I tried to post this last week, but it was a no-go. Since there's still some
discussion re: feudal technocracies, I thought I'd try again. Here goes:
FEUDAL TECHNOCRACY
I have been following the Sword Worlds debate with only mild
interest, but a line in one of the posts struck my attention.
What follows is entirely tangential to that discussion, however.
One of the participants in the SW thread said, concerning
feudal technocracies, that he or she thought there should be
"something feudal" about them. That set me to thinking about
what a feudal technocracy is, at least in Traveller terms.
First, some purely hypothetical statistics as background.
How often do feudal technocracies occur within the Imperium? The
number of worlds in the Third Imperium is given as 11,000: I
don't know where that came from, but I will use it here. That
means, using the world generation routine given in the rules --
THIRD IMPERIUM FEUDAL TECHNOCRACIES BY POPULATION
Pop Freq Feud Tech: %Occur #Occur
0 2.7% DR 12 .001 11
1 5.5% DR 11 .003 33
2 8.3% DR 10 .007 77
3 11.1% DR 9 .012 132
4 13.9% DR 8 .019 209
5 16.6% DR 7 .028 303
6 13.9% DR 6 .019 209
7 11.1% DR 5 .012 132
8 8.3% DR 4 .007 77
9 5.5% DR 3 .003 33
A 2.7% DR 2 .001 11
TOTAL = .112 1227
Pop: UWP Population Code
Freq: Population code frequency within Imperium
Feud Tech: Die roll required for UWP gov code 5
%Occur: Frequency of UWP gov 5 worlds @ pop code
#Occur: Number of UWP gov 5 worlds @ pop code
Thus, approximately one-tenth of the worlds within the Imperium
may be feudal technocracies. A majority of these are small
communities under one million in population, though a very few
high-pop feudal technocracies exist. Interestingly, UWP Gov Code
5 may be the mode of the government type data set -- that is, the
most frequently occuring value. I haven't done the math on that,
but it is intuitive given the results above.
The above chart implies that feudal technocracies are a
common category of government throughout the Imperium. It can be
inferred from the above that a feudal technocratic government is
best suited to an intermediate-sized community, for reasons which
may or may not be clear. I would argue that feudal arrangements,
by defining the relationships among the individual members of a
society, grow too complicated above a certain population size or
density.
It may be helpful, at this point, to elaborate upon what a
feudal technocracy is. In a discussion of the concept of
feudalism, a historian named Morris Bishop said that it is "one
of those words that have taken on so many extended and figurative
meanings that the original [one] has been obscured." Bishop goes
on to say that feudalism "is a total organization of society,"
specifying the status of individuals within its purview, and
establishing implicit and explicit responsibilities among them.
In medieval times, this feudalism centered around land,
agriculture, and military service. In terms of the Third
Imperium, a feudal technocracy may focus on very different
elements.
The central idea of a feudal society, in any event, is the
codification of the complex web of social, legal, and economic
interrelationships among its members. The term "government" is
therefore somewhat of a misnomer. (I suspect that many a feudal
technocracy may appear to be a balkanized world to the untrained
observer.) UWP Gov Code 5 refers to feudal *societies*.
If we accept the definition of a "technocracy" to be "a
government by an elite controlling some aspect of the application
of the society's technology", then the worlds to which we assign
UWP Gov Code 5 must meet two criteria.
First, the legal rights, responsibilities, and roles of
individuals must be defined in terms of their socioeconomic
status (thus, "feudal").
Second, an elite class which controls some critical
technology must make up a privileged, ruling class (ergo,
"technocracy").
This critical technology may be military technology -- the
lance, armor, and warhorse of the medieval knight, for example --
but does not have to be. Nor is it necessarily a single
technology: access to more advanced technical knowledge and
resources may be sufficient.
However, the existence of a critical technology helps to
differentiate a feudal technocracy from an oligarchy. It occurs
to me as well that, whereas oligarchies may tend to be relatively
homogeneous ("monolithic" in World Builder's Handbook terms),
feudal technocracies admit more possibility for conflict, as the
elites may sometimes work at cross-purposes -- though within the
social bounds established by the feudal arrangement.
How many different types of social systems can be posited
which fit the first half of this definition? I could think of
five; there are probably more.
1. Traditional Feudalism: An elite, usually military, ruling
over a producing "proletariat" of farmers and laborers. A
separate intellectual class may exist, as well as a small
mercantile class.
2. Corporate Feudalism: A complex arrangement consisting of
individual economic organizations within which "employees" and
"managers" have certain specified tasks. "Owners" in one form or
another may serve as the ruling class, but the managerial elite
will, by virtue of their expertise, have considerable power. The
corporations themselves are bound by a web of economic alliances
and buyer-seller arrangements.
3. Contract Feudalism: Within this type of society, economic
relations between individuals are defined in terms of "contracts"
which may be implicit or tacit but which, by certain behaviors,
all parties acknowledge to be legally binding.
4. Arcological Feudalism: The society is arranged as one or
more arcologies; that is, self-contained and economically self-
sufficient communities. As with corporate feudalism, an elite
managerial class of technical experts holds considerable power
within the society.
5. Caste Feudalism: All economic roles are hereditary and
confer a greater or lesser degree of social status upon the
possessor. The highest caste controls the society's critical
technologies.
It is difficult, perhaps, to imagine a society wherein the
critical technology is not military. It might help, therefore,
to do some brainstorming on this issue. Some of the following
may be reasonable:
1. MEDICAL - The society's elite are the doctors who can extend
or deny life-saving treatment, including anagathics. Rather than
the Hippocratic Oath, their credo is to advance the interests of
society as a whole by their efforts.
2. TRANSPORT - In a world where communities are isolated and not
self-sufficient, those who control transport technology exert a
great deal of influence upon other members of the society.
3. COMPUTER - In a complex economy, those who control the
computers and telecommunications technology that enable it to run
smoothly hold considerable power to direct resources as they see
fit. In some places, highly advanced AI-like "expert systems"
may be the elite. ("The Computer is your friend.")
4. ENERGY - By controlling an industrial society's sources of
energy, those who build, maintain, and direct a world's power
grid can gain considerable political influence and economic
advantage.
5. ENVIRONMENT - In a hostile environment, the engineers who
control and maintain life support systems are of critical
importance, and may be able to extract political power from their
position. Alternately, the toxin-removing, food-preparing
"shugilii" of the Vilani may fall into this category.
The above elements can be combined to provide the referee
with some inspiration when obliged to detail a UWP Gov Code 5
world. For example, a Pre-stellar world with caste feudalism and
medical technocracy may require the genetic typing of children to
determine their "proper" function in society. The highest caste
may be the Eugenes, who manipulate the breeding of the lower
castes to achieve their ends. Lower castes accept the system
with the belief that adherence to "Wedding Protocols" will result
in higher caste offspring, and thereby advancement.
Travellers to this planet will be struck by its unusual
social structure. Alien, indeed. Possibilities for patrons and
adventures exist here, as well. The Eugenes may wish to improve
the breeding stock by gaining some high-quality off-world genetic
material, and commission the PCs to find suitable donors. A rich
but low-caste trader might desire the PCs to use their High
Stellar computer expertise to falsify her son's genetic record so
that he will be declared suitable for high caste upon reaching
maturity.
The point of this admittedly lengthy post is that worlds in
a science fiction adventure should be to some degree alien or at
least exotic, and should serve as gateways to adventures that are
not just "cowboys with rayguns". Or Star Vikings with assault
rifles.
Feudal technocracies, to continue the metaphor, do not have
to be barons with blasters.
All the above is IMHO, of course. I know there are some
holes in my argument. Any comments, gripes, protestations,
modifications, exhortations, helpful hints, complaints, or
accusations will be greatly appreciated.
Bill White
[email removed]