NationStates Jolt Archive

This thread is mostly here to help us arrive at a general consensus on what constitutes Post-Modern Tech (PMT) and where the border between MT (Modern Tech) and PMT, and where PMT becomes FT (Future Tech.)

Now, we already know these as givens.

Any RL (Real Life) stuff, examples: Yamato-class battleships, M-16's, MiG's = MT.

FTL (faster than light) technology = FT.

The debates will probably center on genetically engineered troops, spacecraft, railguns, airships, and some types of nuclear or other WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction.) Feel free to add whatever other technologies need clearing up on to this thread.

planmet killers are ft gm troops ftish phasers ft trans warp ft im pure ft

planmet killers are ft gm troops ftish phasers ft trans warp ft im pure ft

I tried googling it, but I can't find a translater anywhere on the net. Anyone wanna tell me what he said here?:confused:


The hardest to define will be PMT, since it combines parts of FT and MT. Goodluck with this discussion, I may get into it later.

I tried googling it, but I can't find a translater anywhere on the net. Anyone wanna tell me what he said here?:confused:
LOL dunno, but I think he said that he's purely FT.

Anyway, I go by the notion that any tech that can't be "produced", if you will, untill after 2020 is PMT. Examples are for instance railguns (they're not gonna enter mass production untill after 2020, if even then I think), nuclear powered hovertanks (lame, I know, but you get the pic...) and such stuff.

Just my $0.02,-

I tried Googling it, but I can't find a translator anywhere on the Net. Anyone want to tell me what he said here? :confused:
The hardest to define will be PMT, since it combines parts of FT and MT. Good luck with this discussion, I may get into it later.

That's the point of the thread, to define PMT. Maybe I didn't make it clear enough in the original post.

Basically, I want a consensus on when MT crosses into PMT and when PMT crosses into FT.

That is like argueing when the 20th century began and ended, everyone will have an opinion...

I say it depends on what you agree on in individual rps. as a rule of thumb, I'd say anything that is in planning stages today is MT(nuclear bunker busters, efficient solar panels etc.)

I say anything trans-diminsional belongs purely in future tech., because of the can of worms that opens up.

Also, anything involving the soul, as the soul is not based on science, is purely fantasy tech.

THus, more or less I'm Fantasy Future tech; with Magick, Sorcery, Souls, Daemons etc....As well as Space Marines and all associated things :P

Walking machines are beyond PMT to me, I despise them. Also I think other concepts like massive armoured airships and laser weapons are beyond PMT.

I would say it would depend on walking machines, after all Commercial bipdeal Robots are already being sold in Japan right here and now so in 20 years time the advancement of those into a military technology is quite possible. Lasers as well are being developed for military use. Massively armoured airships would really be pushing things though, unless however it's really slow and vulnerable e.g. a modern version of a zepplin.

I'd say if the concept is around now for the nest 50-75 years then it's PMT with a few exceptions however, like complete invisibility and other things that could count as godmod like a missile that can knock out an entire satalite network or Pistols with the power of a tactical nuke. Some things in FT would be PMT Godmod which is certainly an interesting concept.

Battlesuits, not mechs, can be considered PMT.

Also, lasers used for knocking missiles out of the sky are MT and PMT. In late PMT, energy weapons may be coming into the foreground. But uber-deathstar lasers, no, that's FT.

I would say it would depend on walking machines, after all Commercial bipdeal Robots are already being sold in Japan right here and now so in 20 years time the advancement of those into a military technology is quite possible.

I suppose I've no problems with robots in and of themselves, its when people construct vast death robot armies or massive robot machines which are agile and fast despite weighing as much as battleships that annoys me a little I guess.

Basically, as long as you rp some kind of disadvantages it's ok. Like, for example, your "Sword of Damocles" which has a fairly long recharge rate. I've no problem with that, actually I think it's quite cool.

Fusion reactors, pebblebed reactors, direct neural interface, some highly advanced radar and presentation systems, and active camoflauge are all early PMT at the very least. I'm talking in the ballpark of 2015 - 2030, as I personally define Modern tech as being tech that exists in the present, not the near future.

I'm with Cotland.

PMT also would include more powerful electronics. Items that were once limited in scale now have less limits (more compact nuclear power plants, longer nanotubes). Things that today are unpractical will be more practical...

Most PMT should be things that are experimental, or are being researched today that are believed to have usable results in the 2020s but not all… (look into the technology and do some homework on it. Then look at what other PMT nations are doing [not to closely])

Most of all people have to take note on how new technology would work. And weather or not it has some huge flaw that would render it useless. Like how the magnetic signature of a Magnetohydrodynamic drive could give away a submarine’s location to any MAD in the area, and it would produce a huge amount of normal noise as well so the sub would be picked up on sonar.

Eg. Rail guns are not just more powerful guns; they are useful because they can accelerate a projectile to a higher velocity then conventional means can. This is why the hypothetical future rail gun (I think it will probably be a coil gun) fire much small projectiles then their conventional brethren (eg 15kg vs 2000kg)

Useful anti-missile defense is PMT. The Vulcan 20mm CIWS has not shown any ability to shoot down missiles in combat [and is thought to be useless vs. supersonic sea skimmers, unlike it’s 30mm cousin], the patriot missile system did very poorly; CIWS can be confused by other countermeasures; Cutting edge ICBMs supposedly can withstand nuclear blast at very close proximity… despite this though missile interception is showing some promise and can work ok if there are a very limited number of targets.

Fusion as a non-super experimental power source is FT.

Caseless weapons are more viable as PMT weapons (though the G11 was pretty good MT)

Liquid Propellant that works well without destroying the barrel is PMT

ECT guns often are shown as MT (and do exist) but are more PMT.

Coil guns and any other electromagnetic projectile weapon (that work well) are PMT

Lasers that can blind a man or some optics are MT (and in real life are look down on; and have been seen on Russian Ships and a prototype Chinese tank)
Laser that can damage/disable (usually not destroy) a missiles/rockets/projectiles/aircraft are experimental MT and fit better with PMT. PMT offers the possibility of more powerful lasers as well.

PMT Plastics and other materials technology would be superior allowing lighter weight materials to replace heavier materials.

Hypersonic aircraft/missile would be PMT. (and would generally fly at very high altitudes). As are useful military scramjets

Pulse Detonation Engines (PDE) could be PMT but I would think that their less attractive attributes [noise and vibration] would make them used for short life expectancy unmanned vehicles (like a missile).

But what would a sentient AI be?

added:
'Battlesuits, not mechs, can be considered PMT.' I Think that Battle suits can be PMT but I do not think they could be capable of going substantially faster then a human scaled to their size could (like a 2m tall battle suit that runs 50km/hr). The biggest problem is the power source.

Also I think that mechs could be done in PMT but would be very slow, expensive, heavy, large, and the ground pressure would be so great as to make them virtually useless except on the hardest terrain (which they would destroy).

I see PMT as up to the year 2050 (at most, and probably stopping earlier). Once 2050 it is no longer PMT but the next stage in technology (GURPS 3e would say it was TL9). Fusion power is expected to become a viable commercial power source in 2050. This puts it to the very end of PMT, possibly out of it. In PMT fusion power is still experimental.

Direct neural interface is can be done with limited success today. I think it is definitely a viable in PMT but there are few reason to use it on a non-disabled person.

Even with Gauss rifles, Rail guns, coil guns, neutral partial accelerator cannons, lasers, and masers, conventional weapons still will be very prominent on the PMT battlefield. Guns are very effective at killing people and in urban and jungle warfare a good assault rifle or machine gun (even if it is from the 1950s) can still be very useful. Man portable rocket launchers will remain very powerful weapons on the battlefield, as will large (eg .50, 14.5mm, 15.2mm, 15.5mm, 20mm) caliber rifles and machine guns will be even more useful as they can deal with new problems like battle suits and small slow low-lying UAVs as well as many soft vehicles and light armored fighting vehicles (usually the front is the only heavily armored side and the back is often very lightly armored). Most of today’s artillery will remain with just changes in ammunition (like GPS/Inertial guided rounds, Extended range projectiles, Gun launched missiles). PMT is mostly dominated by MT weapons, and weapon systems that have been upgraded usually with things like electronics, and sensors.

Useful anti-missile defense is PMT. The Vulcan 20mm CIWS has not shown any ability to shoot down missiles in combat [and is thought to be useless vs. supersonic sea skimmers, unlike it’s 30mm cousin], the patriot missile system did very poorly; CIWS can be confused by other countermeasures;

The Nike series (89% success rate, and skin-to-skin kills in the 1950's) and the Rolling Airframe Missile beg to differ.


Cutting edge ICBMs supposedly can withstand nuclear blast at very close proximity… despite this though missile interception is showing some promise and can work ok if there are a very limited number of targets.

I'm seriously doubting that they can withstand a close-range enhanced radiation weapon (which uses the neutron pulse to disable the warhead).


Fusion as a non-super experimental power source is FT.


The Navy has a study out that says that Pons-Fleischmann fusion works.
http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=86

No to mention that if fired at full power blast it requires the replacement of one of the Orbital Redirection Mirror blocks, it also has the glaring weakness of the mirrors being vulnerable to counter attack immediatly after a blast as after redirecting the beam there is a 1 hour delay before the mirrors alter their orbit. I'm toying with a few other novel ideas about Damocles but I've added the ideas to a small development list I keep and propably in about a month or 2's time I'll consider the project ready to move into prototype stage and end up posting a small piece about a testing of what is known as the Aegis of Damocles. I purposefully built disadvantages into the Sword of Damocles to make it acceptable and also viable and intend to build weaknessess into the Aegis of Damocles, albeit not very many occur to me now but since I've set myself a 2 RL month period for it to be under-development I'll have time to toy with ideas.

Speaking of The Sword of Damocles, http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v619/DK_Viceroy/NovacomDamoclesWeapon.jpg
New Logo for it :D

I'd consider robots rocky territory they'd have to have some disadvantages in ala Trade Federation army in SW EP1 being knocked out when the control signal was blown up. I don't have a clue what a Pebbled reactor is and Fusion reactors I presume have the lovely side effect of being blown up or overloading of wiping your nation of the map. Holograms (primitive ones albeit) are already in use though outrageously expensive and of no actual practical use except as a strategic map ala Projector table on Geonosis in SW Ep 2.

And as for Robots or Combat Mechs I had to Phase out tanks and Aircraft as a mater of practicality, after all it'd take a pilot with almost ungodly reflexes to use a fighter jet and survive while flying low level in Novacom Territory and tanks by the same token would spend most of their time on an air transport. Hence the Hijir project being born ( and what a succesful series NAMU-011 Ensign Hijir, NAMU-026 Commodore Hijir, NAMU-027 Hijir Viggen, NAMU-029 Elite Hijir, NAMU-030 Hijir Xirnium, NAMU-033 Vanguard Hijir to name but a few of the more succesful ones bear in mind the the Elite Model just entered production and the Vanguard version's fate is in limbo as the Vindicator will be enterring service soon)and it's prototype successor the NAMU-037 Ensign Vindicator (in the prototype stage at present but still called Ensign Vindicator). I'm a little bit apprhensive to be introducing even protoype laser weapon systems though.

If you ever decide you want to sell the rights to your 'Sword of Damocles' let me know Novacom. ;)

Hehe, it's not just a powerful weapon but a super ancient relic, I don't think I'd be selling it in a hurry :p

The Nike series (89% success rate, and skin-to-skin kills in the 1950's) and the Rolling Airframe Missile beg to differ.



I'm seriously doubting that they can withstand a close-range enhanced radiation weapon (which uses the neutron pulse to disable the warhead).



The Navy has a study out that says that Pons-Fleischmann fusion works.
http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=86

Will right on nike later but it did work (i dont known how well)

I am just reporting what I have read about today’s ballistic missiles. The distance stated was 100m and it should be noted that out of atmosphere a normal nuclear explosive does not produce EMP (though it can be modified to do so). Also many of today’s ABMs are hit to kill so that would not be an issue [though the missile reportedly can get through any countermeasures in existence but…]. Also the electronics are probably very resilient to radiation as they were specifically designed to work in an environment that may be filled with detonating nuclear warheads of all sizes and types.

Pons-Fleischmann fusion is the so-called cold fusion of 1989. The article is current as of 2002. While Pons-Fleischmann fusion is something it is not sometihng that is accepted by most main stream scientists. Also the article says that 'cold fusion' may not be a viable energy source ever. This hardly makes fusion a PMT technology this is just a report of that Cold Fusion is definitely something but we are not quite shore what.

That is like argueing when the 20th century began and ended, everyone will have an opinion...
at the end of 1899

I consider MT as all technology that exists now, PMT as all technology that is feasible in the next, say, 100 years, and FT as everything after that. Satellites are MT. Orbital weapons are PMT; highly advanced Death Star-like orbital weapons are FT. Space fleets are FT. EMP is late MT-early PMT; infallible/uber-efficient EMP is pure PMT. Genetically engineered troops are late MT or PMT. Anything with a starting velocity of Mach 6+ is PMT....and so on.

Battlesuits, not mechs, can be considered PMT.

Also, lasers used for knocking missiles out of the sky are MT and PMT. In late PMT, energy weapons may be coming into the foreground. But uber-deathstar lasers, no, that's FT.
Mecha can easily be PMT. For example, my GitS rip-offs (Tachikoma, Fuchikoma, HAW) are PMT. Bretton's Peacemaker is PMT.

Viable fusion power is mid-to-late PMT, IMHO, and decent direct neural interface would be early PMT, as it already works IRL. Caseless, however, is NOT PMT. It works just fine in modern weapons, it just isn't produced en masse at the moment.

Someone mentioned sentient AI's. I take my leaf from Shadowrun and say no purposefully created Digital Sentiences, but plenty of Semi-autonomous Knowbots (learning machines). Cybernetics are early to mid PMT, what with all the current advances in prosthetics. I think there's currently one that interfaces rudimentarily with the patient's nerves.

DEWs, except on an EXTREMELY limited scale, are much more FT than PMT. THOR projectiles/KEWs/god-rods/etc. are PMT, and would qualify as a WMD, what with their sheer destructive power.

OOC:I consider anything up until 2020 to be MT. Then 2020-2120 to be PMT.

The latest version of the PATRIOT system(the PAC-3) has been found to be effective against SRBMs and somewhat less effective against MRBMs. The Russian SA-12B is just as effective. The Russian SA-20 is rumored to be even more effective then both the SA-12 and PATRIOT. It has also been found that via some reprogramming, ship based SAMs(such as the American SM-2-ER Block 4) can also be effective anti-missile systems.

As a matter of fact, severely reprogrammed, high altitude SAMs coupled with a powerful enough radar(such as the one on the AEGIS Cruiser) can kill an inbound RV from an ICBM!

As for lasers, I consider sattelite based ones to be late MT(2015ish). beyondf that is either PMT or FT.

Pebblebed reactors I consider late MT and early commercial fusion reactors are mid-late PMT(experimental fusion reactors already exist).

There's already some incredibly intelligent AI's out there in computer games, I don't think Sentient AI's are really that far away, a fully comprehensive one I'd say is smack dab in the middle of PMT.

This is a minority view:

MT should include everything we know how to build today, even if it's not widely produced or even produced outside the laboratory at all (for example, octanitrocubane or various powered prostheses); I might even be tempted to include some things that are reputed to exist, but are classified secret (such as [certain] psychotronic weapons [like strobed ordinance] or mercury antimony oxide ["red mercury"]).

PMT, in my book, embraces things we know how to make (at least in theory), but which can not yet be built or operated feasibly due to technological or economic constraints. Examples include fusion power plants (we don't know how to manage a sustained reaction, nor how to make such a plant work economically), orbital solar power farms (we don't know how to handle the beamed transmission of power from orbit, although we know that it is possible; nor do we know all the problems involved), cold fusion (this is assuming that it works at all), nanotechnology, Turing-class AI (this is arguable, depending on your take on what a Turing test is [the Turing test is a test to see if an AI construct can pass for human]), antimatter bombs (we know how a Penrose trap should work, but building a big, sustainable one is a technical challenge), and near-perfect arcologies or CLSS (Closed Life-Support Systems). Even STL starships could be PMT under this definition, although that may be stretching it.

This means that a lot of "hard" sci-fi is actually PMT.

FT is anything we don't know how to do, even on a theoretical level. Matter transporters and matter synthesis, antigravity, FTL drives - the list is endless.

So, to summarize: If we have it today (even in prototype or by rumour) it's MT.


If it only requires "unobtanium" (Google this), it's PMT.


If it requires "handwavium" (Google this, too) it's FT.

I go with the above definition, though I also include in MT joining together of multiple MT items. If the parts exist in MT, then the thing is MT as a whole even if no one has put them together yet (unless there's a good reason why not).

I say it depends on what you agree on in individual rps. as a rule of thumb, I'd say anything that is in planning stages today is MT(nuclear bunker busters, efficient solar panels etc.)
I'd agree with this, anything that has been thought of or is being thought off that is a possibility today would be MT. Anthing up to 2100 is PMT, imho, then the rest is FT. Excluding time limits, lasers would not be PMT neither would spaceships.

There's already some incredibly intelligent AI's out there in computer games, I don't think Sentient AI's are really that far away, a fully comprehensive one I'd say is smack dab in the middle of PMT.

You're kidding! Video game AI's are stupid as all hell! They're simply programs to determine which direction to move in. For example, if A is within a 90 degree arc to the front of B, fire three rounds and move forward. They seem smart, but they're simple If:Then programs. An AI must actually adapt and learn. A proto-AI, a simple learning machine, would be able to be taught languages or how to play a musical instrument without inserting additional code, fully impossible currently. A SENTIENT AI would be required to make judgement calls, which nothing we can make now can even come near to doing.

MT is stuff that's done today.

PMT is stuff that we know is possible and even have some idea of how to do it, but just can't for whatever reason. Postmodern stuff shares with MT the fact that anything in it still follows the laws of physics and thermodynamics. :)


FT is crazy out of this world stuff that no one has any real idea of how to do.

This is the way I look at it.

MT is anything that actually exists today in a physical form and has been tested. This means I don't believe mass production uber-ETC guns or rail guns people keep sticking on tanks (my biggest pet peeve here) are MT, but rather PMT. 2020 is way too far off as far as I'm concerned to be considered MT.
However, this is a somewhat limiting view, and doesn't allow for things like cultural specific advances, meaning a specific country might come up with something randomly. This makes the game more interesting in my mind, so I am perfictly willing to let some early PMT stuff get pushed in as MT as long as it's not too much. Variaty is the spice of life.

PMT would be everything they're theorizing now that they havn't actually built yet, or can't build yet. This would include any form of semi-efficient rail guns, and those wonderful stealth fighter planes people seem to love.

And of course, if It's on "Space: The Imagination Station" on TV, I consider it FT.

I think MT is up to 2010 then its PMT uptill about 2090 then your into FT,
SOmeone said earlier that pebbelbed reactors are PMT, what do you mean? There are working pebblebed reactors today,
And the reason that ETC guns and things like that arnt mass produced is becasue they are not economically viable.

I think MT is up to 2010 then its PMT uptill about 2090 then your into FT,
SOmeone said earlier that pebbelbed reactors are PMT, what do you mean? There are working pebblebed reactors today,
And the reason that ETC guns and things like that arnt mass produced is becasue they are not economically viable.

Which is why I assume we see them around in NS: nobody gives a hoot about economic viability, we just want really big guns. :D

planmet killers are ft gm troops ftish phasers ft trans warp ft im pure ft

Planet killers are FT. GM Troops are Ft-ish. Phasers and Trans Warp = Ft. I'm Pure Ft.


That's what said. Just read a little closer.