Re: COLONIAL WEAPONS

On 29 Jan 2002 Ryan Gill wrote:

> At 12:50 PM -0600 1/29/02, Scott Clinton wrote:
> >just as you can not take any cutting edge tech into
> >the middle of nowhere and expect to have 
> >replacements made for it.
>
>What do you think goes into a Laser of 2183? 
>Electronics? Some kind of complex tube that requires 
>multiple chemical and microsopic industrial processes

>to make? Would such an industrial process be able to 
>be shoved into a container to be shipped 50 Light 
>years away and not need anything else other than bulk

>refined material?

I think that would be the key question - can one shove
the entire industrial process into a container.
Obviously if you send your colonists out with only a
metal lathe, they won't be able to build/support
high-tech electronics.

But if you have the ability to import some level of
self-sustaining industry and technology than why are
you settling for 20th century technology instead of
bringing factory equipment that can produce high
tech/electronics from the raw materials you feed them?
 If that was possible than the factories/machines
would be able to devote a certain amout of time to
producing parts for self repair.  Or at least keep
them running for a a few years until another shipment
arrives from the homeworld.

My suggestion does depend on the idea that colonists
still have a link (however thin) back to the
infrastructure of the homeworld.  But I think that if
that link was completely lost then the colonists would
find themselves armed with bows/spears before too
long, regardless of the technology they started with
(at least for a while).

Jakim

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