This is my first post to the list, at least in a long while.
HI!
[email removed] (Steve Higginbotham)
responds:
>Primarily, they don't have the technological know-how required, nor (even
>>more importantly) the capital to do the job. They may have a lot of money,
>>but if they don't have the silicon-etching equipment to make a TL8 computer,
>>then how are they going to make a TL8 computer? (Consider a country like
>>Ethiopia trying to start up its own semiconductor chip industry without
>>foreign capital!) And just look at the Former Soviet Union. Here was a
>>former Superpower that today, can't even feed itself. With such examples
>>so prevalent in the contemporary world, it takes very little imagination
>>to see how the Imperium might unravel, given 5+ years of cataclysmic war.
>
>So what happened to those IDPs (Imperial Data Packages)??? WHile it is
>true that you have to have the tools to build the tools, the IDPs
>provide convenient blueprints for all that good stuff. Did they all
>evaporate too?
>The Soviet Union was never a superpower, they were a third world country
>with nuclear weapons. Notice also that it took 70 YEARS for the Soviet
>Union to reach that point. Hard Times assumes the Imperium will reach
>it in 5 years or less.
Would the IDPs be coming through with the piracy and war that is
suppossed to be wreaking such havoc? Were these things being sent out for
free? (note:I haven't yet aquired Hard Times, so I may be speaking from
considerable ignorance)
The Soviets did have massive industial plants though- I don't think
it's fair to call them a third-world nation. They fielded not just
nukes, but a navy, submarines, tanks, etc, and had a burgeoning space program.
Admeittedly, they havn't forgetten any of that stuff yet. But maybe
all the smart-guys on the hi-tech worlds are moving off to where
thier skills can be supported more luceratively (core areas).
>So, how simple is Grav technlogy? I didn't know that we had developed
>it yet. I assumed that any discussion of the technical difficulty of
>Grav would have to wait until we got it and found out how hard it was.
> 3
>Notice that the process for making reliably good steel took 2000+ years
>to perfect, BUT was an EXTREMELY SIMPLE process, once you know how.
>Notice that Fusion plants are so difficult that we haven't quite got one
>working yet, but the construction of a Tokamak (for instance) is simpler
>than an automobile engine. Just bigger.
Grav technology may be simple, but it's much more expesive than wheels.
(as the horse cart is than an auto). With the general finacial collapse that
would seem to be enatiled by the disruption of trade, and the general
malaise of war, and the fear about the future promoting depression
(as we see today with buyers being cautious) I might be happy
to give up my abaility to fly around the world in 20 minutes in my sleek
megacredit speeder and just buy a cheap lo-tech ground car.
Fusion plants raises another issue, which is that of the government
financing of hi-tech products. Industrail policy would avryu from world
to world, but probably be present in some form. But with budgets
becoming tight, the money that used to go into such hi-tech research
would go into more sustainable, immediately practical technologies.
>
>>Finally, regarding Steve's point about high TL machinery suddenly
>>disappearing, I would have to agree with him. The whole idea is
>ludicrous.
>>I'm sure there would be mountains of very high-tech novelties just lying
>>around. Some of them might even work. But just try to maintain them, or
>get
>>them repaired! Does anyone know where there's a technician with Laser
>>Weapons-5 and Electronics-4? Big $$$$$$$$.
>
>My microwave has lasted for seven years without maintenance. My car
>seven years without any spare parts other than oil filters and brake
>shoes, and without maintenance that I couldn't do with the tools in the
>my trunk. The only time this computer has been in the shop has been to
>add more memory and a better modem. My father's Air-Conditioner has
>been chugging away for 14 years now with no maintenance except a new
>filter every year or so.
If the governement stops subsidizing the local fusion plant because it
can no longer afford to do so (or the knowhow has gone off-world) or
the spare parts arent being made, all your hi-tech gadgets will be useless.
The soviets are experinceing this now with their reactors (according to
recent news reports). Their refurbishing old parts, but who knows
how long that will last.
BTW where are hi-tech, low water worlds getting their hydrogen?
>The US Navy's SSBNs have been operating for ~30 years. There hasn't
>even been a factory making most of their major spares since 1972. They
>swap equipment around from each other, and refurbish it in Navy shops.
>They've been doing that for 20 years now, and the boats still spend 250+
>days per year at sea. Or so it was when I was on a boomer 5 years ago.
But our navy isn't undergoing a major financial crunch, and facing
a major military threat at the moment. Hard times would be a feedback
loop: the markets go down, the technology skips a beat, causing more
finacial instability and so on.
>So why should TL15 equipment be MORE prone to failure than modern
>equipment. After all, they should have fewer moving parts, better
>materials, beter manufacturing processes, better everything. So why
>should they break down so fast? After all, a world like Terra (1128)
>probably has 10,000,000,000 small fusion plants (in grav vehicles), as
>well as the grav generators in those vehicles. I'm pretty sure we could
>keep 1,000,000,000 or so of those running with spare parts from the
>others. Probably for 100 years or more.
I've always understood tech to be an average for the population.
Reducing the number of hi-tech items by 90% means only the wealthy
or the government then could have them. I imagine the governement would
do that in such perilous times (witness rationing during WWII).
Plus there's going to be a lot fewer wealthy, since I doubtmany of them
were hoarding hard currency, but had alot of paper (or silicon) assets.
>Notice that in 1919 Germany was in worse shape than most Imperial
>planets : total economic collapse was beginning, their industry was all
>in the hands of their enemies, and there was no external support to
>speak of. 20 years later, they had a MORE advanced technology than any
>of their neighbors (including the USA), and had built an industrial
>complex that allowed them to fight the USA and USSR for four long years
>till it was overcome. And they din't even fully mobilize their industry
>for wartime production until 1944! If they can do that, why should a
>world in the Imperium, with blueprints in hand, have a hard time
>duplicating their recovery?
Was all this technology in the hands of the average german or in
the military. There were no commercial jetliners for long after the
germans developed the jet. This is an interesting thread, though:
as worlds going through this diffculty might turn to such command
economy alternatives (i.e. Nazi autarky) to speed up relief.
I wanted to address another issue though, and that is the vilani
cultural influence, which must be prevalent to some extent throughout
the imperium in general. If the smart-sophonts have hightailed it out of the
dangerous areas, it would leave alot of people behind who wouldn't know
were to begin to understand a tech 15 blueprint, and who might not
want to when they could just slap together an oxcart (or run
a driveshaft out of their failed grav-vehicle).
Maybe the 5-level techdrop is too extreme, maybe it isn't extreme enough.
It would seem to be a good way to quantify the general chaos of the
hard times period. Remeber that the rich on the necounter tables always did
have +2 TL items, and the peasants -2 TL. (or therebaouts.)
I'm going to get hard times soo and give it a looksee. It sounds
interesting.
paul duggan
[email removed]