Psychohistory, Transhumanism, and Imperial Conservatism

[Nathan Brazil]

Throwing out some more ammo for discussion:

• Prior to the beginning of AotI, the 3rd Imperium has a Quarantine Fleet, separate and distinct from the Imperial Navy with presumably a mission statement similar to the Decider wafer's function.
• Not all existential threats in the novel were technological in nature. The two parasitic infestations are examples of this.
• Not all existential threats in the novel come from within an empire. The robots posing as organics chapter do not appear to come from within (I may be wrong there)
• The 3rd Imperium had to have Quarantine Fleet in the first place. o: My God what kind of scary hellhole is Charted Space?

Just kidding, I still love the OTU.
I think it begins with the Ancient's War Machines on Vland. Be bystanders for generations while the scary machines are slugging it out and you are TL 0 or TL 1. This is the origin of conservatism of the Vilani.

 

[GypsyComet]

o: My God what kind of scary hellhole is Charted Space?

A Space Opera universe that people have to live in full time.

The GDW/DGP essay on the "real prizes of the Rebellion", the High Population worlds, can be a real eye-opener when read in close proximity to AotI and the topic somewhere on this board that breaks down the law and tech level of 95% of the Imperium's population. When you filter out all the true backwaters (Lo) and the specialist side-worlds (Ni), then filter out the lower techs (TL 11-) that never bothered to come up to Imperial average, the remaining worlds are, for most purposes of power and examination, "The Imperium". Most of them are unpleasant places in one way or other, but they have the ability to do what they want.

The basic model for Traveller PCs makes more and more sense the more you look at the Imperium's essential structure. When someone moves your cheese, or you have the power to move it yourself, you get OUT of the hubs of unpleasant power.

 

[aramis]

o: My God what kind of scary hellhole is Charted Space?

Let's see...
Pop A worlds are (roughly) 81% of the total population of the hypothetical book-generated 3I... and are actually higher in frequency in the data for certain areas than random gen would indicate...

We can assume about 85% of people in the imperium live in about 2.8% of worlds.

Of those, most will be high gov and high law. They're oppressive by our standards; we're dangerously libertarian by most of theirs.

Keep in mind that things have to be pretty bad before people take and give up security for the sake of liberty. Especially if they're accustomed to operating inside the lines their society has drawn, and are comfortable but stifled...

 

[Garnfellow]

People should take a look at the real-world work in cliodynamics.

I was not familiar with that term, but I like it a lot-- the term "psychohistory" has some issues. It's distinct to Azimov, doesn't quite capture the concept, and has been appropriated by historians employing psychological analysis of past events.

Cliodynamics looks like an interesting field, and "Applied Cliodynamics" might be a useful substitute for psychohistory.

 

[Garnfellow]

I did a search through my Traveller materials for references to psychohistory, with some surprising results.

• The big one is the "Psychohistory" entry in CT Supplement 11, Library Data N-Z (16). This tracks closely with Azimov's definition, and explicitly describes the Psionics Suppressions as an Imperial psychohistory exercise with mixed results. The Hiver manipulation of K'Kree to end their war is also described as using psychohistorical techniques (26).
• "The Crisis of '99" entry in CT Supplement 08, Library Data A-M describes a book that speculates that the Suppressions were the result of psychohistorical manipulation (21-22). Psychohistory is also mentioned as a field of research in the "Imperial Research Station" entry (33), which is also mentioned in the Traveller Book (155).
• The MegaTraveller Imperial Encyclopedia and the GURPS: Traveller core book repeat the same basic information from Classic Traveller.
• Psychohistory is mentioned as a skill in "Scientists" from Challenge 29 (22).
• The T4 Milieu 0 book repeats the CT library data entry (80). But there are a couple of new nuggests showing the early Third Imperium was using psychohistory:
  • "The categorization system devised in Year 29 by Gurkilli Adaani, one of . . . [the Scout Service's] most respected psychohistorians, has proved more than up to the task of describing the new found worlds" (28).
  • "Another “open secret” is the existence of the Imperial University’s six social research starships; these ships travel throughout the Imperium and neighboring regions performing social research and gathering information for the sociological databases of the University. This data is used for large-scale psychohistorical predictions of Imperial society. The only clue to the sensitivity of the University’s work is the Faculty of Social Sciences” high level of security" (51).
• Jon F. Zeigler had not one but two different articles in the SJ Games' Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society on psychohistory. Both are highly recommended -- I can't remember reading them before, but Zeigler is clearly thinking about some similar possibilities.
  • "Psychohistory" from the May 13, 2003 of JTAS is a good survey of the concept and application to Traveller games.
  • "Three Foundations" from the May 27, 2003 of JTAS builds on the first article and provides three psychohistorical organizations for use in Traveller. I love his idea that the Rim War may have been part of a massive Vilani psychohistory conspiracy designed to marginalize dangerous Solomani ideals.
• GURPS Traveller: Rim of Fire introduces the Brotherhood of Orion (135), which uses Hiver psychohistorical methods to promote the survival and eventual victory of the Solomani Cause.
• GURPS Traveller: Nobles rather casually mentions that no less than Emperor Strephon Aella Alkhalikoi "has invested heavily in the murky science of psychohistory" (89).

But the biggest revelation is that T5 has quite a lot of information on psychohistory, enough to make it worthy of its own post.

 

[simonh]

I read the Foundation series shortly before getting into Traveller and remember the Library Data entries very well. Psychohistory was certainly well established as existing in the OTU from very early on, but was never made an overt major factor in the setting. Then I came across Chaos Theory and I stopped seriously considering the ideas in Psychohistory, but I've no problem with introducing or maintaining it in fiction. It's an interesting idea.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Garnfellow]

I read the Foundation series shortly before getting into Traveller and remember the Library Data entries very well. Psychohistory was certainly well established as existing in the OTU from very early on, but was never made an overt major factor in the setting. Then I came across Chaos Theory and I stopped seriously considering the ideas in Psychohistory, but I've no problem with introducing or maintaining it in fiction. It's an interesting idea.

Simon Hibbs

And I think, in Azimov's defense, is that his psychohistory was modeled after the various gas laws: while the movement of individual gas molecules are impossible to predict, en masse we can approximate the behavior of a gas. Similarly, due to Chaos Theory psychohistory can only work with extremely large datasets: populations in the quadrillions, millennia of data. And even when it works it can only show very high level tendencies.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Which leads to my next question

How or what is this psychohistory we speak of in previous editions of Traveller
in comparison to
TL 23 Practical PsychoHistory and Psychohistory skills available to characters in the T5.09 rules?

Are they the same thing? Is this like comparing alchemy (we thought we knew) to chemistry (we know better now)?

 

[whulorigan]

Which leads to my next question

How or what is this psychohistory we speak of in previous editions of Traveller
in comparison to
TL 23 Practical PsychoHistory and Psychohistory skills available to characters in the T5.09 rules?

Are they the same thing?

My guess would be that the latter has to do with actual reliable "engineering" of future history thru the application of psychohistorical principles, as opposed to just making observations and predictions while attempting to avoid the worst case scenarios implied by the data.

In other words the first is primarily academic and reactive (to a limited extent), whereas the latter is proactive (and "customizable").

But that is just my guess.

Is this like comparing alchemy (we thought we knew) to chemistry (we know better now)?

That might be a good analogy.

 

[Garnfellow]

Which leads to my next question

How or what is this psychohistory we speak of in previous editions of Traveller
in comparison to
TL 23 Practical PsychoHistory and Psychohistory skills available to characters in the T5.09 rules?

Are they the same thing? Is this like comparing alchemy (we thought we knew) to chemistry (we know better now)?

I think that's basically right -- though I have to wonder about pegging practical psychohistory at TL 23, given the Psionics Suppressions in 800 canonically used imperfect psychohistory techniques. The Imperium was, what? TL 13, 14 at that time? So even if you assume the Imperium was deploying super experimental advanced TL 16 psychohistory (and AotI suggests the Imperium has limited access to much higher tech than would otherwise be recognized as the max TL), 7 full tech levels is a pretty long gap between "dangerous prototype" and "practical implementation."

To back up a bit, here's the T5 description of TL 23 practical psychohistory:

Practical PsychoHistory 23. The ability to make exact and accurate predictions of the social behavior of large groups of sophonts and, based on those predictions, to shape the course of future history. The ability to predict the long term consequences of specific events (508).

Although "exact" might be far too much, but doesn't the rest of this sound like standard TL 15 Hiver manipulation science?

 

[mike wightman]

If you read the TNE info on Hiver manipulations you will find that they are not as exact as people are lead to believe...

 

[Garnfellow]

If you read the TNE info on Hiver manipulations you will find that they are not as exact as people are lead to believe...

You do know that's exactly what a Hiver would want you to think . . .

 

[mike wightman]

CT material was written from an in-game perspective and very very rarely had referee only metagame info.
TNE on the other hand had a lot more metagame info for the referee.

 

[Garnfellow]

CT material was written from an in-game perspective and very very rarely had referee only metagame info.
TNE on the other hand had a lot more metagame info for the referee.

Aliens of the Rim is a strange book, but I think most of the passages that question the efficiacy of Hiver manipulation are written in-character.

 

[aramis]

Aliens of the Rim is a strange book, but I think most of the passages that question the efficiacy of Hiver manipulation are written in-character.

Aliens of the Rim is a bit of a flamewar issue. Suffice it to say that it has its fans, and its detractors. It's canon, for good or bad... but it's also EASILY ignored.

Also note, tho', that the CT AM Hivers doesn't make their manipulations as powerful as true psychohistory events. They tends to be more nudges than full on predictable change. (And note that true psychohistory alá Asimov is much more predictable and measures on centuries.)

To give a single setting analogy parallel - In the Dune Cycle, Leto II does Psychohistory (the Golden Path), while Alia, Siona, and the Bene Gesserit are doing Hiver Manipulations. All are affecting the next generation or two, but only Leto (and Mua'dib) can actually predict the results of the Golden Path. (And Mua'dib couldn't accept it as a good thing.)

 

[mike wightman]

Aliens of the Rim is a strange book, but I think most of the passages that question the efficiacy of Hiver manipulation are written in-character.

I'm looking at the section on manipulation on page 44.
There is nor manipulation skill as such. Each manipulation is a sociological experiment. The predicted outcome is compared tot eh actual outcome at the end of the manipulation and just like any scientific experiment it may:
end in failure
produce unexpected results
produce results exactly as predicted.
The rules in this section stress it is for the referee and players to role play and bring different character skills the the table, but the final decider is the referee.

I do not think Hiver manipulations are of the same scale as psychohistory experiments, and I think your hypothesis that the Vilani may have used psychohistory techniques to deliberately stagnate their technology and produce a stable society that lasted millennia has a lot of merit. Or it could be the stagnation was an unforeseen outcome of the primitive techniques used.

Library data has this to say:

The reason large-scale psychohistory experiments are no longer conducted is due to the unpredictable results achieved by the only sizable experiment to date, conducted as a partof the psionics suppressions (q.v.). The unforeseen results of this experiment were so far-reaching that Imperial scientists concluded that their knowledge of the principles involved was woefully inadequate, and that further study was required. Imperial research into psychohistory is undertaken at a small number of research stations, and is carried out under the strictest of controls.

T5's high TL psychohistory removes the unforeseen element, and large scale psychohistory manipulation of societies become a thing. A whole new era of mimetic warfare to borrow from Transhuman Space.

 

[Iracundus]

I do not think Hiver manipulations are of the same scale as psychohistory experiments, and I think your hypothesis that the Vilani may have used psychohistory techniques to deliberately stagnate their technology and produce a stable society that lasted millennia has a lot of merit. Or it could be the stagnation was an unforeseen outcome of the primitive techniques used.

Sorry to be a bit of a thread necromancer, but just felt had to comment that GURPS Interstellar Wars pretty much states the Vilani stability and stagnation was a deliberate choice by some Vilani who felt the dislocation and unhappiness created by change outweighed any benefits created by it, rather than the Solomani view of decadence or some innate lack of creativity. This Vilani view spread until it became all encompassing and entrenched, and the Ziru Sirka was engineered to give everyone a place and make people happy within that place.

From such perspective, the Consolidation Wars was an attempt to create a closed system for the Vilani social engineering project. The Vilani appear to be good at social engineering so long as there are no wildcard factors.

By the time the system was starting to creak, there was too much cultural and social inertia for any free-thinking Vilani to overcome in time. This is similar to how in Asimov's Foundation series it was impossible to stop the collapse of the Empire short of totally mobilizing the entire citizenry of the Empire completely towards that goal (an impossibility), due to the size of the Empire and because the collapse had started long ago.

 

[Condottiere]

Probably once they figured out that not everyone can film entertaining Aslan videos and make a living on Vilanitube, after automating their factories.

 

[Iracundus]

So long as the entertainers make their entertainment along approved traditional themes and working within an approved entertainment organization. No lone unlicensed Vilani street entertainers.

The Ziru Sirka again as described in GURPS ISW allowed for individual ambition and competition but it was all channeled towards climbing within the system and was intolerant of mavericks. Similarly they were described as refining existing processes rather than trying for paradigm shifting new breakthroughs. Shave a gram off raw material manufacturing costs per widget? Promotion for you. Try to talk crazy talk about new Jump levels? Mental institution for you.

 

[Garnfellow]

It occurred to me a few weeks ago that Psychohistory would be a way to give PCs a meaningful role through the Rebellion or Hard Times, which would address one of the major criticisms of those metaplots. They could be assigned missions intended to bend the curve of history: the Hard Times cannot be prevented, but PC actions could help reduce the length and severity of the turmoil.