Hello Chuck McKnight and C. Berry,
I haven't watched Passengers, but the trailers I saw did make me think that there should have been some crew awake.
The jump message torpedo C. Berry was omitted per Consolidated CT Errata and was replaced with an RPV drone. CT Adventur4 Leviathan p. 35
"Jump Message Torpedoes: Consists of little more than a jump drive, fuel, and a recording unit. "J-torps" are used to send messages by automatically broadcasting a per-recorded tape at the conclusion of the jumps."
The jump message torpedo is at least 100 d-tons since that is the smallest hull size that can carry a jump drive, and has a computer model rated to handle the jump. Of course I would think if the torp miss jumped my guess is the message would still be transmitted when it returned to normal space.
Self-driving cars so far still require an operator. I watched an episode of Jay Leno's Garage in which the car, a Telsa I believe, nagged him to put his hands back on the steering wheel. IIRC more than one science fiction movie had an override allowing a living operator to take control.
According to TNE the final nail in the collapse of the Third Imperium in MT was the release of the Virus that allowed computers to take control from living beings. Depending on the strain the best case is very few beings died in the worst case the Computer killed everyone.
Thank you both for the replies.
From: "Chuck McKnight" <xxxxxx@pheonic.com>
To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2017 2:23:09 PM
Subject: Re: [TML] Question: Can computers and robots operate a ship without a living being onboard?
I dunno, having just watched Passengers I was reminded of the importance of a skeleton crew to handle unforeseen emergencies that the AI couldn’t. ;-)
This is the (re)opening salvo in the great "jump torpedo" debate. Summary:
1) Realistically speaking, in a world where self-driving cars and the like are happening at TL8, not only should biological sophonts not be required as crew, they should be considered hazardous to the smooth operation of a ship.
2) The Traveller esthetic is one which explicitly rejects pervasive AI, transhumanism, and the like, so to keep the feel you have to ignore (1).
3) Traveller canon has examples (e.g. "Leviathan", IIRC) of jump-capable fully autonomous vessels, but these don't show up in other places where they would seem a perfect fit (most notably, X-Boats). So canon is at best a poor guide.
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