Fate of the WIlds

[kafka47]

Not sure whether this thread belongs under Megatraveller/Hard Times or TNE. What becomes the fate of the Wilds in your TNE/HT in YTU? Sure, we got your Regency, RC and other assorted Pocket Empires growing and pushing back the darkness but there must still large swabs of territory just recessing back or maybe even banding together to fight to encroachment of "Civilization". The model that I have in mind is Dark Age baronettes who would nominally pay alliegence to the King but secretly conspire to bring down the whole Kingdom.

 

[Golan2072]

[the following regards my non-Virus, post-Hard times OTU variant]

In the short term they'll serve as the deep, uncharted "oceans", as places where the pocket empires' maps will write "here be monsters". Ofcourse, once you get there, it'll be more similar to the RL Africa or the early 1990's Balkans - many petty dictators, many local but bloody civil wars, poverty and destruction running rampart. Government are typically weak (even if they are horribly tyrannical, they are usually based on a narrow power-base), underworlds deep, and politics violent.

In the long term the larger splinter-polities of what ere once the Imperium and the Confederacy will eventually start forcing their way through this wilderness, bringing order - and, in many cases, even more opression; the petty tyrant of yesterday would be replaced by the big, well-organized empire-building invader of today.

 

[parmasson]

I agree with the balkanization but I can see more of a 16th century a city-state model working. Local areas of subsector size might belong to overlapping regions of influence based on worlds that have economic and technological superiority.

In regions where jump drives still exist short lived federations or fusion gun empires might flare into existence and burnout in an orgy of violence and rebellion. Now empty vacuum worlds with still existent infrastructure might be used as outposts for feuding warlords. Formerly TL-15 worlds that get blasted into the middle ages could be agrarian Tl-5 backwaters ripe for the picking. I see lots of little wars as individual worlds try to form the nucleus of a new Imperium only to have their ambitions thwarted when they become too powerful and their neighbors gang up on them.

many petty dictators, many local but bloody civil wars, poverty and destruction running rampart.

To be sure most of the Wilds will be this way.

However, there will be a few bright spots. Planets that form up small tight unions that endure a for a century or two and manage some kind of significant recovery. Places where the traders will want to go and a source of patronage as the worlds may WANT to link up or put themselves under an Imperial umbrella as equal partners. The dream of the Imperium will not die easily (think Rome in the Middle Ages) and even as legend the Iridium Throne may have a powerful, almost religious effect on the minds of many.

 

[Golan2072]

Not all of the Wilds will be bad places; but the places that will survive the War and the Collapse in relatively good shape will usually be the focal points of pocket empires, and, after some time, will be in the center of tiny pockets of "Frontier"-type areas in the middle of the "Wilds". Expansion and maintaining starflight capabilities are two of the few defences such a world could have against raiders - and a world in good shape (i.e. TL7+, Starport-C+, a large population, not failing/doomed and enough to eat) in the wilds will attract ALOT of raiders.

Ofcourse, some places will simply be left virtually untouched due to an unimportant location (so far less chance of "Black War" strikes), low TL/starport (so they would be far less important to control in the War and, in a Virus-based universe, would probably be left untouched by the Virus as there will be no computers for it to possess), and a low population (again, making them less central to the War, but a population digit of 3 or more would probably be required for sustainability). So you'll have those pastoral backwaters that don't attract too many raiders (nothing worth stealing) and might, over time, recover quite quickly.

The Wilds are the Wildcards of Hard Times/TNE - sure, most will be the hells I've described earlier, but some would not.

 

[parmasson]

I agree^. Nothing for the Virus to really attack. Perhaps a low TL (6-8) world with a pop around 6-7 could do quite well. Who knows? The backwater could "rocket" up to TL9 or 10 as the few surviving scientists escape their doomed worlds and high TL nightmares. Could be an interesting history. "How the backwater of X became a regional power."

 

[kafka47]

I am thinking that this might make an interesting Brits in Space series by taking some of the 1950s/1960s series like Quartermass and extrapolating a second Pax Britainnia based upon the high tech industries of the day. So, what if the USA was suddenly displaced by a Social Democratic (eg. Labour in Power with the 1945 loan being approved by the IMF) Britain. This could make all the little worlds that could scenarios come true...

 

[Golan2072]

A few possible historical sources of inspiration for the Wilds:

1) Europe right after the collapse of the Roman Empire (alot of petty warlords slowly becoming the new kind of feudals; lots of chaos)
2) Feudal (circa 16th century) Japan (some sort of a weak government exists, but the petty nobles/warlords hold the real power and fight each other continually)
3) The Balkans prior to WWII (tons of pocket-nations out to devour each other)
4) The Spanish Civil War (While big factions exist, there are alot of micro-factions and of loose alliances that could turn to fueds within seconds)
5) Post-Colonial and Neo-Colonial (1960's to the present) Africa (pretty much an all-out civil war between not-so-definite factions and subfactions, too many automatic weapons and no local strong government while the big world powers sell weapons en-masse in exchange for raw resources)
6) Eastern Europe after the collapse of Stalinism (the big government is dead, everyone is out to grab a piece of the former states AND to settle centuries-old fueds; alot of weapons of any kinds lying around and no strong government).

 

[Pickles]

7) Post-imperial China during the warlords era, lots of internal conflict plus foreign influence/interference from Europe, Japan, Russia and the USA.

 

[Golan2072]

An example of a typical "in-good-shape" Wilds planet, watch the Dark Angel TV series; the version of the USA presented there (after being hit by a huge EMP terror-attack

) fits a TL8-TL9 Wilds planet quite well. The economy sucks, poverty skyrockets, alot of the former technology has been lost, but life goes on and there is some semblance of a government (actually a third-world-style corrupt dictatorship) and alot of underworld crime. The aesthetic of that show fits Hard Times perfectly.