Technological regression

[Tom Mazanec]

How does GURPS handle technological regression and the fall of a Dark Age, such as post-holocaust or a galactic Long Night? I recall the Traveller background had rules for this after the Emperor was assassinated, but that was retconned out in GURPS Traveler, IIRC.

[ericthered]

ATE has some rules that might be useful in this regard.

Honestly, TL has three functions:

1) telling the players what equipment to expect in this game world
2) pricing primitives and people with higher tech levels.
3) determining starting wealth

Number 1 isn't going to be solved in your situation with a simple number, though gurp's rule about high tech gear costing double per extra TL may be relevant.

the other two you use like normal: you have a campaign TL, and characters buy high or low TL. This controls what tech skills they can have. Starting wealth is the same for everyone in the campaign. So... gurps may actually support this out of the box fairly well.

[Tom Mazanec]

I was thinking more about how TR would unfold, and on its social/psychological effects.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

I was thinking more about how TR would unfold, and on its social/psychological effects.

Realistically, technological regression doesn't happen. You do get the occasional large-scale economic collapse resulting in being unable to build and maintain the technology, but it's not really lost, the TL hasn't actually gone down, it's just that the wealth level has dropped dramatically.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Realistically, technological regression doesn't happen. You do get the occasional large-scale economic collapse resulting in being unable to build and maintain the technology, but it's not really lost, the TL hasn't actually gone down, it's just that the wealth level has dropped dramatically.

TL measures technology in general use and the amount of wealth characters start with. If theoretically known technology cannot be built or maintained and each Wealth level buys less GURPS $ of value, it's a lower TL.

As for a narrower meaning, it does happen. Population too small to pass on all skills and technical knowledge. See Aborigines on some islands near New Zealand for dramatic examples. Even Australian Aborigines, in that there is archeological evidence of bows, but the technology was lost before contact with Europeans.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Icelander

TL measures technology in general use and the amount of wealth characters start with. If theoretically known technology cannot be built or maintained and each Wealth level buys less GURPS $ of value, it's a lower TL.

It is perfectly intelligible to have a Poor TL 8 society or a Wealthy TL 3 society, and they have similar starting wealth but are extremely different. There's a big difference between "cannot be built" and "uneconomical to build".

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

I was thinking more about how TR would unfold, and on its social/psychological effects.

Technological regression IS possible, but the only way it can really happen is just by not bothering to teach the next generation the knowledge of the previous and allowing the media that records it to decay. In post-holocaust or lost colony settings what it boils down to, is concentrating on immediate survival skills and neglecting training in things that have no practical application after the demographic collapse or isolation.

[Bruno]

The technological regression of the Aboriginal population in Australia through to the islands in points east tracks pretty tightly with community sizes. As you get smaller and smaller groups, it gets more and more probable that you end up with one person who's a specialist in a critical skill, and they die before passing those skills on. Disease, accident, predators, and violence can take out the expert in $skill before any of their trainees are any good. This is obviously much worse in a pre-literate society, and one with a small population.

What happened in Australia et. al. is that a small isolated population arrived in northern Australia, pre-literate, and with stone-age technology (including good boat building skills and archery). Somewhere fairly rapidly after that they lost their archery.
A smaller group broke off to move south, and west. That smaller group lost some skills, including sophisticated boats (but simpler log canoe kinda things yes). A smaller group from that small group broke off to move further south, and shed some more skills. This continued down the coastline, and then to Tasmania, and then to the islands to the east.
At the terminus of the migration there was a (very small) group that actually ended up stuck on their island without the skill to build boats, and without the skill to start fires (but normal appreciation for fires and good skills for nurturing naturally started fire e.g. lightning strikes). IIRC they also couldn't make fish-hooks any more.
They ended up being conquered by neighbors who still knew how to build boats.

But this is an extreme case, in particular circumstances. If you have a larger population, or reasonable communication between smaller populations, the skills have redundant experts, or if lost they get refreshed from a nearby population. Literacy acts like nearby populations, letting you refresh lost skills.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Bruno

The technological regression of the Aboriginal population in Australia through to the islands in points east tracks pretty tightly with community sizes. As you get smaller and smaller groups, it gets more and more probable that you end up with one person who's a specialist in a critical skill, and they die before passing those skills on. Disease, accident, predators, and violence can take out the expert in $skill before any of their trainees are any good. This is obviously much worse in a pre-literate society, and one with a small population.

What happened in Australia et. al. is that a small isolated population arrived in northern Australia, pre-literate, and with stone-age technology (including good boat building skills and archery). Somewhere fairly rapidly after that they lost their archery.
A smaller group broke off to move south, and west. That smaller group lost some skills, including sophisticated boats (but simpler log canoe kinda things yes). A smaller group from that small group broke off to move further south, and shed some more skills. This continued down the coastline, and then to Tasmania, and then to the islands to the east.
At the terminus of the migration there was a (very small) group that actually ended up stuck on their island without the skill to build boats, and without the skill to start fires (but normal appreciation for fires and good skills for nurturing naturally started fire e.g. lightning strikes). IIRC they also couldn't make fish-hooks any more.
They ended up being conquered by neighbors who still knew how to build boats.

But this is an extreme case, in particular circumstances. If you have a larger population, or reasonable communication between smaller populations, the skills have redundant experts, or if lost they get refreshed from a nearby population. Literacy acts like nearby populations, letting you refresh lost skills.

Of course, the 'higher' the society, the more advanced the tech, the more dependent it tends to be on an unbelievably complex web of interlocked infrastructure, 'soft' skills, and a vast variety of specialists. If something big disrupts the system fast, and prevents a quick recovery, a lot is likely to be lost in the ensuing chaos and population crash.

To use an SFnal example, I've always been a bit doubtful about the idea of a high-tech world 'bombed back to the Stone Age'. I think a bombardment nasty enough to do that would likely wipe the population out entirely. But I could easily imagine, say, a TL9 or TL10 world blasted back to TL4, or something like that, if enough infrastructure was destroyed fast.

[Flyndaran]

I think high tech areas can fall more easily but recover faster and better than low tech regions. But it certainly depends on infrastructure and method of records.