Manufacturing Technology of Charted Space

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Industry is a very large part of technological civilizations is their ability to manufacture increasingly sophisticated tools. Industry creates manufacturing and manufacturing is a key component of creating technology.

  • Increasingly sophisticated tools are popularly known as devices or gadgets.
  • A very fundamental part of technology is: "...using tools to build other tools."

Please see the following AAB articles for more information:

  • Industry (Manufacturing)
    • Construction
      • Subplanetary Construction
      • Planetary Construction
      • Stellar Construction
      • Suprastellar Construction
      • Galactic Construction
      • Supragalactic Construction
    • Facility

Description (Specifications)

Part of the feudal confederation of the Third Imperium is a system that tolerates and encourages innovation as expressed through cultural and technological differences. In practice this means that while intersocietal interaction protocols exist, there are huge differences between the various industrial manufacturing regions of the Third Imperium.

  • Even many of the shipyards possess very different manufacturing bases.
  • This is part of what makes depot worlds so important; they collect and consolidate manufacturing knowledge.

Interstellar Industrial Manufacturing Standards

Ancient Terra once had an organization called the ISO (International Organization of Standards), which created manufacturing standards for the various nation-states of Old Earth. The Rule of Man brought a similar idea to the Second Imperium and overlaid the idea on the manufacturing capabilities of the Vilani Bureaux. From that fertile cross-pollination of two industrial giants was developed the Imperial Naval Depot system and several manufacturing standardization schemes.

Universal Manufacturing Templates (UMT's)

UMT's are very specific data files that describe in excruciating detail the specifications to manufacturing a technological device. They contain critical pathways, dual use methodologies, prerequisite technology paths, and in depth instructions for both an object and all of the technologies leading to it. Such information can be incredibly valuable or decidingly commonplace. The simpler UMT's can be purchased from the street peddlers of more technologically advanced worlds while more sensitive technologies might only be available on megacorporation fab worlds or naval depots.

Standard Equipment Identification (SEI) Codes

An SEI code is a semi-standardized designation for a technological object. It is composed of several letters abbreviated to describe the object's common name followed by the object's technology level as a number. For instance, a Re-5 is the SEI for a TL-4 revolver, a kind of projectile weapon that fires bullets commonly inflicting kinetic damage. While a UMT explains how to manufacture an object, a SEI is a common description for technological objects of certain types and expected capabilities.

SEI Revolver Code Example
SEI Common Name TL D-1 Range Common Cost Weight Remarks
Re-4 Revolver TL-4 -4 R=2 Cr100 1.2 kg Bullet -1

Industrial QREBS Standards

Long ago, the Imperial Naval Depot System worked out means for not only classifying the technological levels of manufactured goods, and standard codes to name an object, but also the other qualities and characteristics of any manufactured item. This system, the QREBS System is used throughout the Third Imperium and beyond.

QREBS stands for:

  • Quality
  • Reliability
  • Efficiency
  • Burden
  • Safety

Epochal Technology Periods

Imperial society typically classifies manufacturing technologies by chronological epochs and periods.

Industrial Period

No information yet available.

  • Factory manufacturing (Fab-Tech)
  • Pre-industrial (Early Tool)
  • Meso-industrial (Makertech)
  • Post-industrial (Rep-Tech)

Makertech Period

No information yet available.

Ultratech Period

No information yet available.

  • "Strong, Late, or Advanced Nanotech"
  • Precursor tech
  • Ancients

History & Background (Dossier)

Many often get the mistaken impression that a Technology Level System indicates that all societies and civilizations will neatly progress through the levels in a neat sequence. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, technology can be quite a messy thing with some societies skipping entire branches of forecast technological progression, skipping entire levels, or otherwise not following the expected TL system sequence.

  • Nevertheless, a good plurality of societies tracked by the IISS do seem to follow a semi-standardized sequence of manufacturing progression.

Technological Conversion Table

Metanote: The TL system differs between different versions of the Traveller game. The following table shows conversion between different TL systems of the various Traveller editions.

Traveller TL GURPS 3e TL GURPS 4e TL Historical Era Primary manufacturing technologies
0 0 0 Stone Age (fire) Tool making
1 1 1 Bronze Age (3500 BC) Cottage industries
1 2 2 Iron Age (1200 BC) Limited mass production techniques
1 3 3 Medieval Age (600 AD) Guilds and professional workforce
2 4 4 Age of Sail (1450 AD) Interchangeable parts, design drawings to scale and dimension
3 5 5 Industrial Revolution (1730 AD) Water power, factories
4 5 6 Mechanized Age (1880 AD) Steam power, basic electrical power
5 6 6 Circa 1910 AD Complex labor organization, operations research, basic quality control, vertical integration
6 6 7 Nuclear Age (1940 AD) Indexable tooling, standardized quality control and testing
7 7 7 Circa 1970 AD NC analog machine control
8 7 8 Digital Age (1990 AD) Digital machine controls, CAD drawing, basic manufacturing robots.
9 8 9 Early Stellar (2050 AD) 3D additive layer printing, integrated information systems
10 (A) 9 10 Early Stellar (2120 AD) Networked manufacturing, autonomous design by computer
11 (B) 9 10 Average Stellar Zero G manufacturing / anti-grav manufacturing, basic terraforming
12 (C) 10 11 Average Imperial Artificial densification of materials on mass scale
13 (D) 10 11 Average Stellar Matter compiler: Molecules to products
14 (E) 11 12 High Stellar Organic computers allow guided self-invention
15 (F) 12 12 Imperial Maximum First "Santa Claus" machines appear. Planetary terraforming
16 (G) 13 13 Darrian Historical Maximum Beyond sustainable technological standards of Charted Space

References & Contributors (Sources)

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