Technology in the Known Worlds

Discussion on game mastering Fading Suns. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Ezekiah » Mon Dec 12, 2011 3:24 pm


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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Tadeus » Tue Dec 13, 2011 5:08 am


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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby 77IM » Wed Dec 14, 2011 2:11 am

I guess I always assumed the planetary tech levels were maximums, not averages. Like on a TL6 planet, the PCs could reasonably be expected to track down and purchase a TL6 item or find someone to repair their TL6 item -- even if this was only available in the main spaceport. The rest of the planet might be TL2 or 3 or who knows what; and there could be some hard-to-find expert dealing in TL7 or 8 or something; but if the PCs want TL6 stuff they could get it with minimal fuss.

Even under this interpretation, planetary TL is still not the most useful metric since, the GM can usually just decide how hard it is to buy stuff in any given situation.

-- 77IM

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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Danos » Mon Dec 19, 2011 11:44 am

I kinda like the idea of using the planetary tech level as a maximum. That is probably the original basis for the stat, though I agree that the stat is most likely a carry over from EotFS. My read from the survey books and various background text was the planetary TL reflected how much infrastructure survived the Fall. Criticorum has a very high TL, and has things like monorails, freemen have access to washing machines and mass transit and radio or even TV. But this wasn't implemented well. Every Vuldrok world has lower tech, but every Vuldrok household has a god-box (a radio), and from the description it sounds like satellite radio or a very good broadcasting network. So they have to have radio stations and so forth, which doesn't match the TL stats and descriptions for those worlds. When you read the description of Rampart, it sounds like they gave the world a really high TL because of relic tech, but the regular people have no better tech than the regular people on Byzantium or Delphi.

I agree, this is not really a useful metric. The GM is going to decide whether there are subways or horse-drawn carts anyway, and who is allowed to use any given tech. I'll miss the tech attribute for characters, but I won't miss it for planets.

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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Bogie » Tue Dec 27, 2011 3:56 pm

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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Angelman » Tue Dec 27, 2011 4:23 pm

Fun fact. The world's first proper subway (steam engin trains) opened in London in 1863, far earlier than most people realize. That's it, just a fun fact :)
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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Calvin » Tue Dec 27, 2011 9:55 pm

It's better to think of tech levels as broken little steps instead of neat stairs where one step automatically brings advances in other areas. Some areas of development will lag behind, others might race ahead. It's all about local needs, available resources and the sensibilities of the locals. Invention doesn't come from lone genii as much as from the meetings and needs of people.

What is considered "high tech" is no easy definition. I used breeding as an example in the earlier forum. Breeding alien, man-carrying flying beasts may be natural on one world... It's a time-honoured craft, with no connection at all to the foul genneticks of the fallen Republic! If everyone is wearing a cheap TL 5 air filter to survive, it will not alienate them as much as that Pancreator-damned TL 4 aeroplane they've just seen your PCs arrive in for the first time. Don't forget that most humans in the KW are living on alien worlds. It's easy to preach of a simple life in Arcadia when you are sitting on snugly, Goldilocks Terra where alien rats that can eat through reinforced concrete don't come at you, and the sky isn't coloured yellow from gaseous composites in the atmosphere. Serfs, and even most nobles, have little to compare other worlds with. If I have to draw a line, I usually start the Engineer tech patents around TL 6.

Instead of a wide chasm between dirt-farming serfs and lofty TL 6 gear, I see a wide gap of TL 4-5 mid-range tech. A farming community might not own a truck because of economic considerations, but they wouldn't be spooked each time the merchants caravan drives up to bring goods in to the regional capital and it's market. If all planets relied on pre-1800s farming, you'd need about 8 agricultural workers for each specialist. The advantage of post-industrial Leagueheim population numbers alone would be able to smash other planets. I still believe there is a large minority of urban serfs working in industrial or pre-industrial labour.

Instead of ascribing a general tech level to the Church's loathing, look at the areas it despises. AI research, genetic engineering and cybernetics, in that they fundamentally challenge and change the human condition. Mass media, even TL 4-5 varieties, because they threaten to bring social unrest and compete with the Church's monopoly of a universal message. WMDs, simply because of the suffering they can bring.

Daily interaction with high tech might not make a serfs/factory workers life more bearable. A Decados serf riding a monorail out to the mine on Severus is used more efficiently, not primarily enjoying better comfort. TL 5 factory work on Leagueheim can be boring, monotonous 10-hour shifts of drudgery.

Technology isn't necessarily more expensive. The telegraph network was developed some decades after the heliograph. The heliograph used lower-tech optical signaling towers instead of wiring, but the chains of towers needed to maintain a connection between two points was so expensive to build, man and maintain that the method was abandoned as soon as copper wiring was available.

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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Bogie » Wed Dec 28, 2011 1:40 pm

Definitely agree with a lot of what you are saying Calvin. I read this post yesterday and spent some time thinking about it as well. Another thing I thought might make a difference is "technology you can see". The serfs may still be using farm implements developed from higher tech materials and not rusty iron and wood implements.

Huge beasts of burden, once genetically engineered are so common and breed true that really no-one knows the difference between them and any other normal native beast. Used to provide meat or do field plowing and harvesting that would normally be the work of 10 people.

The local fief owner / nobleman would still probably have a telecom device of some sort to communicate with other nobility. The village leader might have a device that predicts the weather so they know the best time to plant / harvest crops, or when to cover fields in danger of frost.

I also could picture many serfs following the Word of their local Church official as well, and they might even have stories about people that use forbidden technology. "I remember when Ol' Joe used that device to make his crops grow quicker? Well, when Father Simon found out and removed his blessing from Joe's fields his crops withered and died. You best take all that tech and move on stranger, you'll get no help from me."
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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Calvin » Wed Dec 28, 2011 8:25 pm

It's not as much a fear of technology as a general fear of the unknown. Most people don't have the skills to understand what constitutes technology. Instead, it is subsumed together with the fear of people speaking differently (evil incantations!), dressing differently (cultists!), wearing their hair out (harlots!), using a differently coloured Omega Gospel (antinomists!)... It's not really just the technology itself, but how it upsets the social and economic balance of a community. If the serfs of a region are used to buying TL 5 crop fertilizers made in chemical plants in the regional capital for centuries because they live on an alien world where they will all go and die of starvation if they don't, they might well be upset by the construction of a TL 3-4 railroad through their lands. And if I happen upon a better method of organising the field plots, or chop trees... That's not Invention, right? Just time-honoured craft!

Since there is little definition of exactly what constitutes high tech, there is room for local adaptations. This goes for the clergy too. A Leagueheim priest will be used to Leagueheim standards of tech. He won't be spooked at a VTOL swooping down to land on a skyscraper, or preaching in a subterranean railway cart. That's just the facts of life.

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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Calvin » Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:55 pm

The worst of science for the Church seems to be when it alters or questions essential human nature.


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