BY LETTER
High Tech Societies (old version)
This is the highest stable level of society that can be maintained without direct external assistance from, or dependency upon, transapient minds.
For that reason, many Hi Tech Civilizations are very popular among nostalgic groups and baseline supremacists. Few tend to last long, either progressing naturally to ultratech, being abandoned, being assimilated, or being conquered by higher civilizations. They may fall prey to nanoswarms or transapient predators, or destroy themselves through infrastructure collapse, war, or economic collapse.
While some are completely isolated, relying on that very isolation to protect them from invasion, most survive through foreign aid and assistance from ultratech societies. Many others depend on the patronage or protection of a higher toposophic mind. They can also be found as isolated subcultures in habitats and niches in transapient-regulated habitat swarms and orwoods.
Industry, economics and biospherics are adequate, although often inefficient. Except for societiums and planet or habitat-bound cultures, Hi Techs always have some interplanetary (much more rarely interstellar) space-faring capacity. Space travel usually involves old second-hand ships donated by ultratech neighbors as foreign aid, and restored locally, usually with foreign help. Likewise, space stations, which are ubiquitous in many high tech polities today, are almost always built with outside help and/or foreign aid.
Government ranges from autocratic and xenophobic to open and democratic or cyberdemocratic. Economics tends to be capitalist-scarcity based supply and demand (whether internal or involving trade with the outside galaxy), although centralist command economies are not unknown. Some Hi Tech polities and civilizations are able to make a living quite happily through tourism, although unrestricted tourism usually results in the degradation of the indigenous culture.
Text by M Alan Kazlev
Page uploaded 11 May 2003, last modified 5 January 2004
For that reason, many Hi Tech Civilizations are very popular among nostalgic groups and baseline supremacists. Few tend to last long, either progressing naturally to ultratech, being abandoned, being assimilated, or being conquered by higher civilizations. They may fall prey to nanoswarms or transapient predators, or destroy themselves through infrastructure collapse, war, or economic collapse.
While some are completely isolated, relying on that very isolation to protect them from invasion, most survive through foreign aid and assistance from ultratech societies. Many others depend on the patronage or protection of a higher toposophic mind. They can also be found as isolated subcultures in habitats and niches in transapient-regulated habitat swarms and orwoods.
Industry, economics and biospherics are adequate, although often inefficient. Except for societiums and planet or habitat-bound cultures, Hi Techs always have some interplanetary (much more rarely interstellar) space-faring capacity. Space travel usually involves old second-hand ships donated by ultratech neighbors as foreign aid, and restored locally, usually with foreign help. Likewise, space stations, which are ubiquitous in many high tech polities today, are almost always built with outside help and/or foreign aid.
Government ranges from autocratic and xenophobic to open and democratic or cyberdemocratic. Economics tends to be capitalist-scarcity based supply and demand (whether internal or involving trade with the outside galaxy), although centralist command economies are not unknown. Some Hi Tech polities and civilizations are able to make a living quite happily through tourism, although unrestricted tourism usually results in the degradation of the indigenous culture.
Text by M Alan Kazlev
Page uploaded 11 May 2003, last modified 5 January 2004
Development Notes
Text by Orion's Arm Editors
Initially published on 31 December 2007.
Initially published on 31 December 2007.
