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Prim Societies - Data Panel
Median Toposophic Level of Citizens: So:1 - SI:0.3 (Baseline Equivalent), although may often be higher or lower (depending on the prim clade or society in question) Major Sophont Phyla: Bionts only. prim clades may be baseline or nearbaseline, splice, rianth, provolves, neogens, procreational bioborgs, or xenosplices Origin: Paleolithic Old Earth (and equivalents in xenosophonts) Technology Level: Prim Tech Energy Requirements: Negligible Material Requirements: Very low - usually living off the land (or orwood, hab, etc) in an equilibrium with the surrounding environment. Maintenance Requirements: Minimal, simply replacing objects that are broken or lost Chronometric Rate: slow Maximum Practical Kardashev Number: less than 0.001 Metapsychology: Intuitive consciousness, sense of oneness with the habitat or the surroundings, identification with specific territory, environment, or migration routes, through songlines, energy lines, geomantic flows, etc; Metaethics: sharing and cooperation among the tribe Society: Nomadic hunting-gathering, egalitarian or quasi-egalitarian social structures little or no occupational specialization, little sense of personal property or wealth (although in societies the tribal chief may acquire a larger number of possessions. Rich oral traditions, expression of sacred rituals and beliefs, personal and tribal identity defined and maintained through myth and ritual. No written language or developed sciences (although sometimes this may be provided by symbiotic nano or higher toposophic modification - see Alexandria) Religion/Ideology: Animism, shamanism, paganism - altered states of consciousness, ecstatic trance states, shapeshifting (shamanically becoming a bird, animal, or bot), dreams, natural healing; psychoeroticism, hallucinogenic drugs Symbolism and Aesthetics: Mythic images and rites concerning the Primordial Parents, Great Spirit, Ancestors, gods, spirit places, totems and taboos, traditional tribal lore, creation stories, cycles of nature Concept of Space: Space as a flowing organic continuum, the environment and surroundings are themselves considered alive and sacred Concept of Time: cyclic, mythological, "dreamtime" Psychological Stagnation: regression to pre-natal unconsciousness Psychological Liberation: shamanic journey, one-ness with nature or with the habitat Mind Culture, Fashion, and Art: music, dance, transformative arts and rituals, tattoos but minimal clothing (assuming habitat is of optimal ambient temperature), simple crafts Architecture: Impermanent huts and shelters made of locally available natural materials (mud, thatch, animal skins, etc), which readily disintegrate or recycle back into the surroundings Socio-Ecological Categories: commensals, symbiotics, parawild, wildhu, societiums Current Galactographic Distribution: a number of indigenous xenosophont worlds; some Caretaker God and primitivist Utopia Sphere protectorates; a number of societiums; also a huge number of clades and microsocieties embedded in more advanced polities, such as some utopic and Zoeific tribal and neoprim orwood rianths, splices, provolves, and lazurohominids. Due to their low energy and resource requirements prim societies are remarkably widespread, but population and tribal density is always very low. Stories of lost colonies that have regressed to primitivism are mostly apocryphal. Power and Influence: Many prims fulfill an essential symbiotic role on large biohabitats (such as orwoods) and bioships, helping to maintain the equilibrium of the system or environment in which they find themselves. These are really "owned" by the habitat or ship. Apart from that, there are romantic ideals of the "noble savage" among sophonts of more advanced societies. Prims however have no real power or influence otherwise, and free prim societies generally can only survive in isolated, sheltered, or niche environments or under transapient or Caretakerist protection, or in large and sparsely populated dyson swarm habitats. Some Characteristic Societies and Civilizations: Pre-civilization and indigenous tribal Old Earth, xenosophont equivalents, prim groups of every kind, various societum cultures, both reconstructed and novel, hab- and ship-based commensals and symbiotics. Further Comments: Left to themselves, prim cultures and societies are extremely stable and long-lived, persisting for tens of thousands of years and more. prims are often found in reserves and societiums, under Caretaker or Utopian stewardship, or in habitats or microhabitats and niches in orwoods and other complex and spacious environments. Frequently they live in symbiotic or commensal association with and in large ships and orwoods. Given a stable self-sustaining habitat or orbital, prims can survive indefinitely without need for any infrastructure. prims are also often adept at adapting more advanced technology to their needs, and incorporating it into their traditional lifestyle. Government tends to be based on tribal chiefdoms, and may be either patriarchal, matriarchal, hermaphro-archal, hive, or parahive, depending on the clade and culture in question. Economics involves living off the land, and is based on the basic tribal and neolithic (sometimes some metal-working although much more often, outside and/or offworld artifacts) level of culture and organisation. There is a very strong tendency to animism, a sense of sacredness and of the Spirit of the World/Habitat/Ship in which they live and have lived often for hundreds of generations. To compensate for the lack of technology, there may be a strong emphasise on magic and esotericism, especially shamanism and animism. Contact with higher civilizations can be devastating for prim cultures, as their members may leave for the bright lights of the city but end up exploited, lost, confused and without the stable roots their traditional lifestyle provides. For this reason, ships and habs with symbiotic prims tend to minimise or prevent interaction between the prims and the rest of the population. |
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There are a large number of different types of prims, although the defining feature is an absence of use of advanced technology, and the various low to high maintenance infrastructures on which that civilization depends. They may however still have occasional artifacts, which are acquired through trade, or other means, and are generally highly valued. Much depends on the type of prim, the type of environment and the restrictions which are placed upon them.
The following are the most common type of prims in terragen space.
Original Prims: These are prims that never were part of a space-faring civilization. They were or are indigenous to a planet upon which sophont life has evolved, but where technology has not moved beyond the tribal hunter-gather or neolithic or chalcolithic settlement stage (occasionally with limited iron-working). Some Original Prims never evolve to further technological levels, even after millions of years. And without contact and provolve by a spacefaring civilization they eventually die out. Perhaps half a dozen worlds have been discovered so far which include Original Prims; two are under Caretakerist protection, three have been provolved and are now part of terragen civilization, and one or possibly two are thought to have been destroyed by anti-biont ai when developing the star systems
Original Prims are also known as Primary Prims. They constitute an almost infinitesimal proportion of the prim population. All other Prims are Secondary (having developed from or been created by advanced civilization)
Symbiotic Prims: By far the greatest number of prims in the terragen sphere are symbiotics. These are prims that fulfil a symbiotic relationship within a larger environment (habitat, ship, orwood) and hence may be provided by the ruling mind with specific artifacts to aid them in that, and also prim societies that have occasional advanced artifacts acquired through trade. Often they are specially tailored, tweaked, or geneered for the role, with customs, myths, religion and customs to match. As well as, or instead of, tweaked nearbaselines, provolves, or splices, they may be reproductive bioborgs, neogens, and syborgs created through advanced gengineering but able to carry on their genome to further generations
Romantic Prims: These are idealistic societies or clades that rejected technological civilization with its complexities and maintenance requirements for a simpler, more harmonious, lifestyle. Like Ludds, they reject the ultratech society that is the heritage of all sophonts in the civilized galaxy. But they are more extreme than ludds in that they reject even low technology and urban settled civilization. They are widely found on special habitats, and occasionally entire terraformed worlds, set aside for their use, in the Utopia Sphere and elsewhere. While their societies are quite stable when isolated from galactic society, few survive for long if contacted.
Societum Prims: These are prim cultures especially maintained in societiums.
Immersive Prims: These are prim 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. This option is extremely popular among jaded bionts in the angelnetted worlds, rivalling even Immersive Adventures, Immersive Romance, Immersive Allophyletic Lifestyle, and Immersive Fantasy as most commonly chosen full-psychophysical immersion option.
Clade Cromag, aka Clade Neander - pseudolazurogenic prim clade created by the vec Dimimimon4 in the mid 5th millennium a.t.
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