Re: [HoE] hoe technology level

[Matthew DeForrest <mmdeforrest@worldnet.att.net>]

A couple of thoughts on technological levels, per Erik Kjerland's post:
> 
> I was a little disappointed at the near lack of information on pre-holocaust
> tech levels.  The gear and weapons list don't give you any idea what kind of
> tech was available before the nukecaust.  Technology had advanced much
> faster than our real history, from 1863 onward.  Hoe's 2081 technological
> advancement should be nearly unrecognizable to us.  Think about it.  What
> would a person from 1915 think if he got transported to 1998?  Now, what
> would we think if we got transported to 2081?  And remember that deadlands
> tech moved forward faster.

Technological advance is a funny thing and seldom linear (I'd recommend,
incedentally, the _Connections_ series of videos by James Burke for
those who want to see how technology breeds, cross-breeds, and
interacts.).  If, for example, Ghost Rock engines burn hot and are
powerful and can be used in horseless carriages, what reason would there
be for the industrial development of the automobile?  A ghost rock
liquid fuel equivalent would, of course, produce autos and everything
else.

> Examples:
> 
> Weapons: I'd expect laser, plasma, and ecto weapons to predominate in the
> military (gun-grabbing liberals would probably outlaw thier use by civvies
> ;-p)

Plasma weapons would require a massive ammount of energy (it exists at
unbelievable high temperatures -- so high that a young woman I know who
was doing research in Belfast was having to measure the the tempreature
of a plasma plasma produced when a laser was melting metal indirectly
because it would fry/melt/destroy any instrument).  Lasers, as a weapon,
are more useful for blinding than blasting.  Granted, these concerns are
in a world without ghost rock and the mad scientiests who love it...and
are, perhaps, more science than is necessary ina game world.  The new
military rifle that is scheduled to replace the M-16 might be a good
place to start with where to direct technology.  It has 2 muzzles.  The
lower fires standard NATO rounds. The upper fires shells which fragment
at ranges designated on the weapon (allowing you to injure targets
behind cover).  If you link this into the new battlefield infantry
system (which has a heads up display for the soldier which can be linked
to a camera on the gun, allowing for shots around corners by holding the
gun around the corner or above a wall, aiming via the camera, and
firing), you have a frightening enough weapon to worry about.

If you want an another energy weapon possibility (aside from laser,
plasma, etc.), there are a couple of guys that have determined how to
produce a short bolt of lightning using water.  

> Communication: Wristphones would be common.  Heck, you could probably get
> earring phones, or implanted satellite uplinks.  Computer technology?
> Sheesh.  Unrecognizable!

We are very close, according to a friend who graduated from MIT, to the
end of the rapid advance in computing power because the metals are
getting thin enough for electrons to wear through them.  Granted, they
are talking about some wild new systems which would supplant the little
things on our desk (quantum mechanics-based systems,
biological-mechanical hybrids...pretty out of this world stuff) so I
would hesitate on going too far with the advances here. 

Where I would expand, though, is in the area of robotics (especially if
people have been playing with it for a hundred or so years).  The things
they can do with neural-net systems is amazing...robots that literally
learn.

> Medicine: Nanotechnology, duh!  Gash started it in Salt Lake.  There'd have
> to be hypos that instantly heal damage, disease and virus hunting nanobots,
> vat-grown organs and limbs for transplant surgery, animal/human
> experimentation, genetic augmentation, the works.  Immortality?  Brains in
> glass cylinders.  Sykotropic drugs.

One proviso:  there will always be one constant limit to medicine -- the
body takes time to heal.

> Agriculture: hydroponics.  Cities would be self-sufficient.  Food would not
> be an issue in the slightest, around the world.  Instead of microwave tv
> dinners, you'd have InstaMeal(tm): a full meal in a plastic container that
> cooks itself without emanating harmful levels of heat.
> Transportation: hovercraft, FTL, anti-gravity.  What seems plausible.
> Pretty much anything.  Underground tubetrains connecting cities.
> Teleporters?

There is a working theory for teleportation using something called the
Casamir effect (it ends up producing a wormhole).  It requires a good
bit of energy, however.  Future Fantastic (aired some time ago on the
Learning Channel) had something about it.

> Manufacturing: Fully automated factories would degrade the economy.  But
> that also means that they could keep producing after the nukecaust.
> Power: Ghost rock power plants still powering everything.  But advances in
> energy would create tiny batteries with near unlimited power supply.

Spawning a new abomination:  Pink Jackalopes that keep going and
going....


_________________________________________
Matthew M. DeForrest, Ph.D.	Adjunct Professor of Communications and
Adjunct Professor of English	Adjunct Professor of English
UNC Charlotte			Wingate University
Charlotte, NC 28223-0001	Wingate, NC 28174-0157

"Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not
powerless.  Dead -- I say?  There is no death.  Only a change of
worlds."  Chief Seattle, "Our Poeple are Ebbing Away like a Receding
Tide," 1855.