Re: [ItV] Spelljamming and Technology - article

In <URL:news:local.spelljam> on Sun 09 Jan, David Shepheard wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dreamer" <dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk>
> Subject: [SPELLJAMMER] [ItV] Spelljamming and Technology - article
>
> > If DMs consider that the history of spelljamming goes back
> > thousands or tens of thousands of years, and even further if you
> > talk to the elves or dragons, they may wish to ask why it has
> > been reasonably stable.  They may care to say that, just as in
> > the 'real world', all sorts of discoveries have been made over
> > the ages.  These would include the inventions of ancient Greece,
> > or China, or Arabia.  However, the right combination of
> > circumstances never quite arose so these gave rise to a
> > technological civilisation.  And, that the situation is the same
> > in the Spelljamming setting.  Or, they may want there to be some
> > sort of stabilising force, which works secretly, behind the
> > scenes, gradually smoothing out any disruptions, that would cause
> > radical changes to the Spelljamming meta-culture.  If so, then
> > any contact with a high tech civilisation might be the trigger
> > for this stabilising force to go into action.  Possibly foiling,
> > if not completely resisting, any attempts by PCs or others to
> > 'upgrade' the Spelljamming meta-culture with high tech.
>
> I would have thought that the stabilising force, of which you
> speak, is the Imperial Elven Navy.
>
> They have the most powerful fleet in wildspace and are the most
> organised society. Despite their losses in the two Unhuman Wars,
> they almost certainly possess a lot of detailed records of many
> societies in hundreds if not thousands of crystal spheres. If the
> technical devices that you speak of are randomly coming in and
> out of use over time, the probability is that the IEN would
> stumble onto some of these inventions.
>
> The feeling I get about the IEN is that, just like groundling
> elves, they have an affinity for nature. However, unlike
> grounding elves, they seem willing to sacrifice their own
> connection to nature in order to protect the greater good for the
> majority of elves. An example of this would be Bionoids. The way
> Bionoids are portrayed in The Cloakmaster Novels, leads me to
> believe that most Elves find them disgusting. Yet despite their
> apparent distaste the IEN were willing to convert some Elves into
> these sub-Elven creatures, when they didn't have any other
> option.
>
> (In our real history we have examples of weapons being designed
> to defeat particular armour designs and armour being designed to
> defeat particular weapon designs.)
>
> With a stable culture and long term knowledge of such things, I
> am sure that the Elves are aware of previous arms races on
> planets that they have watched. They must be aware that if they
> deploy advanced magic or technology, their enemies will get hold
> of it and work on improvements.
>
> I get the impression that the IEN know that they are getting more
> and more overstretched and in some spheres have control, purely
> because they have the respect of the other cultures in the
> sphere.
>
> I would think that under the circumstances it would not be
> unreasonable for the IEN to consider using spies to seek out the
> very people that you mention and find ways to slow down their
> work as much as possible.
>
> Alternatively the IEN could find an isolated sphere and locate
> disillusioned philosophers and would be scientists to relocate
> there. These people could then be allowed to get their
> experimentation out of their system in a controlled environment
> that would not pollute their own cultures. Better still the IEN
> would always have the option for using some of these secret
> inventions if they really got into trouble. I can imagine the IEN
> creating a 'Stepford Elves' style society, with for example a
> curious human with dangerous ideas that his fellows laugh at,
> being invited into adventuring parties, expeditions and other
> events that are all organised by undercover operatives. The
> eventual aim could be for them to reject their own backward
> culture and break out with people they are convinced are a group
> of likeminded friends to live on a new world where they can work
> in piece. Their colleges, friends, mentor, and perhaps even their
> husband or wives could be IEN stooges.
>
> Because Elves live a lot longer than other races an Elf that
> agreed to work on this sort of project could spend hundreds of
> years interacting with a particular race in order to be able to
> blend into the community and work effectively with their targets.
> If they worked with someone over a period of years they could
> shoehorn that person out of their environment so slowly that the
> person would never suspect anything. They might even genuinely
> come to care for those people.
>
> As long these people were allowed to continue with their work and
> got the right number of challenges they might never realise what
> was happening. They could live out a happy full life and never
> realise they were being conned. But if any of them decided to
> leave and go back home they could be 'disposed' of if the IEN,
> thought it was dangerous for them to leave.
>
> I know some people object to the behaviour of some of the Elves
> in the Cloakmaster Novels, but it is an option that some members
> of the IEN would probably consider at some point. Even if 99
> percent of Elves reject the idea out of hand, there might still
> be a tiny group of Elves doing this in secret, in an attempt to
> minimise the risk that Elves will start inventing things that put
> their society (and the societies of grounding Elves that I'm sure
> the IEN feels they are single-handedly protecting) at risk.
>
> There could even be an organisation doing this that the IEN
> leadership knows nothing about. This theoretical organisation
> might even have held back technology in the two Unhuman Wars in
> order to protect the secret of its existence. They may only
> reveal themselves when they have totally overwhelming odds and
> can kill all of their opponents and destroy all evidence that
> they had been there. Don't forget that with magic and the ability
> to communicate with the dead this is a lot less likely to occur
> that you would expect. For example: a secret force of Elven
> Technomancers that fought against a Scro ship would have to be
> sure that they could disrupt all magical travel and
> communication, kill everybody on board, utterly destroy the souls
> of all the dead and disintegrate every part of the ship and the
> bodies before anyone found them. If they couldn't be totally sure
> that they could do that they would have to steer clear of the
> ship and allow it to complete its mission.

This is interesting!

This is the sort of speculation, I was hoping to encourage, which
might allow DMs to consider different slants on what is going on.

As for destroying the souls, I would have thought bottling them,
and leaving the bottles in the possession of an elven god of
secrets, would be a reasonable substitute, and deals with the
issue that in some campaigns you cannot destroy souls. (Injure,
yes, imprison, yes, totally destroy, no.)


> David "Big Mac" Shepheard
> Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
> http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spell
> jammer_001071430476
> http://virtualeclipse.aboho.com/

--
Dreamer
dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/