07-27-2021, 01:15 AM | #1 | |||||||||
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Homeline electronics
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As I was reading through Infinite Worlds again, one of the text boxes on Homeline caught my eye: Quote:
Its researchers now feel it's easier to simply steal or copy other worldlines' tech instead of developing its own. This brings me to the crux of the question: GURPS High-Tech: Electricity and Electronics mentions that smartphones are a TL8 technology: Quote:
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07-27-2021, 01:28 AM | #2 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Re: Homeline electronics
Homeline is probably(?) more advanced in computing, as shown by the palmtop mentioned here:
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07-27-2021, 05:44 AM | #3 |
Join Date: May 2021
Location: Eastern Kentucky
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Re: Homeline electronics
This is one of the great threats of high tech peoples influencing low tech ones. It's arguably one of the reasons for the prime directive in Star Trek.
When a high tech society meets a low tech one, the low tech one almost immediately stagnates. In the examples you've been discussing it's mixed because homeline has access to advanced technologies but only in some areas. Still the negative impact on society is pretty clear. I have something to consider. When I was growing up I lived in a rural county that hasn't really grown a lot in fifty years. In 1980, the sum total of all computing power and memory in the entire county does not compete with my single iphone. That is a mere forty one years of progress. |
07-27-2021, 06:38 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Feb 2013
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Re: Homeline electronics
Kirk: "Don't you see? They are gonna want a piece of our action!"
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07-27-2021, 06:42 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Re: Homeline electronics
Yeah, it's insane in some ways how much computing has advanced in just 40 years really, and not just in smartphones but also PCs & laptops.
And exactly. It's possible Homeline has sort of a TL 9 equivalent of smartphones, but I suspect it's more like it jumped directly to that from a period where modern smartphones as we think of them didn't exist. So that by the time it may have encountered smartphones in other worldlines, it had sort of leapfrogged their development. Kind of like going straight from bronze to steel, instead of transitioning from bronze to iron you could say. And even then, thanks to the differences in social mores and philosophy of more advanced settings like Shikaku-Mon, Caliph, or Iskander-2 it's possible that while more advanced than TL8 in electronics and such, they may not have developed anything like say streaming data stored in a "cloud" because of something like say a more tightly controlled Internet equivalent for example. So thus Homeline may not have ever developed such tech or services due to stealing and developing tech from worldlines that may have not thought of such. I know it's probably an odd idea to think about, but I kind of like to imagine something like smartphones wouldn't come about at say mid-TL8 if you then encountered TL9 tech. Because the idea of pushing computers or electronics that small doesn't occur due to such an interruption. Last edited by warellis; 07-27-2021 at 06:47 AM. |
07-27-2021, 06:51 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sweden, Stockholm
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Re: Homeline electronics
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Pure iron barely exists naturally. Iirc. only meteoric iron.
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07-27-2021, 06:59 AM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Re: Homeline electronics
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And, at the same time, may not have pushed social media or its Internet connectedness as far either possibly. Because it had no need to push its TL8 electronics as far. It could use ideas or tech possibly stolen or copied to make up for whatever inefficiencies they currently face. Or just plain replace it. Especially due to the potential fact the more technologically advanced worldlines it may have stolen or copied from may not have had the same social ideas to push for stuff like that. For example, Shikaku-Mon's Tapestry (their name for the equivalent of our/Homeline's Internet) is far more compartmentalized due to the fact the societies there are more autocratic and run by paranoid & often corrupt elites. Do you think such a society would develop the kind of streaming services or possible social media (for better or worse as we may think of such) we use today? Me, I suspect not. And it's not just personal electronics as well. Look at their cars. They use fuel cells copied from Lenin-3 for them. And yet in real life electric vehicles are the big thing slowly replacing gasoline powered vehicles. They may not have thought of electric cars really because they didn't naturally push or stumble upon the idea, they just copied fuel cell tech instead. Thinking on it, what Homeline is doing reminds me of how Soviet leaders decided to just copy the West in computer tech instead of nurturing Soviet computer engineers to build & develop their own. Last edited by warellis; 07-30-2021 at 12:18 AM. |
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07-27-2021, 07:29 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sweden, Stockholm
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Re: Homeline electronics
Real-world inventions are mostly about taking a bunch of stuff that has already been figured out an combining them in new/different ways.
We have batteries and we have cars. Can we make electric cars? Or for Homeline. We have fuel-cells and we have cars. Can we make fuel-cell cars? Those are both the same thing really. What does matter is if they have scientists sitting around experimenting with chemistry, physics, etc. to make the puzzle pieces which can be used to make inventions. Also, from a society perspective whether or not they feel invested in the idea of making f.ex. electric cars. Probably yes in Homeline's case since (especially considering their background) sustainability is much more important to them than Infinity; which on the flip side I can see doing far worse than just dumping garbage into 'empty' worlds.
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07-27-2021, 07:57 AM | #9 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Homeline electronics
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The important bit, of course, is the whole "find a parallel" part. As noted, Homeline's science has largely stagnated - they are like the Covenant from Halo, failing to create for themselves (the Covenant just modified and used Precursor tech rather than developing their own, Homeline just modifies and uses outtimer tech rather than developing their own). This may well be unsustainable.
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07-27-2021, 08:11 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Re: Homeline electronics
Do you think Homeline's TL8 tech may thus be a little weird to real life eyes?
Like it seems a bit more dated than our own, in some aspects? Quote:
It's not that they copy without understanding the principle behind tech, but more like they copy possibly without having needed to innovate to understand the reasoning behind outtimer tech, I kind of think. This isn't Homeline doing TL(8+1) but more like just jumping to TL9 in some places via replacing older tech. Last edited by warellis; 07-27-2021 at 08:16 AM. |
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