Living in a TL11 world

RogerBW

For those following along in ULTRA-TECH, this ends up looking a lot like the “safe-tech” variant. There’s advanced physics and engineering, but rather less modification of people. So from the TL11 standard we delete or downplay:

most genetic engineering
neural interfaces and cybernetics
molecular nanotechnology
swarmbots
volitional AI and mind emulations
augmented reality

Some of these are not completely absent, but they are bigger and more expensive than the base TL11 assumes, often one-off prototypes that turn out to have fatal flaws.

I’ll go into details as necessary, but that should be a helpful starting point. Some examples of how this works:

If you’re on an expedition with a vehicle of some sort, it probably runs on fusion power, and your kit gets recharged from it. You have plenty of power for running laser drills and whatnot.
Even your pocket computer can store, to a first approximation, everything (multiple exabytes). Unless you’ve had it taken away, I will assume that you have all plausible material among which to do research. But you still operate it with your hands and eyes; you can use voice if your hands are busy, but it’s not as fast. It can talk back, but you’d get very bored trying to have a conversation with it.
In most places you can simply share files and other messages between pocket computers. When dealing with secure machines like a ship’s key systems, it’s a bit trickier; generally you need to copy information onto a data chip that’s electrically simple enough not to have any hidden nasties, in a standard format that can be thoroughly scanned before it’s allowed anywhere near the isolated secure system. It’s all a bit of a faff, and sometimes people take short-cuts.
When you take your place on the bridge of a spaceship, you can use any of the crew couches, and the controls will come up in the appropriate configuration for the job you’re doing. Merchant spacers will often customise this further for their own tastes; the Navy doesn’t want you to be useless if the ship’s profile memory is damaged, so they train you to use a standard configuration.
The best-quality clothing is self-cleaning, adjusts itself to fit you, and changes colour on command. (They really do only stock two sizes of uniform. Well, maybe three.) If you’re in uniform, it’s recording everything that goes on around you and backing that up securely onto the ship’s computers - unless you turn it off, which will itself be brought up at the court-martial.
If you need to talk to someone a long way away, you’ll use a radio or a laser comm. A bulky pocket laser or radio will let you talk to a ship in low orbit, and one that fits in a briefcast or backpack will let you contact a ship in high orbit; they’ll all have built-in encryption that means you don’t need to worry about being overheard. All communications are limited by lightspeed.
Data can flow from one end of known space to the other in a matter of hours or days. News from a planet is broadcast to the jump point; a courier boat records everything and jumps through, then rebroadcasts on the other side. Each in-system transmission slows things down by minutes, each jump by up to an hour as the boats wait for traffic to be flowing in the right direction. Backwaters may not have boats on station, in which case they might be weeks behind the news.
Many simple technical tasks are really simple: the machine says “module 2285 is not working properly” and flashes a light on it, and the repairman (or even repair robot) pulls it out and sticks in a new one. Non-routine stuff (e.g. “module 2285 is failing because module 8871 is behaving in a way that is unusual but still within the specifications”) still needs humans.
Most food on board comes out of a “food factory” which runs off a collection of vats producing various biological feedstocks. It’s not inspired cooking, but it’s not bad, and there’s endless variation; people can even bring along their own recipes. Yes, it can also make alcohol. The newer survival rations can last seventy years on a shelf, the older ones just thirty.
Space habitats tend to be small and to exist for particular reasons (e.g. a zero-g factory, a “shore battery” fort at a jump point). Most people prefer to live on planets, and there doesn’t seem to be a shortage yet. (Some of the more enthusiastic engineers are thinking of ways to make red dwarf stars burn faster and hotter...)
A ship spends most of its time in zero-g conditions; there’s no artificial gravity. Medical treatments prevent bone and muscle loss (and deal with radiation too), but the sound of space is the sound of velcro.
A civilised world has controlled weather. Not only is the forecast accurate, you can vote on it. But this is pretty expensive and many newer colonies won’t have it.
Most people on Earth don’t have recognisable jobs any more; nobody starves, as there’s enough of a surplus to support a basic but decent lifestyle for everyone even with other ongoing costs. Even wanting to join up makes you a fairly unusual person. Colonies are another matter; they don’t have the same level of automation.
If you want to shoot someone, you have lots of options. An outside-duty uniform incorporates a certain amount of armour protection, but this is mostly useful against industrial hazards rather than the full frightfulness of human ingenuity (DR15 against burning and piercing attacks, meaning that even a “holdout” X-ray laser will still hurt you). A Royal Marine will be wearing sealed space armour (DR60-100 against everything), but will still be hurt by rifle shots. The Infantry have even tougher suits, but they need an on-board fusion reactor to power them because they’re wimps. (“And that’s when the fight started, your honour.”)
Medical facilities aboard ship are pretty good; they can grow replacement limbs and organs in a matter of weeks, and probably keep you alive until they’re ready (worst case, in a stasis tank). But there’s no brain recording: if your head isn’t recovered in a decently fresh state, you’re dead.
Most people on Earth don’t need, and so don’t have, personal vehicles. Those who can afford to do it for fun may own an aircar (mach 2, unlimited range, 4 seats). There are also larger utility fliers, just barely subsonic, but with a crew of two and twelve passenger seats. The Marines love their nuclear jetpacks, but find them hard to justify.
The modern battlefield looks like a game of hide-and-seek between low-flying (sometimes crawling) drones, with occasional human troops well behind the front lines. Of course, the front lines can move fast. Manned air vehicles stay well away; every soldier has some anti-air missiles and a tactical datalink that’ll tell him where to point them.