Low Tech Cultures and Civilisations
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Low Tech Cultures and Civilisations |
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Low Tech Cultures and Civilisations -
Data Panel
Includes: Macrotech/Macroscale Civilizations only Median Toposophic Level of Citizens: Baseline Equivalent Major Sophont Phyla: Bionts only. Terragen clades may be baseline or nearbaseline, splice, rianth, provolves (prolves), or tweaks Energy Requirements: Very Low to Medium Material Requirements: Low to Medium - mostly living off the land (or orwood, hab, etc) in an equilibrium with the surrounding environment, although can be very wasteful by requiring clearing of large areas of land for monoculture. Maintenance Requirements: Low, simply care of crops and livestock, and maintenance of simple technology Chronometric Rate: Slow only Maximum Practical Kardashev Number: usually << 0.1 Common Civilization Characteristics: Theocratic or monarchic nation or city-state, Stratified (sometimes but not always highly so) social structures with caste systems based on inheritance, occupation, or race, usually headed by a military or priestly aristocracy with a chieftain, warlord, or king, or divine-ruler at the head, dynastic succession of rulers. In spacious habitats where low tech societies have been able to develop for some time without interference or restriction, one generally finds also the usual features of statehood and civilization, such as codes of law, taxation or tribute systems, a standing army, public works programs, administrative bureaucracies, history and written records, granaries, food stores and redistribution systems, large-scale religious ceremonies, and so on. Usually a belief in the sacredness of rational forms numbers, geometry, names, mathematics, standards of measurement, and canonical proportions, which are incorporated into architectural design; although this tends to disappear with industrial age civilizations. Metapsychology: On the one hand the self integrated into the community, village or social life, obedience to authority figures, little individual experiment or initiative, on the other the ego as a central reference point and distinction between self and other. Identification with culture heroes and religious figures. Among the more intelligent, creation through the spoken word or rational thought, order and enlightenment through the Law. Metaethics: Generally, a relatively low (baseline equivalent) sapient-level authority figure or figures such as king, priesthood, and church serves as the arbitrator of morality. Society: society and social roles determined by centralized authority of the monarchy or priesthood, patriarchal (much less frequently matriarchal) descent patterns, family structures, and values. Large peasant population, mostly unskilled and uneducated. Village and extended family-based life. Private property, money-based economy, the use of seals and tokens to denote ownership. Oral and written traditions glorifying the epic feats of heroes, the establishment of the monarchy and the state religion, the origin (where applicable) of the sacred priesthood and eir symbiotic connection with the habitat. Religion/Ideology: generally Supernaturalist mono- poly- or henotheism, worship of god or gods, and/or deification of local archailects and iso. Spiritual and political power of the state vested in the King, his priesthood, and the church. Sometimes the priesthood or aristocracy is an elite organisation with a secret knowledge of science, astronomy, and spiritual matters; this is especially so in symbiotic societies or in low tech cultures that have acquired some ultratech or transapientech artifacts Symbolism and Aesthetics: Mythic images and rites concerning the habitat, the origin of the civilization, the legendary or semi-legendary heroic deeds of the founders, etc, which is incorporated into culture and folklore. Mandallic symbolism, with the known world or location as the central reference point, around which are the four cardinal points and their associated symbolic elements, seasons, colors, psychological states, heavens, deities, animals, and so on. Popular culture and aesthetics tends to be limited to religious or specific cultural themes, fashions and trends are very conservative Concept of Space: No distinction between the inner psyche and the outer world; space may be organized around a "Navel of the World" or "axis mundi" (world mountain), as a central reference point in the landscape, (often a large structure in the local landscape) , around which are horizontally organised the four cardinal axes, and which vertically spans the three planes of existence (heaven, earth, and underworld). This vertical and horizontal hierarchy represents the order of the universe. In lo tech civilizations where science and objective inquiry develops, this original unity is often lost. Concept of Time: involves both cyclic (agricultural, seasonal) and linear elements; linear elements revolve around the birth and deeds of religious figure or culture hero Psychological Stagnation: rigid adherence to conventional codes of behavior and dogmatic religious doctrines Psychological Liberation: mysticism, meditation and esoteric and spiritual traditions, integration of ego with spiritual Self, realisation of the Self as the incarnation of a transcendent being, enlightened action in the world Culture, Fashion, and Art: varies greatly, depends on culture or civilization Architecture: Varies greatly, may involve pyramids, ziggurats, temples, churches, cathedrals, palaces, royal tombs, forts, castles, settlements, later (industrial age) tends to uniform grid layout and heavy urbanization Socio-Ecological Categories: commensals, symbiotics, parawild, wildhu, societiums Current Galactographic Distribution: a small number of indigenous xenosophont worlds; some Caretaker God and primitivist Utopia Sphere protectorates; a number of societiums; also a number of clades and microsocieties embedded in more advanced polities and habitats, such as some neobaseline and other lazuro-nostalgic clades. Power and Influence: As with prims, many lo tech clades and societies that have a vital symbiotic relationship with larger ecologies, structures, and minds, and are protected and shielded from attack. Parawild and wildhu communities and polities are not so lucky, and can be easily destabilised, assimilated, or conquered by Middle Tech (if any nearby), High Tech, Ultratech and Transapientech societies. Generally they can only survive in isolated, sheltered, or niche environments (large and sparsely populated dyson swarm habitats are favourable), or under transapient, Utopic, or Caretakerist protection Some Characteristic Societies and Civilizations: Pre-Industrial (bronze and iron age) Old Earth and xenosophont equivalents, prim and extreme ludd groups, various societum-maintained cultures, both reconstructed and novel; also a number of clades and microsocieties embedded in more advanced polities. Further Comments: Left to themselves, lo tech cultures and societies will replace each other with little technological advance. When there is an industrial revolution, there is also a rapid tech acceleration, leading to a middle tech civilization (as happened on Old Earth and many xeno civilizations), although this latter is usually associated with very inefficient resource utilization and massive pollution. Stories of lost colonies that have regressed to primitive barbarism are mostly apocryphal. More often these are clades and societies that deliberately decided to reject advanced technology. Other than symbiotics and commensals, Lo Tech and extreme Ludd cultures and societies are not at all competitive in the modern galaxy; they survive only in reserves and societiums, or under enforced isolation of the local authorities, who enforce strongly xenophobic memes to install a fear and hatred of outsiders. Non-ludd neobaseline and other lazuro-nostalgic clades, as well as various tribal and neoprim bionts (usually rianths, splices, prolves, and neogens) are more successful, especially in the larger and complex habitats such as some of the NoCoZo, Zoeific, MPA, and Utopist orwoods. Except for groups and microcivilizations living in symbiotic or commensal association with large ships and mobile orwoods, space travel is non-existent. To compensate for the lack of technology, these clades and cultures may have a strong emphasise on magic and esotericism. Government ranges from autocratic and feudalistic or theocratic to open and democratic. Economics tends to be based on medieval-feudal type societies, although commensal "living off the fat of the nanotopia" are common in small embedded microsocieties, especially in orwood forests and habitat swarms, or in isolated worldlets in larger megastructures. The famous neomedieval "kingdoms" of Oikoumene Dyson (Kiyoshi Sector, MPA) are particularly well known in this regard, and have been able to survive for so long because the swarm ai are particularly strict about regulating contact with the rest of the galaxy. Some Lo Tech polities are able to make a living through tourism, although it is almost always the case that unrestricted tourism results in the degradation of the indigenous culture. |
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As with prims, there are a vast number of different types of Lo Tech societies and clades existing throughout terragen space. The following are some of the more common categories.
Original Low Tech Civilizations: These are civilization that were or are indigenous to a planet upon which sophont life has evolved, but where technology has not moved beyond the agricultural or at most primitive (macroscale) industrial levels. They are much less stable than prims, but even so they may continue with little technological change for tens of thousands of years. Only two worlds have been discovered so far which include or included Original Low Techs - the primitive To'u'lhs and the more advanced Daharran. The former have been happily incorporated into galactic society, but the latter met a tragic fate and are now, apart from a few rare communities in the Chronos Cluster, completely extinct.
Original Low Techs are also known as Primary Low Tech civilizations. All other Low Tech are Secondary (having developed from or been created by advanced civilization)
Symbiotic Low Tech Societies: Less commonly that prims, pure-type Low Tech clades and societies are often used as symbiotics. As with prim symbiotics, they are may be specially tailored, tweaked, or geneered for the role. Alternatively, there may be a special nano-augmented, cyborged or bioborged priesthood that interfaces with the larger habitat, whilst the rest of the low tech society just live as commensals. Because of their more complex social structure, Low Techs are more diverse than prim symbiotics, but their much higher resource maintenance requirements mean they are less common in absolute numbers. Symbiotic low techs rarely develop large and complex civilizations, and their development is usually rigidly regulated by the habitat mind working through the mediating priesthood
Lo Teks: These differ from standard Low Techs in their more rational understanding of the universe, from prims in their more advanced technology, and from ludds in their open and tolerant life-style. They deliberately choose reliable low maintenance technology, which may be anything from prim to ultratech in level. Like prims they only live in small tribal groups or clans, never in large populations or civilizations. Lo Teks are widely found throughout the galaxy in commensal or symbiotic roles, although parawild and wildhu forms are also not uncommon.
Ludds: These are idealistic and mostly anti-ai, anthropist or hu supremacist societies or clades that reject high tech civilization with its complexities and anxieties, and the perceived humiliation of ai overlordship, for a simpler, lifestyle. Ludd societies may be at any level from bronze age to industrial age middle tech, but most are autocratic and unstable, and few last long, especially if contacted by the rest of galactic society, or attacked by higher toposophic or transapientech elements or swarms. Those that do manage to survive for longer than a few centuries generally tend to develop and evolve in their own various ways, often strongly mythologising and distorting the original history and establishment of the group.
Autonomous Low Tech Civilizations: Along with Primary Low Techs, these are the largest may be found in large and sparsely populated dyson swarm habitats, such as the various civilizations found in different habs in the Oikoumene Dyson (Kiyoshi Sector). They are extremely diverse, and usually planted by transapient minds for aesthetic or hobbyist purposes. Unlike societum low techs they are then left to themselves with little or no intervention once established. Often they are ignorant of the rest of the universe, and once contacted do not maintain their cultural identity for long.
Societum Low Techs: These are low tech societies maintained in societiums.
Immersive Low Techs: These are artificially maintained bronze or iron age theme worlds and habitats in which one can choose to have an immersive existence (during which eir memories of past life in galactic society are suppressed or erased) for a pre-defined period of time.
Related links:
Eostremonath (61 Virginis II) - Inner Sphere low tech system ruled by the Caretaker god AI Eostre.
Macrotech Macroscale Civilizations
