Post Scarcity....

One of the arguments for it is that dampner technology, control of the
nuclear forces, implies simple transmutation of elements, which then
couples with nanofabrication and suddenly everyone has Santa Claus as
a personal servant.

There's currently a big example of stable, on going, fusion reaction
visible through my window. We know it's possible. We can even make
Farnsworth Fusors and do it... but not at energy break even.

In the 1950s, everybody was sure we'd have atomic powered flying cars
by the 1970s.
In the 1960s, "Hard SciFi" written by a respected scientist said we'd
have AGI by 2001. And a moon base. And ...

What if transmutation of elements is in the same category of technology?
Things that _should_ be straightforward, but are always, "In the next
10/20/50 years, we will have ____"

The 3I has research facilities where they do transmutation... but the
energy consumption is huge compared to just mining and transporting
the stuff.
Or some percentage of the new element is the wrong isotope.A food
replicator which makes bagels that are 30% 10C (half life 19 seconds)
instead of 14C (natural carbon)  is not going to produce food that is
popular.

There are, of course, the cranks who say the Megacorps have
transmuters, but they keep the technology secret and suppressed so
they can keep marketing what their factories produce. "It's the greedy
ultra rich... my brother in law's uncle's sister's aunt's second
husband has this thing made from two mason jars, some wire and a
battery that if you put in water, you get gold. But InstellarTech
bought it off of him for 200Mcr and he's not allowed to tell us more
or they'll kill him."

There are others that say the Hiver's did a Manipulation to kill
research on this topic... except for in Area 67.

T5 posits that when cultures get over TL31, they become unstable. They
either wipe themselves out, or "Ascend" to a truly posthumaniti or
perhaps post-physical state. It could be the 3I ran across evidence of
this, and pulled a psychohistory move akin to the anti-psionics bias
to keep it from happening. If the other major polities had similar
evidence, there might be a decision on all their parts "We'll
investigate this quietly, but make sure our populaces don't know,
because we might suddenly not have populaces any more."

Another option on this is that Traveller *is* a post scarcity
society... the arguments about "you can't carry the tonnage needed to
keep the 3I running in Type-A's" is completely true. The IN couldn't
be supported by the taxes... also true. In this case, there is only
one "big thing" that Marc didn't explicitly say in the rule books:
that Traveller is a (recursive) role playing game. In this scenario,
the Travellers, IN, IISS, Zhodani, etc are all people _playing_ roles
in a post scarcity universe. They lose points for breaking character
and using the ubiquitous replicator/magic tech, and thus stay "in
period", exploring, trading, etc.... because when you're a full-on
post scarcity society, life gets boring. In this case, what we think
of as the "OTU" is actually a MMARRPG (Massively Multiplayer Augmented
Reality RPG). (Those TL3 worlds are the hide-outs of the SCA.... )