Technology vs. Wild West

[Icosahedron]

'anti-gaia' was just one example. Of course there can be other reasons to shun technology.

However, if they don't deliberately shun it, they will acquire it very quickly. In Earth's past, people were either learning for the first time, or they were following long-dead civilizations.

I agree that 300 years is a very short time historically, and we're not just looking at survival of their own books/culture, we have the direct possibility (probability) of smugglers, settlers, missionaries, etc trading high tech stuff, books and knowledge throughout that period. In fact, without deliberate rejection of technology, I can't see how the culture would have regressed to the hunter-gatherer level. Some 'humanitarian aid' would have stepped in and helped them rebuild their culture long before that.

 

[rancke]

I agree that 300 years is a very short time historically, and we're not just looking at survival of their own books/culture, we have the direct possibility (probability) of smugglers, settlers, missionaries, etc trading high tech stuff, books and knowledge throughout that period. In fact, without deliberate rejection of technology, I can't see how the culture would have regressed to the hunter-gatherer level. Some 'humanitarian aid' would have stepped in and helped them rebuild their culture long before that.

A generation is long enough to lose all knowledge that isn't immediately useful if the pressure for survival is strong enough. By the same token, any technology that IS a) useful and b) possible to maintain will be retained.

The way I see it, once the knowledge is lost, reintroducing it will run up against the same problems that caused the loss in the first place. Any humanitarian aid worker trying to improve the technology will find that if it was lost in the first place, there was a reason why it was lost.


Hans

 

[Icosahedron]

Hmm, didn't we have this discussion a couple of weeks ago - from the opposite angles, where you were saying knowledge would be preserved for aeons...? o:

Obviously as GM you have to determine what situation you want to create, what the circumstances were that led to it, and figure out a rationale to reach one from the other.
We outsiders can only throw in occasional suggestions or possible barriers that your rationale needs to overcome.

From your material so far, I gather that you have a smallish population in a wilderness that you want to regress to hunter-gatherer status.

You need to decide, then, why the other high-tech continent (and/or the population's backers) didn't send sufficient humanitarian aid to prevent the tech slide from occurring. Why did it continue to slide for an entire generation or more?

Presumably the colony had a purpose - was that purpose complete? If not, why wasn't it reinforced? If so, why wasn't the colony evacuated?

A generation is 25-30 years. A lifetime (knowledge retention) is 50-80 years. Without very severe survival needs (which you'd need to specify) books and tuition would carry knowledge forward for at least a second lifetime. That's a very large window to provide slide-halting aid, unless there's a very good reason (which you'd need to specify) why aid wouldn't come, or wouldn't be sufficient.

At that point, we have your hunter gatherer culture.

Then you'd need to specify a rationale (perhaps the same one) for why knowledge and tech isn't constantly flowing into this community. A hunting rifle can give a hunter a hell of an edge. Why wouldn't they trade furs for rifles and ammo? If they've been trading for 300 years, they'll all have rifles and ammo. They'll probably have mobile surgeries, jeeps, trail bikes and comms, too...
...Unless you specify a reason why they don't.

 

[rancke]

Hmm, didn't we have this discussion a couple of weeks ago - from the opposite angles, where you were saying knowledge would be preserved for aeons...? o:

I suppose we did. If we ignore the difference between a society of billions of people with no catastrophic events overtaking them and a few thousand people dumped on a virgin continent with inadequate supplies. Apart from that it is the exact same situation.

From your material so far, I gather that you have a smallish population in a wilderness that you want to regress to hunter-gatherer status.

You need to decide, then, why the other high-tech continent (and/or the population's backers) didn't send sufficient humanitarian aid to prevent the tech slide from occurring. Why did it continue to slide for an entire generation or more?

They couldn't be bothered to help. Or if you want to put it more politely, they didn't feel able to commit the amount of resources that would be necessary to solve the problem.

Presumably the colony had a purpose - was that purpose complete? If not, why wasn't it reinforced? If so, why wasn't the colony evacuated?

Right, more details:

The original settlers were involuntary exiles who were on the losing side of an Imperial Pacification Campaign (I haven't worked it out in any more details). The Imperial admiral/high noble in charge of the campaign decided that they were potential troublemakers (they were probably prominent leaders of the anti-Imperial faction), scooped them up, and sent them away across the frontier[*]. The commander of the transport convoy took it to Regina, asked the people at the starport if they'd accept 4000 new citizens, was told no, and dumped them on an empty continent with whatever equipment the admiral had seen fit to send along. In this case the equipment was inadequate in some way (other similar groups of settlers for other places were better equipped and fared better -- it all depended on the guy in charge of the particular campaign).

I haven't worked out just how the equipment was inadequate; just that the settlers were forced to adopt a nomadic lifestyle to survive.

[*] The preliminary figures (i.e. they're not set in stone) is 4000 for the orginial colony rising to about a quarter of a million (estimated ;-)) by the time of the campaign setting.​

Then you'd need to specify a rationale (perhaps the same one) for why knowledge and tech isn't constantly flowing into this community. A hunting rifle can give a hunter a hell of an edge. Why wouldn't they trade furs for rifles and ammo? If they've been trading for 300 years, they'll all have rifles and ammo. They'll probably have mobile surgeries, jeeps, trail bikes and comms, too...
...Unless you specify a reason why they don't.

The fur traders don't pay the natives enough for their skins to let them buy mobile surgeries (and people to run them), jeeps, trail bikes, and comms for everybody. A few leaders might have some of these items, but that doesn't make the entire tribe high-tech.

Sell a man a rifle and you can sell him bullets for the rest of his life. Build a society the infrastructure to make rifles and bullets and mobile surgeries for themselves and you'll have spent a hell of a lot of money.


Hans

 

[Icosahedron]

Ok, so you're describing an exiled/marooned party stuck in a poverty trap.

That could work. It might even work for 300 years, but I have my doubts.

I don't know of any low tech group on Earth that has survived 300 years of high tech contact and remained hunter-gatherer. Native Americans have been contacted for 300 years and have been pretty much integrated to current tech for the past 100.
Many African tribes similarly, unless they choose to reject Western Culture, have their own cities and air forces after 300 years of contact. There's still poverty, but it's patchy, and as much to do with corruption and warfare as lack of tech.

A smaller group, such as you describe, and especially one that has previously had high tech, would integrate considerably faster.

You'd need to explain lack of integration - maybe widespread corruption or faction (tribal) warfare.

I think some community leaders or breakaway groups would try to harness local resources, digging up gold or gems or coal, and probably at least some would establish farms or static herds. Farming and mining is a far more likely endpoint IMO - hunter-gatherer is a long way down the evolutionary ladder to fall.

You'd need to figure why these attempts at trade settlements failed.

There's always somebody (smuggler, sweatshop owner, prospector) wanting to exploit the local resources, and exploitation eventually leads to integration (over a century or two).

 

[rancke]

I don't know of any low tech group on Earth that has survived 300 years of high tech contact and remained hunter-gatherer. Native Americans have been contacted for 300 years and have been pretty much integrated to current tech for the past 100.

You seem to be talking of the period from 1700 to 2000. A closer analogy would be the period from 1500 to 1800, or perhaps even 1400 to 1700. There isn't very much contact between the nomads and people from the other continents for the 300 years in question.

I agree that if someone from the more advanced societies wanted to uplift the Imsams, and wanted it enough to pay for it, then uplifting them could and would be done in a fraction of the time available. What I don't see is why it is so unbelievable that no one would want to (enough to pay for it).


Hans

 

[Icosahedron]

I was using 1700-2000 because of the tremendous effect modern transport and communication has on contact and exploitation.
In the years 1400-1700 even the 'high tech' nations were struggling to realise inter-continental travel and were often engaged in survival issues of their own, but that's not the case you described.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that the neighbouring trapper society would uplift them, but you mentioned a high-tech nation with grav vehicles, which suggests TL8+, and the 'backers' must have had starfaring tech. This makes a huge difference.

For a TL8+ society, global travel and global communications are trivial, even for small, independent entrepreneurs. Somebody would have engaged in contact/exploitation with the Imsams (and the Trappers) over the course of 300 years.

The reason I find it inconceivable that nobody would bother with them is that they (Imsams, Trappers, and their lands) represent an untapped, cheap resource available for the taking. I agree that nobody would deliberately and altruistically uplift them just for the sake of it, but with a TL8+ society a matter of hours transport and seconds communication away, somebody would exploit their local resources and manpower (setting up a plantation or mine using local sweatshop labour for example) and uplift would be a natural (and probably unavoidable) side effect of exploitation over the course of a generation or two.

 

[rancke]

For a TL8+ society, global travel and global communications are trivial, even for small, independent entrepreneurs. Somebody would have engaged in contact/exploitation with the Imsams (and the Trappers) over the course of 300 years.

An ATV costs Cr30,000. An Air/Raft costs Cr600,000. That's hardly a trivial difference. And that's assuming the population is big enough to support a local grav vehicle factory. If not, grav vehicles are imports. I do think the population reached that point some time back, but for the price of one Air/Raft with 4T of cargo capacity you can buy ten small steamships with a total cargo capacity of 500T. You can probably move more cargo per time with the Air/Raft (I haven't worked out the numbers), but the investment threshold is higher.

The reason I find it inconceivable that nobody would bother with them is that they (Imsams, Trappers, and their lands) represent an untapped, cheap resource available for the taking.

Regina is fairly empty even by 400 [My figures, not canon]. Primitives are hardly a resource in themselves if you have to train them first, so why bother with them when Noncredo, the original continent, is still half-empty? (There has been some expansion to other continents, but most of it has been concentrating on an empty continent). The only resources that can't be gotten closer to the hub of civilization are the furs and you don't need an advanced education to set up traps.

I agree that nobody would deliberately and altruistically uplift them just for the sake of it, but with a TL8+ society a matter of hours transport and seconds communication away, somebody would exploit their local resources and manpower (setting up a plantation or mine using local sweatshop labour for example) and uplift would be a natural (and probably unavoidable) side effect of exploitation over the course of a generation or two.

Let's agree to disagree on that, then. It didn't happen.

Getting back to my original problem, what are the obstacles to maintaining technology for a nomadic culture? I can see three main ones:

* No tools or tools to make tools that can't be carried along when the tribe moves.

* No schooling above the level of a village school.

* Little or no access to resources that take time to extract and process, i.e. metals in large amounts.​

Can anyone think of anything else?

What sort of advanced technology can be maintained in the face of such problems? What sort of dodges can be used to circumvent these problems?


Hans

 

[CosmicGamer]

Some questions and thoughts

Are there not "low tech" pockets of humanity on present day earth? Australian Aborigines, tribes in Africa? I think the possible existence of a low tech group on a high tech world is plausible under the right conditions.

I believe it would not be appropriate to compare the group of outcasts to tribal groups and I'll give my first reasons why:

1) Language and culture
Historical encounters with tribal cultures had language and cultural issues to overcome.

2) Technology
From what I gather, the situation is not a group of people slow to develop "technology" naturally. It is also not a "backward" group of people that are unfamiliar with technology and its advantages. This group of interstellar castoffs will know about technology and they will possess some of it. They may not have the capability of large scale manufacturing but they are not cave men that when given a gun will use it as a club. They do not need to be taught what something is for or how to use it and maintain it.

3) Home
Unlike an indigenous populace with burial grounds, temples and generations of living in a certain area I see no reason for the group of outcasts to call where they are home. What reason do they have to not relocate? Why would these people not integrate with the locals? What is stopping them from entering a town and getting a job? Could they trade their furs until they save enough for low passage?

what are the obstacles to maintaining technology for a nomadic culture?

I see no obstacles to maintaining technology for a nomadic culture that can't be overcome. Space nomads can travel between the stars without any manufacturing capability and still maintain their technology.

No tools or tools to make tools that can't be carried along when the tribe moves.

I see no reason a group of fur traders couldn't trade to have their equipment repaired or replaced.

No schooling above the level of a village school.

Not sure what this means. From what has been described, the group is not trying to prevent people from learning about technology and they already have the knowledge and could find a way of passing it on.

Little or no access to resources that take time to extract and process, i.e. metals in large amounts.

Many communities survive without local manufacturing and just import what is needed.

Could you please explain why this group becomes nomadic?
Was this group left with nothing? If not, what were they left with?

 

[whartung]

Could you please explain why this group becomes nomadic?
Was this group left with nothing? If not, what were they left with?

And what are they following. Nomads follow something. Climate, food, water, something. They're nomads because they can't farm. Why can't/won't they farm?

As was mentioned, their capability of maintaining technology centers around their ability to repair it. If they can not make parts, then they must trade for them. If they can not trade for them, then they're limited by what they can get "off the land".

A metal knife needs little maintenance beyond sharpening on an appropriate rock, and will "last forever". but as such it's effectively irreplaceable if it's lost if the group doesn't have mining/smelting/casting/forging technologies to recreate the metal.

But, taking this as a simple example, a nomadic group could keep those base technologies, and simply only practice them seasonly when they move in to the area with the proper ore and materials. They can even build a permanent hearth and forge that does not travel with them, but will still be there when they return next year.

Just because they're nomadic, doesn't mean they have to move every day or week. They can stop in place for sometime, and likely will. It flat out costs a lot of energy to move and setup camp often. Why move if you don't have to.

The "village level" education is not really a limitation, IMHO, per se. For example, you can take a teenager and covert them in to a functional, productive mechanic with effectively no higher learning, and in just a few short months. They don't have to necessarily understand all of the material science and engineering behind designs. Rather they need to understand the components and how they fit and work together. The trick there in terms of long term knowledge transfer is simply involving more people in the trade.

A trade unused will quickly be forgotten. A trade not really necessary to the expansion and survival of the group will likely be ignored and forgotten (since the group is busy surviving with "practical" skills). So, in that sense a trade forgotten is not really lost, since it simply wasn't used.

Only those with ample spare time to learn things "just in case" will be able to keep older, and under utilized trades and tech going. But part of the fact that they're nomadic suggests that the group really doesn't have a lot of spare time. The people are too busy surviving.

Plus there's always women, Tears of Life to drink, and Buzzweed to act as distractions after the work is done for the day.

 

[jatay3]

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

I once had some nomads that were in contact with high-tech justified by subsidies from the local counterpart to the scout service. They live in a symbiotic relationship with nearby city folk, paying by keeping an eye on the borders and providing intelligence.

 

[rancke]

From what I gather, the situation is not a group of people slow to develop "technology" naturally. It is also not a "backward" group of people that are unfamiliar with technology and its advantages. This group of interstellar castoffs will know about technology and they will possess some of it. They may not have the capability of large scale manufacturing but they are not cave men that when given a gun will use it as a club. They do not need to be taught what something is for or how to use it and maintain it.

That's the original group of ill-assorted, ill-equipped people. The tribes are their descendants nine to ten generations down the road. Two different groups. The original group would have limited practical skills, and although they did have access to a comprehensive library database, the articles probably didn't go into great practical details. That is, there'd be articles about agriculture, but they would be generic ones of limited applicability to their immediate situation.

The tribes 300 years later would have whatever practical knowledge they had managed to transmit down the centuries and very little abstract knowledge.

Unlike an indigenous populace with burial grounds, temples and generations of living in a certain area I see no reason for the group of outcasts to call where they are home. What reason do they have to not relocate? Why would these people not integrate with the locals? What is stopping them from entering a town and getting a job? Could they trade their furs until they save enough for low passage?

For the original group there was no locals to integrate with. For their descendants they are a quarter of a million people roaming the northern half of an entire continent. After ten generations that is their home. The "locals" are a couple of million people in settlements along the southern coast of the same continent.

I see no obstacles to maintaining technology for a nomadic culture that can't be overcome. Space nomads can travel between the stars without any manufacturing capability and still maintain their technology.

These aren't nomads travelling in TL9+ starships. And they're not nomads embedded in a more technologically advanced society that can build mobile homes for them. They are nomads who carry everything they own along on their backs (unless I decide to give them some sort of draft animal (no riding mounts, though)) when they move.

I see no reason a group of fur traders couldn't trade to have their equipment repaired or replaced.

I mentioned the reason above. The company doesn't pay them enough for their furs to pay for advanced equipment for the entire culture.

Not sure what this means. From what has been described, the group is not trying to prevent people from learning about technology and they already have the knowledge and could find a way of passing it on.

Knowledge is only part of what you need to make stuff. You also need tools and tools to make the tools. And skills to apply the tools. And time and incentive to learn those skills. No one is going to learn how to make watches if they can't make cogwheels.

Many communities survive without local manufacturing and just import what is needed.

Only if the have marketable skills that will allow them to earn the wherewithal to pay for the imports.

Could you please explain why this group becomes nomadic?
Was this group left with nothing? If not, what were they left with?

They were dumped on an empty continent with inadequate supplies. They built a colony and planted crops. The crops failed. Their store of food ran low. They took to hunting and gathering. When they had hunted and gathered out one spot they moved to another.


Hans

 

[rancke]

And what are they following. Nomads follow something. Climate, food, water, something. They're nomads because they can't farm. Why can't/won't they farm?

Originally, because their crops failed. Subsequently... because they had grown used to hunting and gathering?

As was mentioned, their capability of maintaining technology centers around their ability to repair it. If they can not make parts, then they must trade for them. If they can not trade for them, then they're limited by what they can get "off the land".

A metal knife needs little maintenance beyond sharpening on an appropriate rock, and will "last forever". but as such it's effectively irreplaceable if it's lost if the group doesn't have mining/smelting/casting/forging technologies to recreate the metal.

I don't see any problem explaining why imports are limited: Limited value of what they can produce for export. What I'm trying to explore is what they can make for themselves. They can't make microchips because they don't have a microchip factory. But can they make pocket watches? My guess: no. Can they make telescopes and microscopes? My guess: Yes. Will they want to spend the efforts to grind lenses for telescopes and microscopes? My guess: Yes for telescopes, no for microscopes. And so on and so forth.

But, taking this as a simple example, a nomadic group could keep those base technologies, and simply only practice them seasonly when they move in to the area with the proper ore and materials. They can even build a permanent hearth and forge that does not travel with them, but will still be there when they return next year.

Agreed. But how far does that take them? They can dig out ore and smelt copper and iron and tin. Can they make bronze? Can they make steel? Can they maker stainless steel? Can they make the alloys needed for making parts for pocket watches? For gunbarrels? For beartraps?

Just because they're nomadic, doesn't mean they have to move every day or week. They can stop in place for sometime, and likely will. It flat out costs a lot of energy to move and setup camp often. Why move if you don't have to.

The chief limitation is in having to move at all. They can spend months at each site for all I care. How long it takes to hunt out an area would depend on how big the individual 'villages' were. But when they have to move, they have to carry all their worldly goods along with them.

A trade unused will quickly be forgotten. A trade not really necessary to the expansion and survival of the group will likely be ignored and forgotten (since the group is busy surviving with "practical" skills).

And I'm trying to figure out which trades are both needed and maintainable.

Only those with ample spare time to learn things "just in case" will be able to keep older, and under utilized trades and tech going. But part of the fact that they're nomadic suggests that the group really doesn't have a lot of spare time. The people are too busy surviving.

Yes. That would be one reason why technology would be lost.


Hans

 

[Icosahedron]

Let's agree to disagree on that, then. It didn't happen.

Fine by me. I'm just pre-empting the questions your players may ask. Whether you have an answer ready is your concern.

I'll mentally remove the TL8+ colony from the equation.

So, a world containing two groups - one in settlements, kept in a poverty trap by unscrupulous offworld traders, and one carrying out a nomadic lifestyle. What can the nomads create/maintain?

A lot depends on what they want to do, and how determined they are. With no outside contact, desire or determination, they could easily regress, Lord of the Flies style, to savagery. However, you imply that they don't do that, so they have some leadership and determination. They have a communal will to better themselves.

I think a group like that would continually attempt to farm and mine, because they know it will improve their lives if they succeed. Not the whole 'nation' perhaps, but offshoot groups, certainly.
As Whartung suggested, most nomads move in cycles, returning to lands many times, and they could create static resources such as bell-mines and forges, carrying only the portable tools from one camp to the next. After all, there's nobody around to steal what they leave behind...

Given such reuseable camps, I think they could probably maintain an iron-age or mediaeval culture, limited only by their predisposition to move - and the technical limitations imposed by moving would be a constant temptation to settle. Over a generation or two, I could see small groups planting crops and keeping chickens around the static camps and waiting for the main tribe to return the following year, forming the nucleus of small settlements.

Melee weapons and bows should be no problem, though they would be crude - lacking the generations of skill and know-how for finesse (how many astronauts can make a compound bow - or a violin?)
Lenses would be possible, but telescopes can last centuries anyway, they may not have need to make more. Microscopes would depend on their need to make use of germ theory.
They could probably (with sufficient desire) make crude flintlock pistols and carbines using only hand tools and lots of time, though the barrel-length of muskets would be a barrier. With a lack of tooling accuracy, shot would be preferable to slugs. Black powder could be made relatively easily, as could could soaps and simple disinfectants - with the requisite knowledge, of course. Simple tools such as pliers and saws could be made, and oil lamps and candles. They could even make crude electric batteries if they had any use for electricity.

It depends on what you want. They could be anywhere from TL0 to TL3 depending on the exact circumstances you place them in. Gimme a few 'could they make this?' examples and I'll think over the possibilities.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Lets see if I understand.
The second colonial group was not established at the time the outcasts arrived?

Questions and possible problems:
Are there rivers and oceans? Why can't they fish?

I would think steam power would be possible. Maybe even coal. Fish oil? Vegetable oil? Hydro power? As I mentioned before, unlike a group of low tech people, the original outcasts have knowledge already and know what is possible.

The descendants are a quarter of a million people. What was the total # of original colonists? An extremely harsh living is described that keeps the entire population moving. So harsh they can not organized and try and set up special camps for mining, forging, manufacturing or whatever they determine necessary. Pretty much the entire population is needed to hunt and gather food. They lack medicine, medical tools, and medical facilities. How are they able to maintain their population let alone increase it?

I have all kinds of tools I've inherited from my grandfather (whatever tech level you'd like to assign) and are available for my grand children. That's 5 generations. Higher tech items designed for harsh colonial use should last a while and require minimal maintenance if properly cared for and not mistreated.

What was included in the original equipment? Maybe there was some poor planning but I find it hard to believe you'd take these people somewhere and not provide them with starting resources and gear. If the people dropping the outcasts off cared so little about them or were too frugal to provide equipment, why wouldn't they just space them instead of tansporting them?

A crash landing can explain damage to some gear. Perhaps the original settlement is destroyed by a natural disaster, like flooding, that damages or sweeps things away.

So what was/is available? It's hard to recommend what a group of nomads could maintain unless we know what they have. Small, portable, efficient solar power and equipment that is recharged from it?

 

[rancke]

Lets see if I understand.
The second colonial group was not established at the time the outcasts arrived?

The English-cognates and French-cognates came later and in limited numbers, yes.

Questions and possible problems:
Are there rivers and oceans?

An incomplete map of Imsu in 1116 can be found here.

Why can't they fish?

I've no idea. The same reason the Amerindians couldn't just fish, I imagine, but I don't know just what that was. Fishing is seasonal? A particular stretch of river gets exhausted and has to be left fallow for a while to recover?

I would think steam power would be possible. Maybe even coal. Fish oil? Vegetable oil? Hydro power? As I mentioned before, unlike a group of low tech people, the original outcasts have knowledge already and know what is possible.

Yes, that's not the problem. The problem is what they can manufacture with an infrastructure limited by low population figures and the need to move everything every once in a while. It's not a question of what could be done if an extraordinary effort is made. It's a question of what can be done with just a reasonable amount of effort.

The descendants are a quarter of a million people. What was the total # of original colonists? An extremely harsh living is described that keeps the entire population moving. So harsh they can not organized and try and set up special camps for mining, forging, manufacturing or whatever they determine necessary. Pretty much the entire population is needed to hunt and gather food. They lack medicine, medical tools, and medical facilities. How are they able to maintain their population let alone increase it?

The numbers aren't set in stone, but the ones I'm using at the moment are 4000 original settlers in Year 110 and a quarter of a million by Year 400.

They are able to increase their numbers the same way nomadic Amerindians were able to increase their numbers.

I have all kinds of tools I've inherited from my grandfather (whatever tech level you'd like to assign) and are available for my grand children. That's 5 generations. Higher tech items designed for harsh colonial use should last a while and require minimal maintenance if properly cared for and not mistreated.

That's true. I'm also open to letting the original settlers have a limited amount of manufacturing capacity in the form of a mobile fabrication facility and a stock of raw materials. But enough tools to serve 4000 people are not going to be much help when the population expands by an order of magnitude or two.

What was included in the original equipment?

An inadequate colony package. Thrown together in haste by people who didn't so much care for the fate of the involuntary exiles as for not being accused of not giving them any supplies at all.

Maybe there was some poor planning but I find it hard to believe you'd take these people somewhere and not provide them with starting resources and gear. If the people dropping the outcasts off cared so little about them or were too frugal to provide equipment, why wouldn't they just space them instead of tansporting them?

Because spacing them would be murder. Dumping them wouldn't. That is, spacing them would be percieved as murder, dumping them would not be perceived as such, whatever the reality.


Hans

 

[whartung]

Arguably, the Plains culture of the US is probably the pinnacle of primitive, nomadic technology.

The difficult part is that there was a LOT of trading going on for quite some time.

But before that, these people mastered toolmaking, from stone, wood, bone, and animal hides. Obviously they had rough textiles for weaving. Baskets obviously, but I think it's more what materials are at hand than anything else. If they have access to textile animals (goats, sheep), then they may well develop yarns and cloths for blankets etc. This tech moves very easily. A loom is readily collapsible and remade I would think.

They also mastered animal husbandry to a point I would think, breeding ponies, and perhaps light meat animals. But, why raise and grow meat animals when they're literally millions of them roaming the area. I could see them keeping dogs, and eating them, as they travel well and offer other value to the village.

Apparently, even though nomadic, they had a solid grasp of agriculture, farming, and plant breeding. It's a question of how nomadic these people really were. Perhaps they moved only twice a year, mostly for wintering. Again, moving is a lot of work and time, and most creatures aren't really big on it (just ask my cats). People are no different.

It's a combination of having the material at hand, and the ability to transport that material and any tools necessary to leverage the material. There is also other trade going on with other peoples, minimally different clans or tribes, who may have access to different resources.

Anything requires a LOT of labor though, I'd question. That's the darkside of metallurgy. It takes a lot of ore to get decent metal out of it, and nomadic peoples tend to be small in population. They simply don't have the manpower to do things like mining. If they could trade for the ore, or the rough metal, from a nearby non-nomadic group, then they could at least master metal working, if not metal making. The requirements for that are much less. Even going as far as building a forge in the summer ground that is abandoned during the winter.

They could develop pharmaceuticals based on plants, etc. They can develop crude chemistry, even gunpowder, again assuming the resources are readily available (skimming deposits off of a old salt lake, perhaps). Once the raw materials are made available, they can experiment with them most anywhere.

So, I'd look at the land and what it has available to them, and use that as a driver.

 

[navanod]

This might spark some ideas

An interesting talk about a "Civilization starter kit" utilizing the 50 most useful tools.

http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html

ah, there's his page. http://opensourceecology.org.nyud.net/

Probably way more high tech than you're looking for, but good ideas for a starting colony package.

 

[samuelvss]

One thought is that the gap in tech levels from 9 to 1 or 2 is profound. We tend to assume that TL9 includes all the lower ones, but as a few have mentioned in this thread, that is not the case. I know all about how to use a bunch of high tech goodies; I know how to crudely forge steel. Could I find and smelt iron ore? How about copper? Big no.

Why don't they have their original equipment? It has already been said they weren't well set up. No batteries, corroding circuits, bad alloys, plastic that's not UV resistant: the list could go on for pages.

I think the climb from TL0 to 2 or 3 could be slower than 300 years in this case, or not. You can justify it either way. If there is essentially no market for their goods, and they are essentially forgotten, then fur trading doesn't buy much.

As to what they would trade, I go with rifles, cutting tools, steel, and hand tools first. These are all productive, rather than medical supplies, which are consumed and tend to be expensive.

 

[Icosahedron]

As to what they would trade, I go with rifles, cutting tools, steel, and hand tools first. These are all productive, rather than medical supplies, which are consumed and tend to be expensive.

Easy to say now, but how many guns and tools will you swap for medical supplies when your wife and kids are dying?