Re: (3266) Funny TL's (was: Carbon 60)

Bertil writes:
>
>   There is a lot of inventions that theoretically could have been done much
> earlier in retrospect. When something appears seems to hinge on the society
> and culture.

Quite true...I _usually_ work under the assumption that Tech Level in Traveller
refers to the repair/manufacture level of the world, rather than the _use_
or _discovery_ level.

> [Roleplaying games for example could have been done as soon as paper, pencil
> and dice were invented:) ]

Aside: In 1987, I visited the British Museum in London on my honeymoon.  My
wife of four days (at the time) was a gamer, which was fortunate, because I
came to a display case in the Roman culture section containing ancient Roman
_20-sided_ dice.  I had to sit on the floor for a few minutes because I was
laughing so hard.

>  This had very interesting consequenses for Traveller with its combination of
> high and low tech world. For one thing it means that the TL tables are wrong;
> A planet who, if they get the information that it exists, can produce jump-
> drives or antigrav from TL9 might not invent either jump or antigrav until
> TL 11 or higher if they had to discover it on their own.

If you consider the tech levels to refer to the level of industrial support
needed to manufacture large quantities of the items, most of the problems
will disappaer.  At least I think so.  As you say, TL9 means that you have
the ability to _build_ jump drives gvien a blueprint--deciding whether or
not the planet has heard of them is a job for the referee.

Rob Dean