Psychohistory experiments

[rancke]

I'm working on a world that has secretly been messed about with by ruthless social scientists for centuries. The idea is that this world had regressed technologically to around TTL3 (actually down to TTL0 and worked its way up again), so when the Scouts found it, they interdicted it to protect the local population, just as they've done with a lot of other worlds. But in the case of this particular world, a very powerful academic institution managed to get the whole world transferred to its authority for the purpose of academic research. The date for this is around 300 and those callous ruthless scientists immediately began running experiments with no regard for the feelings and fate of their test subjects.

But what sort of experiments? They will have to be kept secret from the locals (so as not to contaminate the results, of course). This is a rich, powerful institution, but funds are still going to be finite. That and the need for discretion will limit the scope. So if you were an institute scholar eager to get a research project of your very own, what schemes would you submit to the Planning Board?


Hans

 

[shield]

Remeber that the 3I has also been doing psychohistory research and that the psionic suppressions were one such campaign. As the supressions spiralled out of control the 3I realised they still had lots of learn and effectively stopped large scale experiments and went back to theory / small scale experiments.

If the 3I knows about this planet, they might have official shut things down in the 800s

Cheers
Richard

 

[rancke]

It is Imperial scientists that are involved here. The time is 300, long before the Grand experiment that went so majorly wrong in the late 8th Century.

It doesn't have to be just psychohistory experiments. Anything that you can use a planetful of hapless experimental subjects to experiment on. Biggest constraint is not to mess up other research projects.

Hans

 

[McPerth]

Depending on the Pop the planet has, genetic experiements may well be in order. They could range prom retrospective studies about the genetic pool, as they are important in an isolated small community (as they where done in Iceland on earth), to introducing one (or several) controled mutations and study how do they spread, to a try to truly interfere in the genetic pool, as may be trying to create some 'supermen' (Dune's Sardaukar came to my mind...)

 

[rancke]

Depending on the Pop the planet has, genetic experiements may well be in order. They could range prom retrospective studies about the genetic pool, as they are important in an isolated small community (as they where done in Iceland on earth), to introducing one (or several) controled mutations and study how do they spread, to a try to truly interfere in the genetic pool, as may be trying to create some 'supermen' (Dune's Sardaukar came to my mind...)

Good point. I haven't decided on the specific world yet, but it will have a decent population, at least level 7, preferrably more than that; high level 8 or low level 9. Think of it as a pseudo-Earth around 1500 AD.

But there could easily be isolated communities. Since my map of Ruie from my JTAS article has been superceded, I'm thinking of recycling it for this world (with the canonical names changed, of course). And that map has a lot of small land masses.


Hans

 

[DonM]

How about deliberate construction of governments based on different philosophies, or experiments with introductions of religions on a population...

Actually, a fascinating study would have been the introduction of a religion in the 80s, with a deliberate plan to "prove the religion wrong" around 100 years later, to see how the population absorbs the impact...

And don't forget the Psionic Suppressions. You could introduce your own, but make it something different (the Blonde Suppressions?), making this the foundation for that grand experiment of the 800s...

 

[Enoki]

How about spread of infectious diseases? They have a model for some particularly virulent one and need actual data on exactly how fast it spreads and by what vectors, several possibilities being involved.
To do this they want a large population that is succeptable and cannot effectively combat the disease instead having to let it run its course. Think something like seeing how the Indians will respond to smallpox contaminated blankets.....

 

[rancke]

How about spread of infectious diseases? They have a model for some particularly virulent one and need actual data on exactly how fast it spreads and by what vectors, several possibilities being involved.
To do this they want a large population that is succeptable and cannot effectively combat the disease instead having to let it run its course. Think something like seeing how the Indians will respond to smallpox contaminated blankets.....

Ooh, nasty! I like it. That one definitely goes on the list.


Hans

 

[Starviking]

How about deliberate construction of governments based on different philosophies, or experiments with introductions of religions on a population...

Actually, a fascinating study would have been the introduction of a religion in the 80s, with a deliberate plan to "prove the religion wrong" around 100 years later, to see how the population absorbs the impact...

And don't forget the Psionic Suppressions. You could introduce your own, but make it something different (the Blonde Suppressions?), making this the foundation for that grand experiment of the 800s...

Bouncing off that you could have them trying to set up historical sociopolitical situations analogous to those in Terran and Villani history - but giving the movement or philosophy that historically lost enough 'help' to win. Cathars winning in the Albigensan Crusades, Nationalism failing, etc...

 

[shield]

They could investigate the old social science debate of nature or nuture. Babies could be randomly moved to different groups / parents to see if upbringing is the dominant factor in the behavour of the the adult.

Cheers
Richard

 

[Enoki]

Another one might be that they are studying the populace to improve efficency in the economy / workforce. Here the world under study is essentially a slave labor gulag that the "participants" don't know is. The scientists then introduce various methods, tools, etc., to the workforce to see if it improves efficency, economic use of resources, etc.

Here's a introduction to the granddaddy of this concept

http://www.skymark.com/resources/leaders/taylor.asp

So, the scientists might control climate, tools available, orgainzation, or other aspects of the population to see what makes them work most efficently or longer hours.....

 

[shield]

how about human response under various emergency conditions - always useful to model this for various safety evacuations etc. With weather control they could trigger tornados, electrical storms, droughts etc. whenever they wanted.

 

[Starviking]

Some posters have mentioned weather. It occurs to me that the researchers could also use weather control to effectively limit populations to specific areas of the planet, something along the lines of "None return from beyond the Dragon Sea. The storms are fierce and great monsters dash any ships to flinders".

With this the researchers could effectively have several 'planets' to meddle with - as no news is going to pass the 'natural' barriers they've set up.

Also, I guess the Imperial Bureau of Colonisation is going to be interested in the basic research here.

 

[snapshotbygdw]

What about "stressing" isolated populations to investigate minimum population numbers and ratios along with resourse levels required to prevent failure: useful for colony "set up" requirements, just how little does a colony initially need in order to survive under different circumstances.

 

[epicenter00]

Sure.

I have a nasty one.

The scientists introduce a retrovirus to the world that makes the human population on that world mature and die faster. Why? It's like why fruit flies and microorganisms are so popular in scientific research: Fast generations. A TL0-TL3 world is already going to have low life expectancy, but they want it even lower. We'll assume the scientists have a line to anagathic technology, but even then, nobody wants to wait so long for the results of their sociological experiments, they want to play it out at fast forward to see what happens.

Primarily, they have very detailed computer simulations available to them, however, at some point, it began to bug them that perhaps computer simulations didn't really accurately model what people do. So they found their world, made computer models on it, and now want to see how development goes and compare it to their computer models. They rationalize it that once they get a reasonably close computer model working, they can reverse all their changes on the world (since they'll have cheaper and cleaner computer models), so they're only "temporarily" doing something unethical.

Perhaps something about the world attracted the attention of these scientists - like naturally it consists of a number of scattered landmasses, things like archipelagos and landmasses smaller than continents but bigger than islands. There's nothing like Eurasia to provide crosspolination of cultures and technologies - during their TL3 stage there was some vast migrations of people to various scattered archipelagos using the technologies available at the time. This is perfect for these scientists as it provides reasonably stable genetic pools which are nevertheless very scattered. They deliberately introduce immunities and virulent diseases to each group, diseases which the other groups have no defenses against. This is expected to make each group very xenophobic towards outside groups and discourage exploration. In addition, perhaps some sort of long-term climate change (think: global warming that could be done relatively cheaply) might be done to make low-tech seafaring very dangerous, again to cut the groups off from contact.

Now you have dozens or even hundreds of tiny groups, like different cultures in augur, on a single world. They don't live as long and their populations turnover relatively quickly, so even a 200 year old scientist can see a lot the changes of his/her experiments. There's a number of scientists, each being assigned a few different groups to mold to his or her liking to test out his or her pet theories.

Of course, that these scientists might have rivalries and persona dislikes of their own, or perhaps want to test out theories on a fellow scientist's cultures would make life even more interesting for people on the ground...

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

How about deliberate construction of governments based on different philosophies, or experiments with introductions of religions on a population...

Actually, a fascinating study would have been the introduction of a religion in the 80s, with a deliberate plan to "prove the religion wrong" around 100 years later, to see how the population absorbs the impact...

And don't forget the Psionic Suppressions. You could introduce your own, but make it something different (the Blonde Suppressions?), making this the foundation for that grand experiment of the 800s...

Without venturing too far into an area some may find a little uncomfortable, the scientists could just do some random things to see how the population handles it. Do they see religious undertones in these events or do they possibly see patterns and maybe even some sort of logic behind the events, potentially giving insight on how religions and science concepts may both evolve (or something along those lines).

They could potentially, even delve into staging certain events (sightings, the appearance of strange and frightening creatures, voices no one else can hear, or things that defy logic - like fires that do not consume what's burning, etc) to see if they would be construed as religious events, and how the rest of the population reacts to the claims of some of these "test subjects" who originally witnessed the events.

I hope this isn't out of line, and that it doesn't offend anyone, but its just a thought that crossed my mind after reading some of the other posts.

Regard

Pat

 

[McPerth]

Some posters have mentioned weather. It occurs to me that the researchers could also use weather control to effectively limit populations to specific areas of the planet, something along the lines of "None return from beyond the Dragon Sea. The storms are fierce and great monsters dash any ships to flinders".

With this the researchers could effectively have several 'planets' to meddle with - as no news is going to pass the 'natural' barriers they've set up.

If so, the raising of TL on the last centuries may be due to (due to Accademy slowly dying Hans pointed somewhere) the failing of weather control allowing travel and trade.

Poeple would be still asking why the stroms that forbide travel disapeared quite suddenly, and quite a lot of legends and theories should be discussed on the planet.

From climate changes theories (we must be careful not to provoque another climate change, or we've seen in the past what can happen) to religious ones (and the Almighty punished us with vast storms that isolated our communities, so be good or He/She/They can punish us again)...

 

[rancke]

MT:Referee's Companion says that an early form of weather control becomes available at TL8 and a more advanced form at TL12, so the Academy certainly has access to such. But I don't think weather control has actually been described in detail anywhere (please correct me if I'm wrong), so there no way to know the size, cost, effectiveness, and visibility of that sort of thing. These experiments have to be hidden from the natives. Bit hard to do if it involves hundreds of huge towers dotting the surface. And it would be unlikely to be funded if it costs billions of credits to establish. The Academy funds would be vast, but still finite. Any money spent on one project would reduce the money available for other projects. So on the whole I'm inclined to think that weather control would be impractical.


Hans

 

[McPerth]

MT:Referee's Companion says that an early form of weather control becomes available at TL8 and a more advanced form at TL12, so the Academy certainly has access to such. But I don't think weather control has actually been described in detail anywhere (please correct me if I'm wrong), so there no way to know the size, cost, effectiveness, and visibility of that sort of thing. These experiments have to be hidden from the natives. Bit hard to do if it involves hundreds of huge towers dotting the surface. And it would be unlikely to be funded if it costs billions of credits to establish. The Academy funds would be vast, but still finite. Any money spent on one project would reduce the money available for other projects. So on the whole I'm inclined to think that weather control would be impractical.


Hans

Weather control is not described, but in Assignment Vigilante (also MT) there's a hint on it when it says that Sittahr, as a former TL13 agricultural world, has a huge array of weather satellites, that can be converted to early warning...

I guess most of the weather control stuff would be in the satellite kind. For what I know, they probably warm some zones with IR rays to produce air and water currents that can alter the climate (at least so is described on The Fountains of Paradise, an Arthur C. Clarke novel, where this way was used to control monsoons, IIRC, I readed it some years ago).

EDIT: at TL 3 those satellites would be impossible to detect, and if they have risen to TL 5-6 last centuries, they may just begin to detect them, but probably are still trying to figure what they are...

Also, as you said the society receced to TL 0 (so before it was higher TL), they may see them (if they figure what they are) as relics, as some they surely have found on the planet surface along the years. END EDIT

 

[Starviking]

MT:Referee's Companion says that an early form of weather control becomes available at TL8 and a more advanced form at TL12, so the Academy certainly has access to such. But I don't think weather control has actually been described in detail anywhere (please correct me if I'm wrong), so there no way to know the size, cost, effectiveness, and visibility of that sort of thing. These experiments have to be hidden from the natives. Bit hard to do if it involves hundreds of huge towers dotting the surface. And it would be unlikely to be funded if it costs billions of credits to establish. The Academy funds would be vast, but still finite. Any money spent on one project would reduce the money available for other projects. So on the whole I'm inclined to think that weather control would be impractical.


Hans

Ah, but the weather control doesn't have to be planet wide, or even always on - just targeted: any ship entering a defined limit gets hit by a storm, and if it tries to push on it gets wrecked. Could be tied in to the surveillance system.

To be honest, you could even do without *actual* weather control - just use hologram projectors and tractor/pressor beams.