy, being slightly advanced converts into a centuries-wide edge in technological advancement.

Well, maybe you're right.

But other examples are probably even more stable. WH40K, ranted as it may be, is backed up by large amount of fluff/novels, which supports the opinions that it's not just another shoot-em-up. EVE Online is considered a rather RP-ish game. Warcraft is an RPG too.

[pawsplay]

My reading of the Star Wars universe is that any TL 10+ technologies need a sizeable percentage of an entire planetary economy to maintain. The clone production centers, the great shipyards, the Geonosian involvement in the Death Star all suggest hundreds of trillions of $ in operating costs every year.

[BonSequitur]

It really depends on just how divergent the TLs are. Two different TL9+1 civilizations will likely readily borrow from each other and equalise in no time. A TL10 civilization will find it much harder to adapt TL5+5 technology to it. Most advanced technology doesn't exist in isolation; if you have a TL9+1 computer, it relies on TL9 technology to function, and a TL10 civilisation can pretty readily reproduce the innovations of that single divergent tech level. If you have a TL5+5 computer, though, then that's orders of magnitude harder, since they would have to copy TL5+1 infrastructure to even get started! So if the TLs are very divergent, it may simply not be worth it to try and conciliate the two different forms of technology, although any innovations that are truly portable would be traded between civilisations, if at all possible and if there was a market for it, even if only one of those groups can actually manufacture or maintain them.

Also, often divergent tech works because of something inherent to the make-up of the species involved. In the Starcraft universe, humans are roughly TL10 (Or TL9, maybe) while Protoss are TL4+6 (Psi-tech) and Zerg are TL0+10 (Bio-tech). Humans are very limited in what they can take from Protoss or Zerg because Protoss technology only works for the psionic Protoss, and Zerg "technology" only works for the "metagenic" Zerg.