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| Macroscale Technology - Data Panel
Definition: Technology on the molar scale - working with billions or trillions of molecules and atoms rather than individual or small groups of atoms. Obeys conventional Newtonian rather than quantum laws. A few alternative terms: Macroscale, Middle Scale, Common Scale Level: Prim, Lo Tech, and Middle Tech. Hi Tech and Ultratech macroscale tech is based on a micro-, meso-, and nano-scale foundation. Substrate: (Dumb Macrotech) Usually Inorganic Application: almost any use, allowing for environmental limitations Distribution and Availability: (Dumb Macrotech) found especially on lower tech level, prim, and ludd polities and worlds. Templates available everywhere. Legal Status: Depends on polity and usage, but most macroscale tech has few or no restrictions (exceptions with weapons in some polities) Environmental Requirements: depends on tech Ease of Use; Care and Maintenance: dumbtech may or may not be reliable, but generally is high maintenance Popular With: Many ludd and backward clades and polities. Sometimes also used by non technophobic polities and clades for specialised use, e.g. the mechanical "mole" shown above. |
Macroscale technology is the easiest for ordinary bionts and vecs to understand. This is the level of familiar or ordinary objects, and technology is based on this scale of objects. This technology controls structures and energy using macroscopic (on the order of meters to millimeters and less) tools. This is where naturally evolved civilisations begin. The emphasis is on bulk and quantity. Vehicles, buildings, large scale foundries, factories, domestic appliances, household goods, and so on, are all built on the macroscale.
Today, macroscale technology rests on a foundation of micro-, meso-, and nano-, and even in some cases pico-tech infrastructure, and it is not possible to speak of macrotech in isolation. But this was not always the case. Prior to the Information Age, Old Earth technology was primarily, even (prior to the late atomic age) completely macroscale based. And even today some Caretaker God and primitivist Utopia Sphere protectorates still have societies based solely on macrotech
Macrotech is also known as dumbtech because it lacks computational elements or at best has only the crudest control structures, and has to be manually directed by a sentient being. For this reason macrotech cannot stand on its own, and is not self-reproducing.
Related links:
Antisound - systems used to negate ambient sound
Leg Wheels - macroscale devices used for locomotion
Macroscale Macrotech Civilizations
