Technology vs. Wild West

[rancke]

I'm working on a historical setting inspired by the American fur wars (So it's actually the Wild North more than the Wild West). There are vast trackless forests where nomadic hunter/gatherers roam. There are coastal settlements with more civilization, but still very limited manufacturing capacity (This would be the PC "base camp"). And there's a much more civilized society on another continent (TTL 12 and the starport).

So I'm wondering about two things:

1) How low a general tech level can I justify for my native hunter/gather nomads (horseless nomads) and my frontier settlements? The lower the TL, the more "Old West" the atmosphere, which is what I'm going for.

2) What sort of higher-than-the-general-local-TL technology is so useful that it would be imported even if it cost a lot? Or perhaps I should say, what has a high enough usefulness/cost ratio to be imported?

I really, really would like to keep grav vehicles as rare as hen's teeth.


Hans

 

[Icosahedron]

1) I would say the nomads can be as low tech as you want them to be. If they voluntarily shun technology as being 'anti-gaia', they can pretty much remain at TL-0 indefinitely.

2) Medicines, surgical equipment and efficient weapons are usually the first imports - the means to save and take lives. Power over life and death is a prime motivator in any society - especially for ambitious leaders. Imports then gradually expand on saving lives in wider and wider circumstances and then gradually turn to improving the lives you save. Like it or not, transport would be an early import, first for military purposes, then for trade.

However, Reservation worlds are Traveller Canon, and if you have a balkanised world, I see no reason why you can't have reservation continents or nations. Maybe exports to the nomads are simply not permitted. Gaming the inevitable smugglers would then be another option.

Take a look at tribes in the Amazon or Borneo today for examples.

 

[rancke]

1) I would say the nomads can be as low tech as you want them to be. If they voluntarily shun technology as being 'anti-gaia', they can pretty much remain at TL-0 indefinitely.

The nomads are the descendants of a failed colony, a group of ill-equipped involuntary exiles dumped on an empty continent during the Pacification Campaigns and left to fend for themselves. They were forced to adopt a nomadic lifestyle, so the original tech limit was the ability to build and maintain it on the go. By the next generation, of course, anything that wasn't immidiately useful had been forgotten. But things like germ thory would remain.


Hans

 

[HG_B]

The nomads are the descendants of a failed colony, a group of ill-equipped involuntary exiles dumped on an empty continent during the Pacification Campaigns and left to fend for themselves.

That being the case, the tech will be adopted at a rate MANY times faster that a group that hasn't even been out of the stone age before. As fast as they can trade, they will get it and adopt it.

 

[Evil Steve]

An alternative way to look at primitive technology use is the cost of replacement. "Primitive" weapons and equipment that can be reliably made locally can be preferable to "advanced" devices that may take weeks or months to arrive, and require the importer to absorb high shipping costs.

I know I have little fondness for new cars, because my mechanically inclined friends have a harder time maintaining them (in exchange for beer)

 

[Peter Schutze]

>However, Reservation worlds are Traveller Canon, and if you have a balkanised world, I see no reason why you can't have reservation continents or nations.

In one of my 2300AD based universes (where space civilisation was still young) there were several types of reservations. none of these covered entire worlds or systems like "red zones" because they would have been put into the "scientific" category so the system could still play host to a little side adventure in transit. the most common were:

"biosphere preserves" covering several discrete areas (islands arctic peninsula etc) on each shirtsleeve world that do not allow any entry or transit below suborbital levels

"colonisation reserves" that the UN style central government held in trust for the poorer nation. basically you just cant exploit the area by setting up farms etc but travel, campfires and such are allowed

"scientific zones" around uniquely worthwhile phenomena including a continent on a "desert" world that appeared to have hosted a long extinct egypt/maya pyramid building style culture

 

[Captain Midnight]

The nomads are the descendants of a failed colony, a group of ill-equipped involuntary exiles dumped on an empty continent during the Pacification Campaigns and left to fend for themselves. They were forced to adopt a nomadic lifestyle, so the original tech limit was the ability to build and maintain it on the go. By the next generation, of course, anything that wasn't immidiately useful had been forgotten. But things like germ thory would remain.

So where do the residents of the other continent come into this? Have they treated the Unsettled Wastes as "taboo" for some reason, or proven to their own satisfaction that there's not enough there to bother with a short trip over via suborbital flight? I'd find that unusual, if only because it's land available for the taking. Scenic tourism would seem to be an obvious motivator, for example.

As to the original question... I'd think sensors and communications gear, medical technology, and efficient transport would be the first non-weapons choices. If you're looking to avoid grav vehicles for plot reasons, that will need some sort of workaround, but the major drivers would seem to be economic, and those would provide the biggest, easiest bumps.

 

[TashaG]

Dont forget Food preservation Technologies. Refrigeration could make it much easier to keep meat preserved. Which could also allow the society to transition from Transient Hunters and into Farmer/Ranchers.

 

[Zutroi]

If you're looking to avoid grav vehicles for plot reasons, that will need some sort of workaround...QUOTE]

The Tooky-Tooky Bird, foundation of the continent's tourism, is spooked by grav vehicles... the hypersonic whine of the lifters is audible to them and sounds like the echolocation of the predatory JubJub Bird...

Substitute better sounding names to fit your planetary theme, of course!

 

[rancke]

The continent is fairly empty because the whole planet is relatively empty still and most expansion takes place elsewhere. There are no regulations, Prime Directive, superstition, diseases, stobor, or anything other than ordinary economic forces keeping local population levels low and restraining technological imports. I'd like to keep grav vehicles rare by making them more expensive than ATVs and small fixed-wing aircraft.


Hans

 

[rancke]

That being the case, the tech will be adopted at a rate MANY times faster that a group that hasn't even been out of the stone age before. As fast as they can trade, they will get it and adopt it.

That's interesting. How do you figure that?


Hans

 

[HG_B]

That's interesting. How do you figure that?


Hans

Because they would have heard stories about it growing up. It would not be unfamiliar but, part of their culture to some degree. Not at ALL like the American Indian situation.

 

[Dragoner]

The Native Americans around here had towns, blacksmiths, guns, were Catholic, etc., didn't save them, though just to say.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Settler to this world would want a peaceful sulotion to any conflict that may occur between Native cultures and those attempting to open the planet for colonization. Part of this effort would be establish trade between Natives and settlers. This effort would introduce technology to the native culture. Better weapons for a nomadic culture means a better chance at there tribe/family unit a better chance at survival. Even a steel Knife over a flint knife is a vast improvement. Therefore the introduction of weapons (Projectile weapons for hunting) would be a logical step for the natives.

It's all about what is best for their tribe.

Some may resist the influence of offworlder but sooner or later, that influence would change their outlook and survival tactics. It just apart of the human condition...

 

[rancke]

Because they would have heard stories about it growing up. It would not be unfamiliar but, part of their culture to some degree. Not at ALL like the American Indian situation.

Well, it has been almost 300 years. Nine or ten generations. So I'm not sure how much those old stories wouild help. But you're right about the situation not being like the Amercan Indian situation. On the other hand, "not at ALL" is putting it much too strongly. They do occupy the same "ecological niche", so the two situations would have strong similarities. One of the things I'm trying to do is figure out in what ways these Imsans (as they're called) would be like Amerindians and in what ways they would differ.


Hans

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Depends on there tech level and understanding of the world around them.
Eventhou they are nomadic, they may not have turned their view and history into a psuedo-religion. They may have a high degree of understanding of science and a well document history of how they came to this world.

You have to look at their view on the world around them. Also take into account that they are exiles and may take a dim view of Offworlder...

 

[Enoki]

The Native Americans around here had towns, blacksmiths, guns, were Catholic, etc., didn't save them, though just to say.

This is the jist of it. Primative peoples, tribes and, individuals are dependent on outside sources for technology. If they have the means to aquire such technology (trade, theft or, warfare for example) and access to it they can have it as part of their culture.
Most North American Indian tribes by 1870 were as well or better equipped man-for-man in terms of firearms as the US cavalry was. What limited their capacity to fight was tactics, inability to sustain losses and, poor ability to maintain their technology.
So, you could have a primative tribe with access to advanced technology that possesses it but, what they have may or may not work and, it is likely to be prone to breakdown without means to repair.
This would open up an opportunity for players to interact where they could fix such technology and gain the good will of those who owned it.

 

[HG_B]

Well, it has been almost 300 years. Nine or ten generations. So I'm not sure how much those old stories wouild help.

A lot. 300 years is nothing. Look at your own history. We're talking high tech 300 years ago. Producing accurate printed material would have been trivial.

 

[rancke]

A lot. 300 years is nothing. Look at your own history. We're talking high tech 300 years ago. Producing accurate printed material would have been trivial.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. If it's that the original colonists would have been able to make paper for books to preserve their knowledge, how is that going to happen when they're busy surviving as nomadic hunter/gatherers?

The technology that they could preserve would have to be things that could be created and maintained on the go. That means limitations both in manufacture and in bulk. And anything the first generation didn't manage to keep would be lost.


Hans

 

[BlackBat242]

1) I would say the nomads can be as low tech as you want them to be. If they voluntarily shun technology as being 'anti-gaia', they can pretty much remain at TL-0 indefinitely.

Their reasoning doesn't have to have anything at all to do with some mystical "living intelligent planet/eco-system" mumbo-jumbo at all!

The original "reject technology and get back to primitive living" groups* were founded in reaction to the perceived negative effects of technology on the humans in question (spiritual and sociological), not in reaction to the effects of technology/industry on the planet.


Just imagine a planet of Amish striving for individual perfection without the corrupting influences of machines... or a group of "Pseudo-Thoreau-ists" looking for the "pure essence of humanity" via rejection of anything that comes between (or replaces) a man's hands (muscles, sweat, etc) and the physical world.


* Luddites, Mennonites, Amish, etc.