Keeping control of low-tech natives

[rancke]

If you were a small group of people equipped to TL 8 who had conquered a TL5 world, would there be a plausible reason to force them to give up their TL5 but allow them to keep TL4?

Note: Not just forbid certain TL5 weapons, but actively reduce the entire infrastructure from TL5 to TL4.


Hans

 

[BruceEdwinMorrow]

Religion... (redacted) would like for all of you to live a more peaceful, pastoral existence. Of course he told us that.. that's what all of our TL-8 Comm Gear is for.. talking to HIM. Talked with him just this morning and he said he was personally looking forward to you giving up your Mod/1 computers and go back to adding machines. :rofl:

 

[rancke]

I'm looking for a rational and pragmatic reason. These invaders are only interested in extracting wealth from the natives as economically as possible. It's all about the exploitation and keeping the overhead down (which includes discouraging rebellions).


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

The big differences between TL4 and 5 appear to be communication and transport.

You are limiting them to railways and ships for mass transport, personal transport remains foot or beast of burden.

Communication limit - no radio - means they can only communicate long distance by telephone/telegraph.

You have the advantage of aircraft and radio communications, not to mention the military advantage of armoured mechanised forces.

Reducing them to TL4 looks like a good way to allow them the trappings of civilisation.

TL4 is Victorian era, TL5 WW1. If the locals vastly outnumber the occupying force then this difference is a big one.

 

[BruceEdwinMorrow]

Yes, because there are no real world examples of conquerors using religion to aid in their extraction of wealth from conquered civilizations. How silly of me.

(redacted)

 

[Strummist]

They lose not just the ability to listen to the radio, but (obviously) to broadcast. There could be political reasons why you'd want to limit the number of sophonts any individual can directly address in one go, especially if they are very persuasive. You might also want to isolate the continents from one another, the mainworld from other planets in the system, etc. It's probably a lot easier to sever a cable than to jam transmissions.

 

[jappel]

Since you can't change the laws of physics (beyond what's already changed in Traveller), the only real recourse is some form of cultural engineering. The tools at hand are going to be economic, political, and sociological influences. I doubt there's any single factor that could be brought to bear. I suspect an entire orchestrated program including: subsidies and preferences for guilds/unions/whatever that function under the tech; punitive tax and fee structures on new development; bureaucratic barriers such as permits, mandatory pre-implementation reviews before corrupt panels, and the like; and, probably, cultural agit-prop against innovation, and perhaps "intellectualism" and research.

You also seem to be positing a world that's been isolated and has no notion of further technological advancements. Is that the case? If not, you're going to require active renunciation of technology as a significant cultural component, to offset the real economic benefits of moving forward.

If your group of exploiters is very much smaller in comparison to the population of the world, I don't see how you can pull this off overtly over the long term. Long term exploitation is going to require co-opting some sort of ruling elite, who have the ability to enforce and implement the strictures required to suppress development. These people are going to need to be rewarded somehow, given a stake in the exploitation, or perhaps promised some sort of intangible reward, though that seems less likely to succeed.

 

[mike wightman]

I'm wondering how the TL8 group got there...

STL colony ship?

 

[rancke]

I'm wondering how the TL8 group got there...

No, the group used second-hand starships. Equipping the troops to TL8 instead of something better was an economic decision (closeness of suppliers).

(Actually, I have to explain why the group sets up on a neighboring world and live there at TL8. The group is much too small to maintain an industrial infrastructure (700 people), so they must be importing their technology from somewhere. The whole thing is a bit hard to justify. But I try.)


Hans

 

[epicenter00]

I could imagine a world that is (was) relatively peaceful. It might be some world that has no native predators and few pathogens that would prey on humans. The settled areas would have a benign climate leading regular and abundant harvests. This led the natives to have a relatively pastoral economy. If it's a Traveller-based setting, perhaps the settlers had spread out over the world before the Long Night and technology had crashed, leading the world to have hundreds, if not thousands, of culturally distinct civilizations ranging from TL0-3.

Because of the abundance of resources, technology hasn't moved up very quickly, except for in a few nations where conditions were right for an industrial revolution and these groups had hit early TL5 and were in the process of conquering the other groups when the TL8 invaders arrived. The TL8 invaders realized the potential of the world: It was the perfect place to produce labor-intensive agricultural products (such as vanilla and its futuristic equivalents) and hand-made goods (such as artistic items such as pottery/china, weavings, cast bronze items, and so on).

Limiting the natives to TL4 under the guise of "protecting less developed areas from industrialized tyranny" still allows ships and railroads to allow goods to get to market (and off-world) in a reasonable timeframe for the kinds of goods the world produces. The natives can be mollified by a trickle of very expensive luxuries (the expense explained due to the expense of transport). The lack of high-speed information tranmission keeps the many hundreds of cultural enclaves distinct, allowing them to continue producing their distinctive cultural goods (which sell at a premium off-world due to clever marketing, which has created a collector's hobby of identifying which culture a given piece of artwork comes from).

In return for their goods, the TL8 starmen provide things such as TL8 medicine for the low-tech natives but are always quick to explain the evils of "high" technology and how much their own civilizations have been scarred due to the tradeoffs inherent to climbing up the TL scale ("Yeah, technology in our worlds have made all of us independent, so much so that you, grandfather, would not be surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren, you'd have been long since discarded by your own children as 'uncool' and you'd have a long, lonely life in an old people's home, maybe visited on holidays if your children had time with only your advancing decrepitude to look forward to, surrounded by nurses and caretakers who wouldn't be around you if they weren't paid and have no interest in your stories and wish you'd just shut up ... that's TL8 for you.")

 

[rancke]

OK, a little more background. The oppressed world is TL 4 right now (1105), but not under interdict. I've decided that it was a lost colony that used to be under interdict. It was surveyed in 1053 and the survey team reccommended that the interdict be lifted, which it was. It is my belief (gathered from the tech levels of a number of interdicted worlds), the the Scouts have a rule of thumb that worlds that have been interdicted to protect primitive populations are left alone until they reach TL 5 on their own accord. Thus one possible version has this world go down from TL5 to TL4 as a result of the takeover or the aftermath. That's the possibility that I'm currently exploring.

However, there are enough counterexamples to make it possible that the world never did reach TL5 but that the interdict was while it was still TL4. So that's an alternate option.


Hans

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Oh so wrong.

/snippers/

Limiting the natives to TL4 under the guise of "protecting less developed areas from industrialized tyranny" still allows ships and railroads to allow goods to get to market (and off-world) in a reasonable timeframe for the kinds of goods the world produces. The natives can be mollified by a trickle of very expensive luxuries (the expense explained due to the expense of transport). The lack of high-speed information tranmission keeps the many hundreds of cultural enclaves distinct, allowing them to continue producing their distinctive cultural goods (which sell at a premium off-world due to clever marketing, which has created a collector's hobby of identifying which culture a given piece of artwork comes from).

In return for their goods, the TL8 starmen provide things such as TL8 medicine for the low-tech natives but are always quick to explain the evils of "high" technology and how much their own civilizations have been scarred due to the tradeoffs inherent to climbing up the TL scale ("Yeah, technology in our worlds have made all of us independent, so much so that you, grandfather, would not be surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren, you'd have been long since discarded by your own children as 'uncool' and you'd have a long, lonely life in an old people's home, maybe visited on holidays if your children had time with only your advancing decrepitude to look forward to, surrounded by nurses and caretakers who wouldn't be around you if they weren't paid and have no interest in your stories and wish you'd just shut up ... that's TL8 for you.")

I liked the whole post, but the second to last is very cool and the last "poor us, high TL is bogus" bit was the kicker. That is too damned funny.

Yep, epicenter, you are more than welcome on my T&C expeditions. Just sign this and this and of course the Waiver...

 

[Gray Pennell]

I think I ll start with population size. You said the oppressing group is 700 I am assuming that is the garrison force on the world. We talked about this before but an army of 700 at tech 8 could probably only oppress 100 to 1000 times their numbers lets give it the upper limits since the invading force might have been larger. So the world has a population 700,000 you spread that out into a few key cities and resource areas and the numbers dwindle pretty quick. It would be easy to reduce each pocket in turn to the desire tech level and fear.

The 700 oppress would relie on tech 8 satellites to monitor the regions and keep an out for trouble. They would use night raids, and concentration of force to keep the trouble from getting out of hand. In addition to the 700 they would probably create local police/marshals that server as enforcers, general crime suppression and informants.

Troubles you might face is people running the technology and weapons embargo to make money. Some resistance groups moving away from the centers and out of satellite range. There maybe urban resistance in the form of organized crime prying on the garrison and downport.

I would think Dune or V to get the idea.

 

[rancke]

I think I ll start with population size. You said the oppressing group is 700 I am assuming that is the garrison force on the world.

No, it's the total population of the neighboring world, the world I theorize is controlling this one. 700 people with a tech level of 8. The oppressed world has 2.4 million people with a tech level of 4 (plus 3.6 million Chirpers). The government is captive, but I haven't worked out just how it is kept captive. Perhaps a puppet government of locals propped up by the outsiders or perhaps made up of mercenaries hired by the outsiders.

Be that as it may, the 700 are on the neighboring world, not this one. I don't believe that 700 people can maintain a TL 8 infrastructure by themselves, so I think they loot thier captive world and use the money to buy TL 8 goods from somewhere (Unfortunately, there isn't a TL 8 civilization within a reasonable distance -- I'm still working on that one. )


Hans

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Ah, yep.

/snip/

Be that as it may, the 700 are on the neighboring world, not this one. I don't believe that 700 people can maintain a TL 8 infrastructure by themselves, so I think they loot thier captive world and use the money to buy TL 8 goods from somewhere (Unfortunately, there isn't a TL 8 civilization within a reasonable distance -- I'm still working on that one. )


Hans

And that explains why they still get a couple of regular starships on a semi-regular schedule. The captains are assured some regular trade in off-route goods and can always dump some TL-8 stuff when its starts piling up in the hold.

 

[VonPickles]

Orchestrate Balkanisation, place overseers in control of "the zones" with attendant lackeys and stooges, then play them off against each other. Certify it by declaring that zone better for produce, that zone resources etc think hunger games, if you want to go the theology angle introduce a star pantheon and place star clerics in monastic positions see Dragonstar etc combine the both and quietly quash any detractors and wallah a nice subservient population more interested in competing with the other zones than what the intruders are doing!

 

[Icosahedron]

700 people controlling 2.4 million, and no zap guns or brain implants?
That's where I'd change the UWPs, I'm afraid.

You might not think that's a constructive comment, but perhaps it is - just think how much effort you'll save and how much sooner you can start to actually play the game...

 

[rancke]

700 people controlling 2.4 million, and no zap guns or brain implants?
That's where I'd change the UWPs, I'm afraid.

"The government is captive, but I haven't worked out just how it is kept captive. Perhaps a puppet government of locals propped up by the outsiders or perhaps made up of mercenaries hired by the outsiders.

Be that as it may, the 700 are on the neighboring world, not this one."​

Hans

 

[mike wightman]

How did the British keep India "captive"

How did the Germans keep France "captive" during WW2

you use the locals as your police force and army of occupation.

 

[aramis]

How did the British keep India "captive"

How did the Germans keep France "captive" during WW2

you use the locals as your police force and army of occupation.

In the US, police presence is 0.1% to 0.15% of the population; some european nations hit 0.5%. This is peacetime presence.

I suspect asserting control would require about 10x those rates... at least 1%... and it seems that Jerry Pournelle came to the same rough conclusions... and that you still need to police your police if they're sympathetic locals. And this presumes a relatively non-hostile population.

US presence in Afghanistan was roughly 90K for roughly 30M. That's roughly 0.3%.

Even when you have local sympies - you still need to police THEM. And that's probably at 1%, or more, as they're of need armed.