Ranke's ROM - Dark Ages Looming

[kafka47]

Hans...just moving the thread so as not to clutter up a perfectly good thread with our comments...

Yes, there is a reason to believe this, over and above the statement in Referee's Companion that the highest tech level achieved by the Second Imperium was 12. You're quite right that some worlds might have reached higher than TL 12, but if they did, the knowledge was lost again, and wasn't recovered even when the Third Imperium arose (The Third Imperium didn't reach TL 13 until 300). So for each piece of knowledge you want to establish existed somewhere in the Rule of Man, you have to explain why it did not become widespread enough to leave behind textbooks or examples that could be reverse-engineered. Technology generally does not get discovered in isolation. The existence of a TL 15 technology implies a foundation of TL14 knowledge to build on, which in turn implies a broader foundation of TL 13 knowledge. And unless this is proprietary technology, it will be disseminated. And as Sprague de Camp says in Lest Darkness Fall, "Not even the most dilligently destructive barbarian can extirpate the written word from a culture wherein the minimum edition of most books is fifteen hundred copies. There are just too many books."

The occasional nifty TL 13 dingus lurking in the relics of the RoM is acceptable. TL 15 dingusses are, IMO, not.


Hans

As much as I admire Sprange's arguement...barbarism takes many forms. Conisder the following

As it would in the Long Night, a technological society can easily fall under mysticism and books be burned or considered heretical (the Third Reich lost many advancements from the "Jewish Sciences").

Books and technical knowledge becomes more of a caste speciality whereby a society relegates the advancement of sciences/knowledge within a caste which protects its Intellectual Property and restricts access giving the appearance of a TL D/E/F society but only a few actually understand how it all works.

There is always the old standby of Alien Invasion which as some sources from Milieu 0 would have you believe that waves of Vargr & Aslan do occupy space that would later become the Third Imperium but because this was not organized by a central government...these worlds become cut off.

Perhaps, all the books were digitalized and then one day the power went out...retrieving the data would be a costly societial endeavour better live in the now...than remembering the past...as has happened with Russian science in the Provinces.

Surrounded by barbarism harder to maintain a technological advantage when even steel weapons had to give way the numerical superiority of those wielding bronze weapons.

Maybe only the elite have access to the technology...the masses toil under a different tech.

The thing about the Long Night, I don't only picture it as the Fall of Rome but rather a generalized fall into one of the many Dark Ages that our world has gone through since Antiquity. Who knows...if Jane Jacobs is to believed we might be heading for one know. TL 15 devices found in Milieu 0 would be considered to be ANCIENT artifacts when in fact they are simply from the ROM.

Hans, I am not sure how you visualize the ROM but I see lots of dead worlds with ruins of the ROM and barbarian hordes living on top canabalizing what they needed until the arrivial of the 3I (just like the early Christians using the stones from Rome to build churches but had lost the knowledge of construction). Lots of Pocket Empires which were part Pirate Haven/Bandit Kingdom and part civilized polity. Therefore, the Long Night was the ceasing of connection between these different polities and the final decent into barbarism.

 

[rancke]

As it would in the Long Night, a technological society can easily fall under mysticism and books be burned or considered heretical (the Third Reich lost many advancements from the "Jewish Sciences").

Books and technical knowledge becomes more of a caste speciality whereby a society relegates the advancement of sciences/knowledge within a caste which protects its Intellectual Property and restricts access giving the appearance of a TL D/E/F society but only a few actually understand how it all works.

There is always the old standby of Alien Invasion which as some sources from Milieu 0 would have you believe that waves of Vargr & Aslan do occupy space that would later become the Third Imperium but because this was not organized by a central government...these worlds become cut off.

Perhaps, all the books were digitalized and then one day the power went out...retrieving the data would be a costly societial endeavour better live in the now...than remembering the past...as has happened with Russian science in the Provinces.

Surrounded by barbarism harder to maintain a technological advantage when even steel weapons had to give way the numerical superiority of those wielding bronze weapons.

Maybe only the elite have access to the technology...the masses toil under a different tech.

I disagree about some of your examples, but I'm not going to go into details. The main point, that decivilization can occur, is true enough. Which is why I don't rule out the odd TTL13 prototype built on that single world out of all the worlds in the RoM where such a dignus was invented.

But for every such invention, decivilization has to occur on each and every world where the invention was known. Which, IMO, puts paid to TL14 and 15 inventions, because as I said, TL14 inventions don't just get made in a scientific vacuum. TL14 prototypes implies a solid foundation of TL13 knowledge and technology.

The thing about the Long Night, I don't only picture it as the Fall of Rome but rather a generalized fall into one of the many Dark Ages that our world has gone through since Antiquity. Who knows...if Jane Jacobs is to believed we might be heading for one know. TL 15 devices found in Milieu 0 would be considered to be ANCIENT artifacts when in fact they are simply from the ROM.

It's not the devices themselves that's the problem. It's the millions of scientific textbooks they imply. Sure, many of them would be destroyed if the society decivilized and the rest ruined, but do you really think a society that digs up a dozen ruined copies of a text can't reconstruct it using cryptography?

On top of that, you have some societies that never did decivilize. Any scientific knowledge of the RoM that made its way to Terra, Dingir, Easter, Muan Gwi, Sylea, Vland, and scores of other worlds would be preserved. So again we're talking about knowledge that is restricted to individual worlds. Worlds, mind you, that had somehow managed to make discoveries that Terra, Dingir, etc. had not.

I submit that any knowledge that was already on file on Sylea or any of the worlds the 3rd Imperium contacted would be implementable in short order (decades at most). So the fact that the Imperium did not reach TL13 until Year 300 is, I further submit, proof that none of those worlds did have significant amounts of TL13 knowledge.

Hans, I am not sure how you visualize the ROM but I see lots of dead worlds with ruins of the ROM and barbarian hordes living on top canabalizing what they needed until the arrivial of the 3I (just like the early Christians using the stones from Rome to build churches but had lost the knowledge of construction). Lots of Pocket Empires which were part Pirate Haven/Bandit Kingdom and part civilized polity. Therefore, the Long Night was the ceasing of connection between these different polities and the final decent into barbarism.

I see some worlds decivilizing violently, some worlds peacefully regressing, and some worlds not decivilizing at all.


Hans

 

[kafka47]

But for every such invention, decivilization has to occur on each and every world where the invention was known. Which, IMO, puts paid to TL14 and 15 inventions, because as I said, TL14 inventions don't just get made in a scientific vacuum. TL14 prototypes implies a solid foundation of TL13 knowledge and technology.

Not always...there reaches a point when the TL was a point in which people do science without going back and just assume the results will remain constant. But, I think that is because I view Science not as the linear progression as a series of paradigms (a la Kuhn). Therefore, TL15 devices could easily co-exist with a TL 12 or 13 society.

And, that is merely what we are talking about the toys or gadgets that make an extraordinary breakthrough that the TL is not fully understood but is capable of manufacture anyhow.

It's not the devices themselves that's the problem. It's the millions of scientific textbooks they imply. Sure, many of them would be destroyed if the society decivilized and the rest ruined, but do you really think a society that digs up a dozen ruined copies of a text can't reconstruct it using cryptography?

Not really. I would submit that cryptography would be of limited use in the era when local worldism was at its height (the ROM). I think for a society in the Long Night to recover knowledge it once possessed might be a struggle but one that economic forces led to stagnation of innovation and even the destruction of knowledge.

On top of that, you have some societies that never did decivilize. Any scientific knowledge of the RoM that made its way to Terra, Dingir, Easter, Muan Gwi, Sylea, Vland, and scores of other worlds would be preserved. So again we're talking about knowledge that is restricted to individual worlds. Worlds, mind you, that had somehow managed to make discoveries that Terra, Dingir, etc. had not.

Remember, here we are talking about prototypes and experimental tech that would have never made its way to the centres of power and learning. Furthermore, I do believe in an almost total regression on all fronts during the Long Night. Also, I think where you and I differ is that I don't assume that technical knowledge always follows centres of political power.

I submit that any knowledge that was already on file on Sylea or any of the worlds the 3rd Imperium contacted would be implementable in short order (decades at most). So the fact that the Imperium did not reach TL13 until Year 300 is, I further submit, proof that none of those worlds did have significant amounts of TL13 knowledge.


I see some worlds decivilizing violently, some worlds peacefully regressing, and some worlds not decivilizing at all.


Hans

Well, I agree there would be no world with a TL15 civilization just TL 15 artifacts usually with TL 12 tech attached to keep it running.

 

[mike wightman]

Two things.

T4 makes a higher TL ROM canon (mind you TNE makes the fusion pistol canon )

DGP abvanced world design allows a world to have TLs in some areas several TLs higher than the world norm.

So it's totally posible that some TL13 and 14 gear was produced during the ROM - wouldn't be widespread but it would be out there.

And if any group was going to have the high TL goodies it's going to be the ruling Terran Naval officers/nobility who have it at their disposal.

 

[mike wightman]

As aan aside my rise of the machines ATU ROM explains the tech crash at the end of the ROM better than just - lack of interstellar trade - rubbish.

We are meant to believe that for nearly 1500 years all r&d halted on Earth?

 

[rancke]

T4 makes a higher TL ROM canon (mind you TNE makes the fusion pistol canon )

Well, that's just what the FDQ (Frequently Discussed Question ) "What TL was the ROM?" discussions are about. If two different parts of canon makes two mutually exclusive statements, only one of them can be true, right? And if only one of them is true, the other one isn't really canon, is it? Not if you want 'canon' to have any practical use.

Of course, if someone can demonstrate that the two statements are not, in fact, mutually exclusive, then both of them are true. No argument there. So one line of debate is often whether or not there's a way to reconcile the two (As you're trying to do below). But if that's not possible, the discussion is usually about which one is true. Some people believe that the earliest statement always has more "right" to be accepted, some people believe the lastest statement always supercedes previous ones, some believe the one that makes for the most self-consistent background, some go for the one that makes for the most fun roleplaying.

Personally, I feel that the most self-consistent background usually is also the one that makes for the most fun, but that there are exceptions. Also, I find that if a contradiction is a deliberate retcon, it usually fixes something that was broken. If it's a mistake, it usually breaks something that wasn't broken. In the first case, I go for the latest version; in the second, I go for the original statement.

DGP abvanced world design allows a world to have TLs in some areas several TLs higher than the world norm.

Two levels. It allowed tech levels two levels above the High Common. But did it allow a world to have tech levels two levels above Imperial maximum? There's a difference between application TL and discovery TL. A TL13 world in the Imperium today has all the TL15 knowledge there is available to it; it just hasn't implemented all of it. As such, it's reasonable enough that it could have implemented some of the higher ones selectively. But how do you discover TL15 technology without having a solid grounding in TL14? And how do you discover TL14 without a solid grounding in TL13?

So it's totally posible that some TL13 and 14 gear was produced during the ROM - wouldn't be widespread but it would be out there.

It's possible that some TL13 knowledge had been discovered by the RoM (depending on how you interpret the statement on p. 34 of Referee's Companion that the highest TL achieved by the RoM was TL12). It's possible that some advanced discoveries were kept secret and never made it into the databanks of Terra, Vland, Sylea, etc. But it's not plausible that a substantial amount of TL13 knowledge was extant in the RoM, because that would have made it into those databanks. Yet it took the Third Imperium 300 years to achieve TL13.

BTW, can anyone provide me with a few T4 references to advanced RoM technology? I know they're there, or at least I've taken it for granted that they are, but I can't remember any of them, and I'd like to examine them myself.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

Sure, I'll dig them out.

The ones that spring immediately to mind are the various notes in Emperor's Arsenal.

I've always taken the TL breakthrough dates to be the date at which that TL becomes the common TL base of the Imperial industrial and high pop worlds - there are TL16 worlds in the golden age Imperium after all just not very many.

 

[rancke]

Sure, I'll dig them out.

The ones that spring immediately to mind are the various notes in Emperor's Arsenal.

I've always taken the TL breakthrough dates to be the date at which that TL becomes the common TL base of the Imperial industrial and high pop worlds - there are TL16 worlds in the golden age Imperium after all just not very many.

And no TL17 worlds at all (Except Sabmiqys (?)). And then there's the problem that CT Book 3 clearly state that TL15 is the Imperial maximum. The only TL16 world that was explained (Darrian) wasn't actually TL16 (nor Imperial) Then DGP decided to introduce 24 fully developed high-population TL16 worlds in Massila Sector (and did a writeup of Vincennes). But if that many high-population worlds were churning out TL16 goods at their full industrial capacity, TL15 wouldn't be the Imperial maximum. So what do you believe? That they all went from TL15 to fully developed TL16 between 1105 and 1120?

Personally, I think all those TL16 worlds are prime candidates for canon retcons. My suggestion would be to make then borderline TL16 in one particular field each. As a source of the odd TL16 gizmo, they'd be an asset to the setting. As a source of multiple TL16 dreadnaughts and other sorts of military equipment, not so much.



Hans

 

[mike wightman]

Then you have the awful TL progress that the Regency is suposed to be capable of...

I'm all in favour of the retcon to limit TL15 to Imperial max and only have TL16 in research stations and a few odd planets (I never liked the way they dealt with Darrian to be honest - when is a TL16 world not a TL16 world).

 

[DaveChase]

...
Then DGP decided to introduce 24 fully developed high-population TL16 worlds in Massila Sector (and did a writeup of Vincennes). But if that many high-population worlds were churning out TL16 goods at their full industrial capacity, TL15 wouldn't be the Imperial maximum. So what do you believe? That they all went from TL15 to fully developed TL16 between 1105 and 1120?

We did something different in our Shared Traveller universe. Several regulars what to head right over there and buy the stuff. So we planned an adventure around it.

Cutting out all the details of the adventure, it boiled down to this little fact:
The was an old race that use to live there and the current citizens found some of their vaults and some still intact industrial/manufacturing plants. (little ones not great big ones like today.) They discovered this about 40 years ago (before the announcement per the product timeline) and had just started shipping out goods. Said they thought it was time to share with their neighbors all their 'technological advancements' that they were no longer using. Figured that they could get away with it.

Well, being of limited mind set they (the planets and governments) only produced better things of what they already had instead of having anything really new. When the players found it out and gave proof to the Imperium of what was going on, a new little war started for control of those planets.

And the players ended up getting conscripted in to the Navy as scouts. You know the one, no good deed goes unpunished.

Personally, I think all those TL16 worlds are prime candidates for canon retcons. My suggestion would be to make then borderline TL16 in one particular field each. As a source of the odd TL16 gizmo, they'd be an asset to the setting. As a source of multiple TL16 dreadnaughts and other sorts of military equipment, not so much.

Hans

Now, thats a neat way to handle it. Kind of like the Hivers and robotics.

Dave Chase

 

[rancke]

The ones that spring immediately to mind are the various notes in Emperor's Arsenal.

Thanks for the reference. No real surprises there, except for one statement that is demonstrably untrue, that not only the RoM but also the Ziru Sirka had reached beyond TL12 (see p. 104). It's a rather crucial part of the history of the OTU that the Vilani had not gotten past TL11, and that the Terran invention of Jump-3 and meson technology was a nasty surprise for them.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

They hadn't got beyond TL11 in jump drive tech by design - they stifled research in this area.

They also never made the breakthrough to meson weapons.

No reason why they couldn't be TL12 or 13 in some areas though.

 

[rancke]

They hadn't got beyond TL11 in jump drive tech by design - they stifled research in this area.

IIRC, they stifled research in all areas.

No reason why they couldn't be TL12 or 13 in some areas though.

The reference says that they were moving into the prototype stage of TL16.


Hans

 

[ThunderChilde]

Yeah, the Darrian fumbling fudging of yes, no, maybe so TL16 never felt right either. Nor the other story of really being a backward TL-14 maybe approaching TL 15 reality aside from blackbox manufacturing and artifacts and gizmos.

I never understood the rational of the swordies crushing the Darrians in some of the various future lines. They aren't much larger, I don't know if thier trade and budgets are any larger though. In a naval battle the Darrians hold a large edge, not even counting Imperial Alliance support and or pressure on other fronts of the Swordies. They hold the technical edge on the ground too, and with Aslan ground troops I just don't see it.

That and the 80-90's inspired weird image of poorly thought out and irrational Diplomacy they were supposed to be ingaged in with ALL of thier neighbors except the Imperium. Never felt right, far more likely to have an overly cautious and chatty Diplomacy.