I wonder if anyone else out there has any thoughts on a matter which has been
of some concern to me when it comes to handling tech levels.
Should we give some thought to what the lowest tech level should be that could
implement a technology if they didn't have to discover it? Many of the low
tech worlds in the Imperium and its near neighbors are either deliberately
\limiting technology, or recovering from disasters of one sort or another, right?
I am tending at the moment to think of TLs as being primarily limits on material
technology. As a couple of examples--there is no real reason why someone armed
with the proper knowledge could not build a hot air ballon or a man-carrying
glider of some sort in Ancient Greece. Some applications of gunpowder would
be possible at that level, too, although cannons might not be (I don't recall
whether the Greeks could cast bronze in large quantities). CPR, a valuable
medical technique, requires no equipment, and could be used by someone in
a stone-age situation even though it wasn't developed until sometime in TL7
the way the game calculates things. (Of course, without a hospital and rescue
squad it might not be quite as valuable...). The first patent on a hovercraft
was granted in something ridiculous like 1879...power to weight considerations
were the main reason it probably couldn't have been built.
(Speaking of hovercraft...I happended to look up stats on the Navy's LCAC
air cushion landing craft today. With 10MW worth of engines, it can lift
150 tons, and still amke 50kts--80 or so kph...in MT 10MW will lift 100
tons with nothing left over for thrust)
Anyway...some of the spiffy high tech things might be available at substantially
lower tech levels in a rather clunky form.
Rob