High TL 9 vs TL2+RPM

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by starslayer

That's why my proposed scenario for how the 9ers ultimately win involves an initial 80% losses and it seemling like it was going to be a complete an utter victory for the 2ers until it is revealed that a major tribe of the 2ers on an outer planet forging an alliance with the 9ers and scrywalled enough of their ships that they can institute their return fire, and then rely on tactical, observational, and technological dominance to prevent any saccrifical circles large enough to penetrate those scrywalls from becoming active again (They'll probabaly have to round up some sacrificies routinely for their outer planet allies to renew the scrywalls).

The actual setup then is TL9+RPM, vs TL2+5 RPM with many times the population.

Important questions:
Meteoric Iron: Is it magic proof? If not, MI KKVs are super easy to make when you can push space rocks around. MI hulls and cladding for drones also.

Power to Energy Ritual: A TL2+5 society might have these as common rituals. If so...Fusion Bottles make for lots of power.

Tech Theft: How much tech can the Twoers steal while they have their edge? What's their uplift rate? Same for the Niners re RPM, but the Niners have cooperative instructors and a better teaching methodology.

Magery and Niners: Unless there's a significant bias between the peoples, Magery exists in both cultures. You also need to know where Magery comes form. Bloodlines is traditional, but does that mean genetics? The Niners could gene therapy themselves into an all mage society. Why don't the Niners have RPM? Are they from no mana worlds or is it that they lack the marker? No naquadah in the blood? If they're just from no mana words, they begin to notice magical environmental effects when they enter the mana zone. Presumably, that happens before the first divination are available (though that's an interesting question on its own).

Cultural Impact: The Niners in your scenario aren't genocidal. The enemy Twoers are sacrificing their population for their military magic. If the Niners come from an "all people are equal" society, Magery as innate tallent is a big pill to swallow. If some Niners, but not all have Magery, the Twoers may have something to offer the mages. The Niners have something to offer all non-mages, particularly if they can gene therapy or otherwise imbue the tallent.

TL2+X: I keep saying TL2+5, but I pick that because it's the point where people are familiar with the concepts of space travel and have experience with the environment. The +X is a big limiter on the concepts available for the Twoers. However, TL2+7 with RPM is both tech parity and RPM. The closer you get to that point, the less of a fight is possible.


The more I think about it, TLX+RPM seems like a bad representation of things. If you're going to have flat TL and TL+RPM, there's not much comparison. Major advances of TL's are meaningless to RPM. At the same time RPM societies might think ideas like "conservation of mass/energy" are nonsense, and when basic laws like that are effectively bypassed...these people aren't using the same universe anymore.