Sword Worlds Technology

David Johnson writes:
>J Roberson [email removed] writes:
>>I don't know much about the Sword Worlds, but to me they always seemed
>>very faction-based, more akin to the Peloponnesian city-states than,
>>say the Roman Empire.
>
>This is a fair assessment, IMHO, but this very view seems at conflict with
>variable TLs.  Again, if Sacnoth truly is at TL 12 while the other worlds
>are at TL 9-11 then it ought to quickly come to dominate the entire
>Confederation.

Dominate how? And how quick is quickly?

>Remember, technology is at the heart of the `feudal
>technocracy' of the Sword Worlds Confederation.

How would this affect the inter-planet dealings? Individual Sword Worlds
may be feudal technocracies, but the Confederation itself is a  -  well,
a confederation ;-)

>This idea of a fundamental advance does need to be rectified with Hans's
>point that in the Imperium campaign the ease of access to higher TLs points
>to an economic or sociological basis for any TL rating rather than a basis
>upon technological endeavor.  If I want to build a Jump-3 starship on Gram
>all I need to do is jump over to Sacnoth, buy some blueprints (or hire a
>shipwright), and jump back to Gram.  Since this isn't happening (otherwise
>Gram would be TL C with a class A starport) then either I can't afford to
>buy the blueprints (or hire the shipwright) *or* there is some social
>reason why I can't do this.  You can take it a step further to say that
>Gram doesn't have the TL 12 factories needed to manufacture components for
>such a ship but can't I just jump down to Sacnoth and get plans for them
>too?

Ah, but thats the whole point. You don't have the factories because you can
buy your TL 12 stuff cheaper from Sacnoth than you can build them yourself.
And you don't build that ship yourself becuase it's cheaper to buy it from
Sacnoth, too. This also impose a natural restriction on Sacnoth's ability to
dominate the Confederation: If they become too expensive the other worlds
_will_ build TL 12 factories  -  which will propably trigger a recession on
Sacnoth and close down a lot of industry  -  quite possibly enough to drop
Sacnoth a TL in the process. That's what I mean by economic cycles.

>Hans Rancke [email removed] writes:
>
>>David Johnson writes:
>>>>From Wednesday night, Hans Rancke [email removed] writes:
>>>>Perhaps the Sword Worlds goes through
>>>>a regular cycle of booms and recessions with acompanying TL increases and
>>>>decreases?
>>>
>>>Well, maybe, but that still doesn't explain the *variance* in tech levels
>>>from world to world within the Confederation  -
>>
>>It does if one postulates that the individual Sword Worlds are on different
>>cycles. When a world has a boom it produces TL 12 stuff and exports it; when
>>it is in a depression it makes do with TL 10 or 11 stuff for the most part
>>and imports what it has to.
>
>Such variation in economic cycles from world to world would seem to suggest
>that there is little integration between the economies of the Sword Worlds.

On the contrary, there is a lot of intergration. That's why their economies
can affect each other that way. What they don't have is much economic
_control_. Each world will do what seems best for itself.

>This seems unlikely to me.  Even if there is little political cooperation
>there ought to be much economic cooperation or the Sword Worlds would have
>fallen to the Imperium - or the Darrians - long ago.

How do you know that? By that logic the independent worlds along the edge
of the Imperium should have fallen to the Imperium long ago too. They are
certainly even weaker than the Confederation. Lots of independant worlds
have fallen to the Imperium in the old days. But the Imperium had to stop
somewhere. It happened to be before they swallowed the Sword Worlds (Of
course, the fact that the present Sword world government (centered on Gram)
is rumoured to be heavily backed by Zhodani money may explain a lot). The
Imperium did occupy 12 of the Sword Worlds for a time after the Third
Frontier War, as a matter of fact. They just decided to go home again.

>>Their culture can perfectly well be homogenous in spite of TL variances of
>>a couple of levels.
>
>Well, maybe, but I find this unlikely for a `feudal technocracy'.  Technology
>is a fundamental aspect of Sword Worlds culture.

(Do me a favour and describe how a feudal technocracy functions. Of all the
government types that's the one I've never been quite clear about. I have
a vague idea, but I can't quite see how it would work in practice). Anyway,
as I said above, the Confederation is not one.

>>>Without it, one wonders why
>>>Sacnoth, at tech level 12, hasn't come to dominate the Sword Worlds long
>>>ago.
>>
>>Two possible reasons: 1) Sacnoth has its own ups and downs and just happened
>>to have an up the last time the Scouts or TAS updated their world catalogue.
>
>Well, if this was the case, why wasn't Sacnoth the capital at that point?

Because it was only one of 20+ worlds and the rest wanted it differently?

>Leadership clearly fluctuates among the Sword Worlds so ought not these
>fluctuations be tied to any fluctuations in technology?

Why should it? It is tied to political power. One source of political power
is technology, but it's not the only one. Besides, the leadership dosen't
fluctuate all that much. The Sword Worlds had been led by Gram for centuries
in 1120.

>Again, keep in mind the `feudal technocracy'.

Elucidate please. I'm not trying to be snide, I actually can't see why that
should affect the inter-planet relationships.

>>2) If, as I assume, a world can maintain equipment that is not too much in
>>advance of its TL, then the other worlds can maintain their own TL 12 ships
>>even though their TL is only 10 or 11 (though they cannot build new ones).
>>Thus there is a balance of power.
>
>Well, again maybe, but only if that balance of power doen't destroy any
>of those precious ships.  If I were Sacnoth I wouldn't sell any other
>worlds ships, fight them to a destructive stalemate, build some new TL12
>weapons of my own, and set myself up as a TED, in a sense.  If the Sword
>Worlds are as fractious as it seems, even if Sacnoth doesn't do this it
>seems the next world to hit the `peak' of it's cycle would.

Oh, dear! You really have a gamer's mentality, don't you? (And, yes, here I
am being snide ;-) The Sword Worlds have had their civil wars, true, but
they don't have them twice a decade. I think they've had four or five in
15 centuries. They're not the local Monday Evening Gaming Club trying to
do each other down, reasoning that having 50 'victory points' and win is
better than having 500 points and lose. Wars cost. Maybe the Sacnoth
leaders think a destructive stalemate would destroy too much. And, as
I've mentioned above, if Sacnoth dosen't sell those ships then the other
worlds _will_ build the factories to make the parts and build their own. If
that's the way it works, then the only reason why the other worlds are not
TL 12 is precisely that Sacnoth IS selling them ships and spare parts.

> This entire `technological cycles' idea seems to me to be more and more
> difficult to rationalize.

Did I help?

>>         "A  subsector  official  pompously states that the
>>         subsector  armed  forces  have  four Kinunir class
>>         ships in service,  each with enough troop strength
>>         to put down any military operations that threathen
>>         the peace of the Imperium."
>>
>>                         ---Adventure 1, The Kinunir
>
>I've been meaning to say it for a long time.  I *love* this quote.  It so
>wonderfully demonstrates the `provinciality' of all of us who `grew up' in the
>Marches - both gamers and GDW.  Thanks, Hans.

Thank you. Ahh, yes. I too remember a time when a Kinunir was an awesome
vesel of destruction, able to pacify whole worlds at a single volley of
its 15 (Count them: 15!) jump capsules <<nostalgic sniff>>.

They just don't make Marines like that nowadays, do they?


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

On Deep Space Stations:

It's possible they don't often make much economic sense.  (Maybe I'll do
a quick analysis sometime.)  But they might make very good military
sense, as a refueling depot.  All you need are the hulls for holding
the LHyd fuel, tanker/tugs to haul them around and fill them up, and
a parsec or so to hide them in.  I don't know whether the logistical
assets to support such a venture would be worth tying up or not.


On Depot and its' TL16:

David Johnson [email removed] writes:


>If this infrastructure exists in Deneb - and essentially Vincennes is the
>only source available - then Depot might continue to function.  Clearly
>this would be a priority of the Domain and later the Regency.  On the
>other hand, if Depot was previously supported by Imperial infrastructure
>beyond the Domain then it might be more feasible to move these facilities
>to Vincennes.

Point taken.  However, I think that Depot's tech is supportable on
the Domain's resources.  Deneb has enough TL15 worlds to handle any
materiel Depot got from other worlds at that tech level (maybe with
some retooling) and it would be fairly difficult and time-consuming
to ship anything significant from further away.  The nearest TL16
world outside Deneb was the capital of Corridor, Kaasu (Corr. 1209).
The only other TL16 worlds in that direction are the two in Vland,
Gemid and Lukham.  So Depot had to be fairly self-sufficient in the
way of manufacturing.  And from what we're told, typical Imperial
naval policy dictated this.  Still, I'd expect short-term equipment
problems, especially with experimental ships like the uprated TL17
armed Voroshilev battleships, since those contractors and that project
was not originally in Deneb.  It still will be rough for a couple
of decades, but not I believe, insurmountable.

Hmm...Depot (Deneb) may have been centered on Imperial prototype
development and testing, as well as high tech production.  Does
anyone else remember any TL16 naval depots?  (It seems to me that
some of the depots were designed with major secondary missions.
Except Depot (Corridor).  Its' secondary mission was its' primary
mission -- to be the biggest naval base in the Imperium!) :)

>My own view is that TL represents the production capability of the world.

Agreed.  I really liked the DGP _World Builder's Handbook_ development
of the tech level concept into types of technology at different levels,
with UWP tech level represented as the height of commonly available
technology on the world.  That didn't rule out weird tech level
variations in places, or lower tech in undeveloped regions, and so on.
For instance, UWP tech for modern Earth was 8, best representing the
planetary production (i.e. the industrialized, computerized "First
World" countries), but low common was only 6, representing the best
available elsewhere.  The book, if you can still find a copy, presented
a nice flexible system.


On Imperial Politics:

The x-boat system is an interesting case study.  When designed in the
mid-600s, it was state of the art: tech 13, jump four.  (Although
the Imperium was considered tech 14 in 700, so the government probably
had many jump five ships by then).  After four hundred years of service
it was still jump four.  While political reasons for having a slower
information system have been expressed (the government gets news by
jump six first), there are other considerations.  The x-mail system
may have been aging, but it still worked, and it would be terribly
expensive to redesign the entire system for jump six.  What if the
way stations would need to be moved?  Think of the expense of the
new x-boat designs!  [Especially in the old Classic Trav design
system which explains why we have the xboats we do!]

Even so, prior to the Fifth Frontier War, there had been talk of
building a jump six express route from Regina to Capital in order
to keep closer track of the Zhodani situation.  (Which may have been
Imperial sabre-rattling, but is still interesting.)  TNS news
releases on such things were in the 5FW game, and may have been in
JTAS was well.

  Steve Bonneville
  [email removed]