Why super tech never goes mainstream

[paigeoliver]

Dr. Uffman was staring at yet another dead rabbit.

 

His assistant offered up a bit of consolation. "Well, at least this one actually went all the way through."

 

That was true. Lord knows how many rabbits were floating out there in the ether, having gone in one side of the teleportation chamber and then never appearing out the other side.

 

Dr. Uffman was completely stumped. His theories were solid. Every prototype teleportation device he built from scratch worked flawlessly, all of them.

 

But he couldn't seem to mass produce them. Well, forget mass production, no one else could even reproduce his results, nor could he simplify his constructs.

 

The basic teleportation device was simple, a high powered laser (an off the shelf item), paired with a low powered scanning beam (also off the shelf), both destroyed an item and scanned it on a molecular level. Then a similar device on the other end duplicated the original item from a signal sent by the first unit.

 

The lasers and reassembly beams had no problems. It was the laser and beam control system. Only Dr. Uffmans original design worked, and it only worked if Dr. Uffman himself assembled it. Even a mild repair made by his assistant would make a previously working unit flaky and unreliable.

 

Dr. Uffman's original control design comprised over 6000 capacitors, 50,000 resistors, 800 simple ICs, and several miles of wire on a 6 foot high wired wrapped circuit board.

 

It took him months simply to assemble a single one. So he worked with multiple technicians and the best minds in the electronics industry on a better design, his original obviously couldn't be mass produced.

 

The electronics wizards were able to implement his entire control system design on a single circuit board only a few inches wide. It passed all the tests, all the in and out specifications were the same, it appeared to be an exact replacement for Dr. Uffman's design, but put it in the machine and it made errors. It would fail to teleport things entirely, or it teleport, but the subject (rabbits usually) would come out the other side dead. In one case it duplicated the rabbit entirely.

 

Dr. Uffman had finished unsoldering his latest failure (an integrated circuit that replaced about 100 components on his original design), and was closing the connections to hook the old parts back up (he had effectively isolated them by merely breaking a few key connections), when his assistant noticed something.

 

"Oops, that connection doesn't look right." The Dr. mumbled and reached down and resoldered the connection he had just made.

 

"Dr. Uffman, I think I might have figured it out." said the assistant just as the Dr. finished a successful rabbit teleportation. "Do something to the control board that shouldn't matter. Add a little solder to a connection, or run an extra ground wire, or anything.

 

Dr. Uffman complied, he ran an extra ground wire.

 

He ran the self test, and the unit passed.

 

He stuck a rabbit in the teleporter, hit the button, and he watched the rabbit teleport, and then realized he was staring down another dead rabbit.

 

He left the wire hooked up, but cut it so it was no longer making the connection. Unit passed self test, teleport activated, dead rabbit.

 

He took the wire off. Self test passed, teleport activated and the rabbit lived.

 

"Don't you see Doctor? Your design works perfectly, only there is more to your design then what you actively designed into it. The ones you make are perfect, the timing, the voltages, the teeny tiny variances that shouldn't matter, only yours have it right. I can't even fix the things because I don't solder the same way you do."

 

"Well, I guess the world won't be getting cheap and easy teleportation any time soon." said the Dr. as he glanced up at the flashing red lightbulb on the wall and changed into his Captain Easy uniform. "Now come on Danger Boy, we have a job to do". And they both pressed buttons on their belt buckles and vanished.

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

"Don't you see Doctor? Your design works perfectly, only there is more to your design then what you actively designed into it. The ones you make are perfect, the timing, the voltages, the teeny tiny variances that shouldn't matter, only yours have it right. I can't even fix the things because I don't solder the same way you do."

Well, yes, except for the fact that scientists would then tamper and tinker with a working design, possibly with other teleportation devices from other scientists until they figured out what the hidden principles were. Or at least what specifications were needed to build a teleporter correctly.

 

The real reason is in Silver/Bronze age comics, supertech is really magic with a technology paint job, obeying the laws of magic and fairy tales more than the real laws of science and physics.

 

In Iron Age comics, the stuff just tends to cost the same as a B-2 bomber or something similar to that. Supertech in Iron Age comics is rarely built in someone's garage, but in hyperexpensive research facilities.

[JmOz]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

My world:

 

I use the expence, and the fact that a normal person (not a metahuman) would have trouble following the theroys involved.

 

Also Metahumans tend to allow design flaws to exist that they can correct easily enough, as they can fix it in a second, but a normal Scientist will take weeks or even years trying to fix.

[OddHat]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

If a gadget breaks any physical laws, I rule that it is just "magic"; the power of the metahuman is manifesting through the device.

 

If it would just take millions of dollars and years of development, and the character has the skills, then it's real tech, and I let it change the world (if the character releases it or it is coppied).

 

A grey area is when something might be real tech, but the player won't give the character the skills to build it, and insists that the character built it by him/herself. In that case, it's still just a power manifested through a device, but the device might possibly be coppied given time.

[OddHat]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

By the way, well done on the description.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

Another viable option: if the scientist who made a given device is sufficiently superhumanly intelligent, than the gadget may be technically duplicable and still not viable to mass produce, simply because no one else can understand how it works.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

One of the meta-plots for the first decade of my game world (actually played decade) was "what is going on with super-tech?" Characters couldn't have super-tech without a lot of oversight, and it had to be highly unique/non-reproducable or I wouldn't allow that justification. No t-port tech, extremely limited force field tech... blasters existed, as did early hover vehicles, but both were highly expensive and inefficient compared to standard weapons.

 

During that decade there were a few "super suits" but they had weird tech, or were alien artifacts... and a conspiracy was revealed involving a number of groups (Paradigm Inc., the Jade Organization) and major governments (all of the UN Security Council) etc. They were purposefully suppressing tech break throughs of high levels... because such breakthroughs tended to draw the attention of the most feared power on the planet, Dr. Destroyer. He was purposefully hunting down and stealing, destroying all high tech that might actually threaten his position. He'd essentially kept the world stagnating for decades based on threatened and actual terrorist activity. Dr. D was only every directly confronted three times... one battle drove him from Destruga... a second was a captured hero who was going to be used to carry a nuclear device into city, but escaped... and the third was the climatic battle over the Atlantic over control of a massive Progenitor artifact that would have allowed Dr. D to rule the world. (That fight was out in the open, and I would have allowed it to go either way. Heroes could have lost, and the last seven years would have been battling as insurgents against his tyrranny.)

 

With Dr. D dead (and other issues that caused the Jade Organization to be eliminated) technology over the past seven years of my campaign, has begun to expand greatly. Electric cars are everywhere, and efficient flying cars are only a few years away. New energy technologies are beginning to replace fossil fuels and this is causing quite a bit of economic unrest. There are colonies on Mars and the moon... the Galactic Confederation is known and looking to bring Earth into it's organization (while other Empires seek to destroy the planet) and the secret behind most high tech has been revealed (and is now THE area of study for scientists around the world)... a substance called Crystal Technology or crys-tech... a living crystal ultra superconductor that permeates the earth (one of three planets in the known galaxy with the stuff... one was destroyed the second is quarantined) but was only found in deep pockets until China nuked itself trying to stop some villains (the resurgence of Menton and Mentalla) which pumped energy into the crys-tech and caused it to grow and sprout around the globe.

 

So, basically, I've always hated the normal comic book trope of "high tech that never seems to actually change society" and have thrown that out, trying to build instead a sort of sf universe where superpowers and supertech really do change the world the characters live in.

[Publius]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

In my campaign setting, supertech (and magical artifacts) are called Neotech and they can only be operated by individuals with the metahuman gene. There is however a side benefit of Neotech, as drugs produced by Neotech can still heal the sick, alloys produced by Neotech still work as excellent building materials etc. So some differences are starting to emerge in the game world from the "real world" (titanic building projects, cures for some diseases etc.).

 

I did it that way so that bad guys can still use blasters and whatnot, but regular cops and troops use regular guns. Also, most of the badguys that the PCs face (and a few PCs) are a lesser form of Metahuman who can use this technology, but are otherwise mundane humans (i.e. no laser beam eyes etc.)

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

The old 4th Ed High Tech Enemies book had an idea for this. Basically all the researchers who came up with this supertech stuff were vying with each other for technological supremacy. The bad guys wanted it to take over the world (or destroy it, in some cases). The good guys wanted it to keep the baddies from taking over. Designs and prototypes were jealously guarded because if the other side were able to pick up on some of your modifications, it might tip the balance of power so far in their favor that they would become unstoppable. It therefore becomes sheer folly to even think of mass production (at least on a greater scale than is needed to equip agents) or releasing this information to the public.

 

I personally don't want to think to hard on the issue, because eventually you will reach a point where you realize that the Hulk couldn't even begin to pick up a large car, much less throw a tank, and that there is absolutely no reason for Superman to be flying.

[Blue]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

Tech is generally not an issue in my game, mostly because the players accept it as a standard superheroic world. There haven't been questions about things being mass produced and I think most players assume that this is because in time eventually things DO become available to the public; we just haven't reached that stage with many things.

 

Nice story, paigeoliver

[levi]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

Good piece of writing paigeoliver. Very entertaining read.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

This thread seems to be covering the range of standard rationales nicely.

 

I rather liked the gimmick that Aaron Allston came up with in his Strike Force campaign: an alien who came to be known as the Governor was conducting an experiment on Earth on the result of artificially retarding a planet's technological development. Anyone who attempted to spread his scientific breakthroughs would find that his articles would not appear in published journals, his patents would be lost in the filing system, etc.

 

This is one approach to take if you want the PCs to ultimately overcome the status quo by finding and neutralizing the force holding back their progress. In the case of the SF world the results were much like what RDU describes; the median of Earthly technology exploded, and mankind began to expand to the stars.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

I actually take the DC Heroes/ Marvel way out. Super tech exists, and it exists in such amounts that superior entities are going to come across it. BUT, because of expense and other factors it rarely makes its way down to the ordinary person except as a diluted second cousin of the real stuff. Like hyper-asbestos suits for firemen are crafted from the same type of stuff that protects Crusader from flames just not so well [15rED vs 6rED ].

 

Economics also drive the push from supertech to normal tech, that and super secret classifications and entities unwilling to share their advances to the world. Take Dr. Doom, or his CU counterpart Destroyer, Doom has *zero* interest in letting the fruits of his genius end up in the hands of anyone else. Especially if he might be facing that same technology in the future. Reed Richards on the other hand makes a tidy profit of the patents of some of he better ideas he has had. He doesn't design weapon systems for the US Govt anymore but he already has the billons so who cares?

 

Hawksmoor

[Klytus]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

Another viable option: if the scientist who made a given device is sufficiently superhumanly intelligent' date=' than the gadget may be technically duplicable and still not viable to mass produce, simply because no one else can understand how it works.[/quote']

That sounds something like the approach I use. The level of intelligence required to design and build super-tech is a super-power in and of itself. Plus, once super-tech is out there, it is prohibitively expensive to anybody but governments, large corporations, and super-rich super-heroes. After all, why should the city spend $20,000 per officer to equip them with blaster pistols when guns and tasers are so much cheaper and do the same thing? Super-humans are rare, so the larger cities have just one special SWAT team with the gear and weaponry to fight super-humans, and even then they can only afford it if they agree to help test experimental gear. Mix in the fact that the governemtns and corporations who build, design and use super-tech have a vested interest in keeping the availability of it limited. The government wants to keep it out of the hands of foreign powers, while the corporations have much larger profit margins if the gear is rare and expensive rather than common and cheap.

[Blue]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

Also known as the "Transparent Aluminum" aproach

 

(For people who don't get me, it's a Star Trek IV reference... Scotty gives the formula for Transparent Aluminum to a guy in the past knowing it would take him many years to figure out how to duplicate the process.)

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

I came up with a supervillian group who had the ability to create supertech items. They were all magicians but were influenced by Star Trek at an early age. They built a "transporter", their magic wands looked and acted like phasers and they communicated with each other via a communcator that on the inside had a round crystal ball hooked up to a 9 volt battery.

 

Anyone who saw the phaser in action could use it, but if they just found it, it would be a plastic toy to them. The transporter required one of the magicians to operate, otherwise it was just a huge prop. The magicians would travel around in a huge VW bus that would hold ten of them (three weren't in seats) and they had to take the middle seat out to make room for the transporter platform which was built into floor. You could also stand up inside the VW which shouldn't have been possible.

 

 

 

In the current campaign, supertech works with principles with magic but running counter to them. Another words, magic works where supertech has problems and vice versa.

[Agent X]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

I like my super technology to be, at its root, super technology. I'm not interested in the "official" explanation for superpowers and super science as being an effect of increase in magical energies and whatever. My take is that very few scientists in a supers genre are capable of understanding Dr. Destroyer's or Reed Richard's or Doctor Doom's work well enough to repair their gadgets much less duplicate their gadgets.

 

And the standard superhero universe does have a tinge of science fiction to it anyway; big governments have some power armor, flying cars, and the like. Moonbases, big space bases, awesome monorails...

[Rapier]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

I don't think I've ever had a single unifying theme for supertech. Over the period I've been running my Champs campaign the players have occupied about a dozen cities and probably played a hundred different characters are run across a thousand different major NPCs.

 

Some supertech doesn't get reproduced because it is not really supertech so much as it is the scientists manipulation of quantum space and his imprinting of his power on the technology. I refer to this as the MacGyver theory. Give this super-scientist a toaster, four rubberbands, a ball of wax and a VCR and he can build a teleporter.

 

Some supertech doesn't get reproduced because it is so jealously guarded. The Dyanmo has built himself a supersuit. If he allows the technology get out every Tom, Dick and Destroyer will know his weaknesses and be able to defeat him, thus ending his super-career. His technology can also be devastating if used in the wrong hands. So everything he builds self-destructs when tampered with. While he might be able to elevate the level of living in the world, it is not by any means a sure thing. So he continues to do what he can on a personal level to help mankind.

 

Some supertech doesn't get reproduced because the guy that built it can no longer reproduce it. Call it some kind of savantism, dumb luck or falling and smacking your head on the toilet. The scientist had a single breakthrough that helped him develop the technology. He cannot get it to reproduce so that one instance has become pricelss. He daren't take it apart to see how it works, because he may never get it back together again.

 

Some supertech isn't cost effective. It needs to be generate, built, gathered etc in conditions that are so prohibitively expensive that the cost/benefit just isn't there. Things that need to be made at temperatures near absolute zero, in pressure/heat that is only known at the center of a planet etc.

 

Some supertech is beyond the technology to reproduce. This is mostly alien stuff. Hand Galileo an IC or circuit board. Doesn't do him a darn bit of good. Give Newton a laptop, he may have some fun playing solitaire for a couple of hours until the battery goes dead. Then he uses it to prop up his coffee table.

 

I don't think I need any unifying theory of supertech any more than I need a unifying theory of magic or a unifying theory of superpowers. Each instance is unique...and that is enough for me. It also allows much more freedom of expression for my players and myself.

[Guest Champsguy]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

I don't have to come up with an overarching explanation, because I don't run in generic worlds. That's one problem I have with Hero. Too many people assume that just because you can make any kind of character and any kind of world, that everything is generic.

 

Each NPC genius I put in my world will have a very specific reason to not share his supertech to the extent that it becomes mass-produced. I don't have to worry about "generic super-inventor", because I don't have any of those.

 

Dr Disintegrator doesn't want his tech stolen, so he booby traps it.

 

Professor Amazing has mass-produced a few things, but his really cool stuff is all experimental. The teleporter works fine, but its got a 14- burnout. Do you know how to fix it? Some of it works perfectly, but hasn't got out for whatever reason. The time-traveling microwave is cool (when you want your pizza pocket NOW), but there's no market for a $40 million microwave. The interdimensional satellite dish is kinda cool, but you can bet the networks don't like it (it throws off the advertising dollars), and besides, you didn't know there were that many spanish channels.

 

Metal Monarch built himself a kick-ass suit of power armor, and the military may have made some cheap knock-offs, but he really doesn't want anybody to have the same stuff.

[zakueins]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

From the script to "Ultimate Iron Man" #2 (Petition Marvel Now!)-when Jim Rhodes ask Dr. Smith why they're having so many problems with building new Iron Man suits:

 

(Table with a stone axe, the jawbone of the an antelope, and two big pieces of flint).

 

DR SMITH:

You want to know why we're behind? Using these, and only these, go build a laptop. Hell, I'll even throw in a CD-ROM with college-level chemistry and mechanical engineering texts in Croatian. We aren't just pushing the state of the art, we're bloody breaking it.

 

(Slams his hand down on a Kree shield generator).

 

DR SMITH:

See this? We've been able to make it run for about eighteen hours before the batteries run out.

 

(Hand on another device, a Stark-made shield generator-should be similar to the Kree one, but much bigger and bulkier).

 

DR SMITH:

This? Made this one myself-and it burns out in three hours of constant use, or if you ever turn the power off. We're like the Germans in World War II with their jet engines. Maybe, maybe we can get it to work, but the technology is so bleeding edge we're lucky we aren't losing fingers.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

From the script to "Ultimate Iron Man" #2 (Petition Marvel Now!)-when Jim Rhodes ask Dr. Smith why they're having so many problems with building new Iron Man suits:

 

(Table with a stone axe, the jawbone of the an antelope, and two big pieces of flint).

 

DR SMITH:

You want to know why we're behind? Using these, and only these, go build a laptop. Hell, I'll even throw in a CD-ROM with college-level chemistry and mechanical engineering texts in Croatian. We aren't just pushing the state of the art, we're bloody breaking it.

 

(Slams his hand down on a Kree shield generator).

 

DR SMITH:

See this? We've been able to make it run for about eighteen hours before the batteries run out.

 

(Hand on another device, a Stark-made shield generator-should be similar to the Kree one, but much bigger and bulkier).

 

DR SMITH:

This? Made this one myself-and it burns out in three hours of constant use, or if you ever turn the power off. We're like the Germans in World War II with their jet engines. Maybe, maybe we can get it to work, but the technology is so bleeding edge we're lucky we aren't losing fingers.

 

 

Is this an actual miniseries??

[zakueins]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

I'm trying to sell it to Marvel. E-mail them that you want to read Ultimate Iron Man now.

 

Is this an actual miniseries??

[Guest Champsguy]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

From the script to "Ultimate Iron Man" #2 (Petition Marvel Now!)-when Jim Rhodes ask Dr. Smith why they're having so many problems with building new Iron Man suits:

 

(Table with a stone axe, the jawbone of the an antelope, and two big pieces of flint).

 

DR SMITH:

You want to know why we're behind? Using these, and only these, go build a laptop. Hell, I'll even throw in a CD-ROM with college-level chemistry and mechanical engineering texts in Croatian. We aren't just pushing the state of the art, we're bloody breaking it.

 

(Slams his hand down on a Kree shield generator).

 

DR SMITH:

See this? We've been able to make it run for about eighteen hours before the batteries run out.

 

(Hand on another device, a Stark-made shield generator-should be similar to the Kree one, but much bigger and bulkier).

 

DR SMITH:

This? Made this one myself-and it burns out in three hours of constant use, or if you ever turn the power off. We're like the Germans in World War II with their jet engines. Maybe, maybe we can get it to work, but the technology is so bleeding edge we're lucky we aren't losing fingers.

 

 

2 things:

 

First, Iron Man has traditionally been able to kick the crap out of Shi'ar and Kree tech. He's punched holes in their starships with his fist. So I don't think he'd have to much of a problem with their tech (though I'm not familiar with the Ultimates world too much). So maybe it'd be better if it was the Ultimate SHIELD.

 

Second, why in the hell is there a table with a stone axe in the middle of a research lab?

[Rapier]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

Second' date=' why in the hell is there a table with a stone axe in the middle of a research lab?[/quote']

Sometimes a high tech problem needs a low tech solution.

[zakueins]

Re: Why super tech never goes mainstream

 

1)It's for Ulitmate Iron Man, and the Iron Man suit has handled the Kree, but it's huge and bulky. Which is what the series of panels is to imply.

2)The stone axe is Dr. Smith's "visual aid" to clueless people that ask "why can't you just build something identical to what the (insert alien of the week here) made?"

 

Sometimes, he takes swings at the clueless people.

 

2 things:

 

First, Iron Man has traditionally been able to kick the crap out of Shi'ar and Kree tech. He's punched holes in their starships with his fist. So I don't think he'd have to much of a problem with their tech (though I'm not familiar with the Ultimates world too much). So maybe it'd be better if it was the Ultimate SHIELD.

 

Second, why in the hell is there a table with a stone axe in the middle of a research lab?