Perspective
Aug. 27th, 2019 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrMany years ago on the mailing list for the Traveller SF RPG there was a discussion on what people on a frontier world might use for power, especially in the early days.
There were many suggestions and one RTGs (Radioisotope Thermal Generators) resulted in a *lot* of back and forth with one camp basically going "nuclear! Aggh! Scary! Dangerous"
Things were at a bit of an impasse when it occurred to me to check some references. This resulted in a post along the lines of "Guys? They've had nuclear power long than we've had *writing*..."
That pretty much put things in perspective.
Ok, Traveller's "default" background is the Third Imperium. That's an interstellar empire in the far future. Originally the 'start date" was the Imperial year 1100. Which later we found was around 4700 AD (or was it 4200? What's half a millennium among friends)
A few hundred thousand years in the past aliens known as the ancients visited Terra and decided that humans were trainable as workers. So they took some and established human populations on a number of other worlds. and some later point the Ancients went away. There's some evidence of a war (massively damaged planets and the like) but nobody knows for sure.
Various of the scattered human species climbed to civilization on their own. As did a number of alien races.
The Imperium was founded by humans from Vland. The Vilani discovered the jump drive and were able to spread across the stars "civilizing" various "minor" races (human and alien as they went.
Minor races are ones that didn't have interstellar travel before they were contacted. Major races are the ones that discovered it on their own.
The first Imperium fell, and was replaced by the second. And the second was replaced by the third. Terrans (Solomani) did developed the jump drive on their own and wound up having a war with the Imperium. Which they eventually won.
I think that was what led to the fall of the Second Imperium. Too lazy to go looking for the official timeline.
But in any case, the Vilani came up with nuclear power sometime before the folks in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China and the Indus valley came up with written language.
Thus leading to my comment. When you'd had nuclear power and all that goes with it for around 5000 to 7000 years, your attitudes are apt to be just a *bit* different than folks who've had it for less than a century.
There were many suggestions and one RTGs (Radioisotope Thermal Generators) resulted in a *lot* of back and forth with one camp basically going "nuclear! Aggh! Scary! Dangerous"
Things were at a bit of an impasse when it occurred to me to check some references. This resulted in a post along the lines of "Guys? They've had nuclear power long than we've had *writing*..."
That pretty much put things in perspective.
Ok, Traveller's "default" background is the Third Imperium. That's an interstellar empire in the far future. Originally the 'start date" was the Imperial year 1100. Which later we found was around 4700 AD (or was it 4200? What's half a millennium among friends)
A few hundred thousand years in the past aliens known as the ancients visited Terra and decided that humans were trainable as workers. So they took some and established human populations on a number of other worlds. and some later point the Ancients went away. There's some evidence of a war (massively damaged planets and the like) but nobody knows for sure.
Various of the scattered human species climbed to civilization on their own. As did a number of alien races.
The Imperium was founded by humans from Vland. The Vilani discovered the jump drive and were able to spread across the stars "civilizing" various "minor" races (human and alien as they went.
Minor races are ones that didn't have interstellar travel before they were contacted. Major races are the ones that discovered it on their own.
The first Imperium fell, and was replaced by the second. And the second was replaced by the third. Terrans (Solomani) did developed the jump drive on their own and wound up having a war with the Imperium. Which they eventually won.
I think that was what led to the fall of the Second Imperium. Too lazy to go looking for the official timeline.
But in any case, the Vilani came up with nuclear power sometime before the folks in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China and the Indus valley came up with written language.
Thus leading to my comment. When you'd had nuclear power and all that goes with it for around 5000 to 7000 years, your attitudes are apt to be just a *bit* different than folks who've had it for less than a century.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-28 02:22 pm (UTC)In a sense, even hydropower is indirect nuclear. The rains which feed the reservoir come from water evaporated by sunlight.