Not
having a jump drive factory in your system, nor industrial capacity to build the components, is equivalent to not having the ability to build J-drives, on a timescale of decades at least.
Even if you have the blueprints for something, it can be a long, arduous process to build up the capability to build it. I know a huge amount about computers, yet left to my own devices in the wilderness, I could probably work my whole life without being able
to fabricate a single vacuum tube, much less a silicon chip full of tiny transistors. I probably wouldn't even reach the point of producing usable metal from ore.
Which is why a low pop world, low tech will not regain the technology. Now consider you live somewhere with a lot of other manufacturing capability, sizeable libraries, major universities, and the necessary resources, and a powerful need to make
chips, just no silicon fab plant.
How long would it take then?
Phil is talking about Pop 9, TL 8 worlds in an environment where Jump Drive has existed for some 4000 years; population at our scale and at a TL higher than the we are today.
These worlds aren’t regressing to nothing, if we knew that Jump drive was possible today and had universities and libraries with the theory and practice, but just lacked the manufacturing capability, we could do it. It would be expensive, not
work the best and take a long time, but we could do it.
If we were suddenly knocked back to TL3, yeah maybe, but a TL 8 world in the former 1st Imperium which would likely have existing ships to copy, or at least libraries about theory and practice? Pfft. Not simple, but hardly like a Pop0 world in
the boonies with a pocketknife, some string and aluminum foil.
Unless your name was MacGyver. Now THERE was a guy with JOT out the wazoo :-)
HE could build a Jump Drive from string, some aluminum foil and a pocketknife….
--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group
Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs