12-16-2013, 09:10 PM | #171 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Stuttgart, Germany
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Re: Flat Black
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I spent much of the past couple of years working in various ports in sub-Saharan Africa and the dichotomy of TL1-8 which can be found within miles of each other is fascinating. Quote:
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12-16-2013, 09:11 PM | #172 | ||
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Flat Black
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
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12-16-2013, 09:46 PM | #173 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Stuttgart, Germany
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Re: Flat Black
That doesn't mean anything to me.
Men with whips need to sleep and eat too, maintaining that type of oppressive cultural paradigm requires continuous collusion. |
12-16-2013, 10:27 PM | #174 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Flat Black
The RAW notation is "TL 4/10" see Borrowed Technology p. B513.
Last edited by sir_pudding; 12-17-2013 at 01:15 AM. |
12-16-2013, 10:47 PM | #175 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Re: Flat Black
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As for: Divine monarchs: the history described above seems ripe for bizarre founder effects, so I can swallow it. I'm betting that the apparent monarch sacrifices are mostly staged (unless something has gone very very wrong). Rich aristos with TL10 knowledge and equipment are not going to routinely auto-immolate, they'll burn a convincing facsimile and take one of many high-tech-high-wealth escape hatches from the problem. (Some might out of religious duty, but most or all stretches my credulity.) 10,000 competing micro-states exposed to the Empire and the Suite in cultural and technological stasis: er, um, I don't understand. You give historical examples, but the high tech contacts those historical examples had were not the Empire, they were colonial Empires out to make a quick buck. The Flat Black Empire will be applying it's TL10 social science to the colony looking for cracks and crannies to drive wedges of human misery reduction into, and with something so huge and balkanized there's going to be a lot of cracks. Since the Empire has really good social science, they aren't failing due to incompetence. Since they are inhumanly moral, they aren't failing due to corruption. Since this place is over 10^9 people and in the Core, it stretches credulity that they are unwilling to spend the resources. I suspect politics. |
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12-17-2013, 12:32 AM | #176 | ||||
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Flat Black
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It doesn't matter too much about the heat: it is sufficient to make the land unfit from permanent habitation, but currents and the thermal inertia of the oceans will mean that the crossing is survivable, especially if you take the quick route from Spring into Autumn. And since information from orbital surveys will be continuously available, you won't have the thing of explorers daring to sail no further down the coast of Africa for fear of passing their bingo point without finding anywhere to land safe. Windiness is a worse challenge. Beta Hydri VI is a planet larger than Earth with a 13-hour day and a mean surface temperature 21 K warmer than Earth. The winds are going to be frightful, especially the westerly "Roaring Forties" and "Howling Fifties". Can TL 4/10 shipbuilding make something to survive and navigate winds five times as energetic as Earth's? If not, do I have any historical tricks up my sleeve? What say that when Navabharata's entrepreneurial conqueror showed up with his battalion of mercenaries some colonists fled to the other polar region not because of population pressure, but for political reasons. There was still scads of TL10 (delayed) stuff form Earth on Navabharata then. In fact, my cowboy model of development and population has Navabharata's capability gracefully declining over centuries. At one point in the Age of Isolation they had over 2.5 billion population and were still GURPS TL 7. It was the arrival of amateur conquerors during the Age of Piracy (when Navabharata still had 2.1 billion people and TL ~6) that really screwed things up. So perhaps the refugee states in the other polar regions were swamped by internal migrants during the Age of Isolation. I think I have to note that there are a few political and cultural differences between the north polar and the south polar region, but I can assume that they are both populated. Quote:
One trivial note in passing: I am a bit linguistically old-fashioned; when I write "immolate" I mean "kill, as a sacrifice", not "burn". Quote:
For what it's worth my cowboy model has Navabharata not static but in continued slow decline since the Treaty of Luna. The custom of the aristocracy getting themselves surgically transformed off-world can only be about 110 years old. Quote:
But as for the Empire, it really isn't as moral as you seem to think. The kind of people who get to sit in the big chair don't give an obscene metaphor about repression and human misery, they care about atrocities and mass death. No-one on Navabharata is starving. There aren't any endemic plagues. The wars aren't entirely bloodless, but they are small and pretty tame and the political department can deal with them. There are no death camps. There are no weapons of mass destruction. Population is below carrying capacity and static. The ecosphere isn't deteriorating. There is a little bit of concern that the economy might be drifting slowly backwards, which isn't good, but the TTAS can deal with that. The whole universe ought to be like this, Imperially speaking. The benefits of social and political change and economic recovery don't justify the risk of starting revolutionary war, which would kill a lot of people outright and probably make things worse.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. Last edited by Agemegos; 12-17-2013 at 12:48 AM. |
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12-17-2013, 01:07 AM | #177 | |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Flat Black
Naturally not. That's why for a GURPS-oriented readership I wrote "late TL4 industrial development and productivity" instead, even though I was aware fo the danger of confusion.
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It really does seem to be a lot easier to keep people ignorant, elite-ridden, poor and miserable than to keep them educated, free, rich, and contented.
__________________
Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
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12-17-2013, 02:32 AM | #178 | |
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ronneby, Sweden
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Re: Flat Black
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Now from reading the description so far it doesn't sound like there are cheap-to-orbit facilities all over the place (are there?). If there are only a few such facilities it would add a lot to the effort they would need to expend for each noble they send of to get a cattle head (I assume this is not super cheap). So is there cheap interstellar travel in this particular setting? Or is it left open? Another (rather cliché) way of motivating trade is to give a planet unique unobtainium deposits. Would that mesh with the setting? |
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12-17-2013, 03:47 AM | #179 | ||||
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Flat Black
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Edited to add: † It was combatmedic who put it like that, not Ze'Manel Cunha. Sorry, guys.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. Last edited by Agemegos; 12-17-2013 at 01:55 PM. |
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12-17-2013, 07:40 AM | #180 | |
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ronneby, Sweden
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Re: Flat Black
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Another, unrelated way this planet could make space-money would be to let companies come there and do whatever experiments they want on the local peasantry. Want to research long term effects of your new Smart food colouring? Sure! Want to try out your new chemical weapons? Well this one village have been rather uppity lately... and so on. |
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flat black, planetary romance, sci-fi |
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