Shall Not Perish 9 - Sword Worlds

Gentlesophonts:

From Wednesday night, Hans Rancke [email removed] writes:

> David Johnson writes:
> >the Sword Worlds were at tech level 10 or 11 with the exception of Sacnoth
> >which was at tech level 12.
>
> Sword Worlds were TL 11 1500 years ago. They've been knocked down a bit
> once or twice during their history by wars  -  once below TL 9  -  but
> they've been TL 9+ for centuries. Why should a 70 year period of crisis
> management (I'm referring to the Quarantine) be conductive to economic
> growth?

I had recognized your point that variance in tech levels suggests some
sort of sociological reason - as opposed to technological - behind the
tech levels but I hadn't considered the fact that Sword Worlds technology
had been relatively stagnant and yet still varied from world to world.
This does tend to suggest that an increase might not occur in the 80 years
to TNE.

> Or perhaps it is  -  one might argue that a pseudo-wartime economy
> would stimulate technological improvements. But then, the Sword Worlds
> have frequently been on war footing throughout their history, and they
> were still only TL 10-12 in 1120. And never forget that wartime economies
> are not sustainable in the long run.

I agree with this point as well.  If the Frontier Wars haven't induced
technological advance one doubts Virus will - especially since the Sword
Worlds aren't on the front line.

> 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 - especially since it was
suggested in the *JTAS* "Contact" article on the Sword Worlds that they
were very homogenous - at least to outsiders.  One would expect then some
similarity in technological achievement.  Without it, one wonders why
Sacnoth, at tech level 12, hasn't come to dominate the Sword Worlds long
ago.

(I suspect that this is once again merely a matter of the world generation
rules intruding into the background but any rationales - not just opinions -
to the contrary are appreciated.)

Happy Travelling,

David Johnson
Houston, Texas, USA