Technology in the Known Worlds

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Tadeus
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Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Tadeus » Thu Nov 24, 2011 8:48 am

As we all know, the setting books are full of seemingly contradictory information. Technology is rare, difficult to maintain and expensive, but at the same time the Hazat use it to augment enslaved criminals that they send in masses against the Caliphate. The Church avoids all not merciful high tech, but the Brother Battle on Stigmata alter their bodies to look like hulking monstrosities (metal alligator jaw, skin producing slippery oil etc.). On some worlds there is not even enough tech for the nobles to use, but Leagheim and Criticorum have continents full of Second Republic technology that is even cheap enough for common freemen. How do you handle it? Are these differences only the product of high interplanetary shipping costs?

(And yes, I’m setting up multiple topics to bring some life into these freshly born forums :>)

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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Angelman » Thu Nov 24, 2011 9:39 am

In principle, higher tech (TL4+?) gadgets are illegal in the Phoenix Empire due to the (supposed) corrupting influence it has on souls. However, with the Doctrine of the Privilege of Martyrs grants dispensation for use of higher tech to certain groups. Originally, this included Church clergy only (Orthodox only?), but in time the privilege was expanded to the nobles and the guilders, all of whom have taken on the heavy burden of leading mankind and protecting the species from outside threats.

In addition, the prices of technology is kept deliberatelly high to prevent the non-elite groups from getting their hands on stuff. Also, let us not forget that there exist a widespread and honest suspicion towards technology, so many wouldn't touch high tech gadgets even if they could afford them.
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Tadeus
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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Tadeus » Thu Nov 24, 2011 10:28 am

You are right. I’m speaking only about people who are allowed to use technology. What means almost everyone, who has the support of either the League, the Church, a Noble House (even a minor one), or Alexius. That’s a lot o people. Even serfs can use technology when they are provided with it by their lord. The slave criminals mentioned above were another example. And that’s only on planets with “normal” tech levels. No one can really control the use of technology on planets where it’s everywhere around you. Sure, there are also factions that shy away from tech. Mostly servants, some parts of church sects and some li Halans, but most of the Houses and Guilds would do almost everything for powerful old tech, and rightly so, because it can give them the edge in the struggle for political power.
Last edited by Tadeus on Thu Nov 24, 2011 11:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

Tadeus
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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Tadeus » Thu Nov 24, 2011 11:59 am

Well, yes and no. When you start reading the rulebook you learn that most of the citizens of the Known Worlds only have access to Victorian age or even Middle Age type technology and see technology as dangerous and evil. The same statement is repeated several times in the next chapters. And then you start reading all the stories, adventures and setting descriptions, where everyone and his mother uses technology (even normal freeman that are only loosely connected to one of the factions) and it’s hard to find a planet that hasn’t got some high-tech city/region or another type of shiny miraculous place from the past. The setting books clearly show that there is a big group of citizens who are not members of the 3 (or 4) ruling factions but still have a lot of contact with modern or Diaspora type technology. Sure, these are mainly townspeople. Servants and slaves who live their lives on rural noble estates in primitive conditions are the majority in the Known Worlds, but they are surely less than 95% of humans in the Known Worlds.

EDIT: Checked it with the book - 75% are serfs, 18% are freemen, 7% are nobles/Church/or guild members.

Taking into consideration the fact that a considerable part of serfs works in the heavy industry and not on fields the potential for contact with technology is even bigger than stated before. Of course I'm only writing about regular contact with technology and not about knowing how it really works or owning it.
Last edited by Tadeus on Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Tadeus » Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:53 pm


Tadeus
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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Tadeus » Thu Nov 24, 2011 4:46 pm

What only means that 93% of the population cannot own advanced technology legally without permission from their masters. Most of the time they don’t own it, they just use it for work or profit from it passively while living in a modern environment.

Please take into consideration that even jobs on starships (which are insanely expensive and rare) are handled partly by a crew of almost untrained serfs. When it is possible on starships there is no reason not to do it in factories. You only need some professional guildsmen to lead the masses of workers, which don’t really have to understand what they are doing as long as they remember what their duties are.

I really don’t want to start an argument over all this. It’s just that for many years I’ve interpreted the setting exactly as you are describing it now. But after reading all the descriptions of planets I’ve realized that it’s just not possible to defend this statement. Yes, there are many places in the Known Worlds where technology is met with fear and superstition, but it doesn’t (by far) happen so often like one would be inclined to believe after reading the main description in the rulebook.

I’m also not claiming that a specific technology level means that you have access to ALL the technology possible. Mass media are the most obvious exception as they, together with AI, have received a special treatment by the Church.

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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby Sir Marco » Mon Nov 28, 2011 10:09 am


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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby angelicmadrigal » Fri Dec 09, 2011 1:28 pm


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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby angelicmadrigal » Fri Dec 09, 2011 1:36 pm

This actually reminds me a bit of the game I'm in currently. I'm playing a Vuldrok with a tech of 3 and one guy in the group is running around with a gun that shoots "magic bullets", think kind of like caster gun from Outlaw Star. Well needless to say my character is totally freaked out by it, and they are totally freaked out by her "Ettin bone" bracers and her runecasting artifact....bwahahaha.

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Re: Technology in the Known Worlds

Postby woollygooseuk » Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:52 pm

Technology lies at the heart of much of my love-hate relationship with FS (along with its close cousin economics). My own sense is that the writers genuinely aren't interested in coherent worldbuilding - the tech level of any given locale is "as required by the plot". I think Angelicmadrigal has it right that pretty much all the source material covers the exceptions to the rule rather than the rule itself. As an example take Freemen; they live at an average of TL3? So of course the Players Guide shows us a day in the life of a TL5-6 Freeman. Go figure. As GMs we are then left to try and infer the 'normal' by extrapolating from the exceptions. Analysis of the Fief books results in an average planet TL of 5.23; hardly medieval. If you weight the figures for population, the average KWorlder lives at TL 5.72. So what are the writers actually trying to tell us when they write that the TL of Cadiz or Ravenna is 5?

I think you have 2 options:

a. Go with the FS 'Passion Play' concept; focus on the 6-7 actors on the stage and give them whatever tech is cool and/or required by the plot. Assume the remaining 99% (or 95% or 93%) of the KW is no more than a backcloth painted with very broad strokes.

b. Randomly select 10 references to tech in the sourcebooks. Pick one that fits your vision of the KW, discard the other 9 and start building the KW yourself from the ground up. You might want to check out the old MegaTraveller approach to TL (so burn me as a heretic!). It went into a bit more detail and assigned each planet a common high TL (widely available in the rich parts of the world), a common low TL (tech used by the bulk of the population), an achievement TL (capable of being made but not widely available), and a novelty TL (prototypes, off-world imports, alien tech).

Good luck working out how the agricultural surplus of 90%+ pre-industrial peasants supports a post-industrial civilisation.


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