Tech Level Musings

Howders, folk.

I was wondering about tech in Felarya... again. I just can't seem to stay off the subject, I guess.

The thing is, the availability of infinite worlds connecting to Felarya brings a few problems as far as I'm concerned. Say we got a world whose tech is like the year 1000 A.D. Now say we got a world whose tech is like that one but +1, so they're in year 1001. And then we have another universe +1, so it's like the year 1002. We can continue the progression until you get bored of the possibilities (it's OVER NINE THOUSAND!), by whose point we'd have mind-controlled cars, species customized on demand, Guardian repellent car freshener and toy Dyson spheres. I assume that either Felarya cannot really connect everywhere, or everywhere isn't all that big in the Felaryaverse. Otherwise, you know how reverse engineering works: as soon as one got the best tech, they'd dominate everything and spread it around.

Far as I get it, Felarya's supposed to be kind of a physical phenomenon that happens to portals, so I don't really like the 1st idea: besides, it's got so much goodness to it -immortality and stuff- that advanced enough races should be willing to take it for themselves unless they're so advanced that they can already replicate the effects and get them in their own home. In fact, one could assume that these advanced races created Felarya, and the immortality in Felarya is in fact a cheap reflection of what the creators have by now so they left the toy behind for other less advanced species to bother themselves with.

But I prefer to think the Felaryaverse is small, that it doesn't contain as many worlds as we'd like, and that there's no one so advanced that they could be the precursors that put Felarya together; maybe some god did it (this is mostly fantasy after all, nothing wrong with creationism. In fact, some young earth creationism with the flat earth would be great) but that's about as far as I'm willing to go. I hafta keep tight restrictions on available technology when I'm writing, simply because if the characters had anything that I could think of they'd never be in danger, and some things become excessively simple to figure out with even the simplest solutions. I mean, haven't a dozen people told you today that a dozen people with full autos could, barring magic, drive off a pred? Even if you're concerned about price, Kalashnikovs are worth $30-125 apiece... in markets like Somalia, Rwanda, Congo, Mozambique and Tanzania where they're in godawfully high demand! You could drive off a naga for less than $1000!



So I limit the domestic technology availability because of... those of you who read World War Z (Or the Anarchist's Cookbook) will know you can make a fuckton of death out of most of the things in your house if you knew how. So I prefer to think most Negavian houses cannot be scavenged for components for a death device (Don't that sound boring?) because they just don't have that kind of tech available. Amongst other assumptions, I take it there's cast iron stoves and cookware, pottery for insulation and bottles, burlap sacks, firewood for burning, a general unavailability of glass, plenty of brick/mortar/wood buildings (it's not a geologically unstable zone... unless you count the dimensional thing), and obviously no power, no gas, no running water, and specially no indoors plumbing [outside the special districts, that is; I assume the Vishmitali got some sort of power, maybe a nuclear reactor scavenged from a submarine/spaceship, and the richer part may have running water].

In this interpretation, I prefer to think that weapons and vehicles (be honest. That's the only thing you really wanted to hear about) are limited because the lugs in power don't like having people bring machineguns to anyone else than themselves, so they check people at the gate to make sure they're not gun runners. Also, the risk of weapons just passing through Felarya on their way somewhere else [somewhere else where they'd be a problem] is high enough that administrations on other worlds make damn sure that weapons don't get there in the first place unless they're nothing they'd worry about. Likewise, most modern comforts aren't available because there isn't an appropriate infrastructure for most things. Magic, though, we know is relatively plentiful in Felarya compared to places where the means would seem more familiar to us... so there'd have to be some weird uses of it in there.



As an alternative, I've considered the Appropriate technology approach too. According to this, Negav would be full of bicycles, employ solar chimneys and windtraps in order to keep cool, and import copious amounts of aluminium foil in order to meet its solar cookery needs [given Negav doesn't really have much it can produce power from; there's a river they could dam, but that's that]. We go by this approach, Negav will look like a poor South African (or Burmese) city, only with more magic (and more economic inequity, and more racial segregation, and more crime, and less overseas financial aid).

In this interpretation, the ass-backwardity is enforced, again, by a lack of infrastructure [Where would Negav get gas? What would it produce power from? And how would it pay for that stuff?] that makes it tough to have anything pretty unless it's powered by its own solar panel or something. On the other hand, there'd have to be some phat trading going on; doubt the necessary materials can come from magic. I could assume here that appropriate technology would hafta include magic- I mean, it's something they DO have plenty of [the only thing they are saturated of, in fact], know how to use, and have no reason to miss out on. Unless it causes spontaneous implosion in unborn children or something, I dunno. Hey, it's magic! You never know.



As another alternative, Negav could be actually a rather... modern city. After all, they have something to sell [the cure for the common cold] that forces YOU to go there, the means to capitalize on it (you eat, don't you?), and a pretty nifty monopoly on the safe places and the ability to get there. I mean, you don't use Negav's gate, you risk appearing inside a tree :B . Some countries have been able to base a pretty cool economy off tourism alone and not end up looking like the middle ages (and their medical care ability: I'm looking at you, Cuba), and Negav's got some shinies too. If we go by this interpretation, Negav can be pretty much THE most advanced place in the Felaryaverse (because tourists like watching DVDs in high definition in their 120-inch screens), and end up full of resort hotels, shopping malls, casinos, and even a division of Google sent to work there.

In this other interpretation, a place with this kind of cashflow will get anything a gorilla sits on. Also, restricting people coming in or out will keep away any but the most determined (or desperate [or delegating]) individuals, which is bad for biz. It wouldn't be up to Negav to check people for stuff, and all those imports will no doubt get something through: you'd find just about anything in here. There's no need for ley power plants [though Anna made one good enough for welding. In a cave. WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!], but power would have to be present somehow, and magic might get away with being downplayed like in a Batman movie. Also, the economic inequity would hafta be even moar pronounced.



What about you? Any musings you care to share about the way you see tech ought to be in Negav?

God, you talk alot. <.< I'm not going to even begin trying to listen to you AND read something on Wikipedia at the same time.

But I digress - I don't really like any of the viewpoints you've put forward. In my mind, Negav's tech would be incredibly mix-and-matched. We've already established that they have jet engines and laser rifles, right? But at the same time, these aren't a good representation of the overall tech level in Negav, let alone Felarya as a whole. So I don't believe there's really any way to pinpoint what Negav's collective tech level is in the first place, let alone compare it to (nonexistant) Earth-tech level equivalents like you're trying to do.

The quality of living itself varies depending on which tier of Negav is being discussed. In the lower tier there could be, at worst, hovel houses that look like Stonehenge rip-offs with open, glassless windows and only the bare comfort essentials - a bed and a closet at most - while in the middle tier I would expect houses with glass windows here and there, rooms in which food can be stored for a certain amount of time, (a) bedroom(s), etc.; somewhat (Earth) modern but not extravagant. Similarly, the tech would be different, too, but unlike the quality of living, technology can be transported to different places. Thus, there could be a mansion on the upper tier with plumbing, access to water (neither of which has to be exclusively 'technology' - as you said, there's no reason why Negavians wouldn't take advantage of magic where they can), and all the nice things we on (nonexistant) Earth have. Meanwhile, someone might secretly be building a tiny base of operations in one of the hovels in the lower tier, consisting of aforementioned laser rifles, laser swords, laser-guided rockets, laser-heated coffee, laser-eye surgery, laser hair removal, laser-scanned discs, laser-etcetera. Basically, there's just no real way to know for sure because of Felarya, and by extension Negav's, nature in relation to other worlds.

Reading your post did give me one idea though: you mentioned they could dam the river. Somehow, in Negav's case, I'm not sure that'd be as effective as simply sticking a crapload of water wheels to the outside of the wall, since the outer wall pretty much runs parallel to the river the city's next to. Then again, I'm not sure what effect that would have on the water itself; it'd be bad if the water flowed slower because of all the wood planks sticking into it. >.> Whatever, that's all I had to offer on this for now.

This is a subject i've thought quite abit about, my story 'She Who Dares Wins' does star a Negav agent who is more likely to solve problems with gadgets and tricks rather than magic. So at least for that story I had to come up with rules to give the character a believeable leverage this way without overpowering her by giving her a gadget for any problem that arises.

I think Negav should only be easily accessable by at best only a handful of worlds. Any other worlds outside these should only be connected by accidental one offs. so only these select handul would be Negav's trading partners. But of course the question is how much could negav afford to buy from these worlds? These worlds would surely have more resources than Negav does. Even with the riches from the nearby mines, Negav is still just one city, these planets could have hundreds. So Negav would surely be the poorer out of the lot and at first it's whole value would only seem like a small fortune in comparison to their wealth and therefore can't keep up with their product prices.
But through tourism and some outsourced projects (labour in Negav would be cheaper, and the Negav business can draw wealth away from their richer otherworld compeition by being offering cheap services) they would soon get richer, just like some countires have on earth.

When writing my story, Negav as experacing early stages of an ecomonic boom, most Places are still dirt poor due to the nature of the rich elite hording the wealth, but the rich elite and the middle class that serves them would have more advanced tech that they bought from their trading partners. Since it's still the start of the boom they can't afford the most sleekest of stuff though. The most advanced stuff is probably 1970s at best. I wrote a chapter where Winona had a magitech laptop, but the way I decribed it made it seem like it's only capable of text based data and is more of a glorified typewriter with the added bonus of data storage. She can't play advanced video games and wacth DVDs or anything like that.

Anyway that's what I envised when it comes to the technological advancement of Negav at least, I thought it was a decent compromise of giving Negav technology and still retain the fantasy world feel. At the end of the day, I woulden't want to think Negav as some kind of cyberpunk city.

I think you're on the right track regarding infrastructure. Other than portal travel, which is necessarily limited by the small number of (static) portals and their distance from the city center, Negav is fairly isolated. Sure, you CAN import unobtanium and pwn rays from Omicron Persei 8, but it's not like you can just hop over every afternoon to get your special ice cream donuts from that one shop on that one planet in Sector ZZ9 plural Z Alpha.
So that leads to a similarity (in my headcanon at least) with places such as outer planets from Firefly or Tatooine in Star Wars. Even though they have stuff like speeder bikes, for the most part the architecture and dress are centuries behind the curve. Due to its location, Negav can't industrialize and grow through large scale trade, preventing it from developing far beyond a medieval level.

jedi-explorer wrote:

You could drive off a naga for less than $1000!

...Darn. I'm so poor even in my fantasies I can't afford the right weapons.

Stabs wrote:

In this interpretation, I prefer to think that weapons and vehicles (be honest. That's the only thing you really wanted to hear about) are limited because the lugs in power don't like having people bring machineguns to anyone else than themselves, so they check people at the gate to make sure they're not gun runners.

Funny I came to that conclusion the other day. It's why made smugglers, though I just switched the values for the average Star Wars Scoundrel with the average Felaryan trader and thought "Gee how could you make a merchant more interesting?" and came up with the idea of weapons smugglers using A.P.C's, in place of a freighter, and small crews just like the Smuggler's Alliance or the Hutts.

As for what I'd like to see is some examples of Vishimital, Deluran and other Negav allies tech. Honestly I don't actually know what the Vishimitals are capable of. I assume they aren't uber high techy and have mostly advanced weapons as I haven't seen many Vishimital defensive weapons and they all don't seem to go around in high tech glowy line suits and stuff. They have dimensional travel, but we've never seen a ship or any portal generators. Though I will say I'm sure the Vishimitals have some kind of power genrator, I mean a 0Vom Hot Riffle has to be powered by compact fusion right? So it's possible that in their quarter they have things like that and they may sell them to others or trade their tech for favors and things they can't make. I mean we know there are rogue Vishimitals right? Actually sounds like a interesting reversal. Not some arc mage wanting even more power, but somebody like Nergal's OC. A high tech man who wants to control magic would trade anything for it I'd think, wouldn't you?

That thread made me realize it's really time to develop Negav's infrastructure and how it works ^^;
As I see it it's a really unequal city. If you go from the poor districts of the lower tier to the wealthy ones on the heights, it's like you are in a completely different city. and yet, having some static portals allowing movement from one point to another, make that notion of "zones" very different that what it is on earth. It's a pretty fascinating concept to develop ^^

Karbo wrote:

That thread made me realize it's really time to develop Negav's infrastructure and how it works ^^;
As I see it it's a really unequal city. If you go from the poor districts of the lower tier to the wealthy ones  on the heights, it's like you are in a completely different city. and yet, having some static  portals allowing movement from one point to another, make that notion of "zones" very different that what it is on earth. It's a pretty fascinating concept to develop ^^

That does make sense now that you mention it. Even normal cities don't always look identical when they're laid on on a grid. I imagine cities that are in huge tiers would have a crazy alien look just by going around the corner! Heck yesterday I discovered in the Forbiden City there is a small group of old banks that they made so close together the bank robbers couldn't run away easily. <.< Unless they flew like magical Chinese people do in movies. So Negav must have like a dozen or more places that look unique per level and then there's the levels themselves. @_@ Ultimate tourist stop.

jedi-explorer wrote:

As for what I'd like to see is some examples of Vishimital, Deluran and other Negav allies tech. Honestly I don't actually know what the Vishimitals are capable of. I assume they aren't uber high techy and have mostly advanced weapons as I haven't seen many Vishimital defensive weapons and they all don't seem to go around in high tech glowy line suits and stuff. They have dimensional travel, but we've never seen a ship or any portal generators. Though I will say I'm sure the Vishimitals have some kind of power genrator, I mean a 0Vom Hot Riffle has to be powered by compact fusion right? So it's possible that in their quarter they have things like that and they may sell them to others or trade their tech for favors and things they can't make. I mean we know there are rogue Vishimitals right? Actually sounds like a interesting reversal. Not some arc mage wanting even more power, but somebody like Nergal's OC. A high tech man who wants to control magic would trade anything for it I'd think, wouldn't you?

Really glad you said that, i'm right now working on the government and military aspect of them, wouldn't mind having some inputs and ideas to flesh them out.

Stabs wrote:

Otherwise, you know how reverse engineering works: as soon as one got the best tech, they'd dominate everything and spread it around.

ok stabs, with the level of knowledge you have at your availability while reading this, tell me how you would reverse engineer an android.




most worlds would not have the understanding to reverse engineer something that is too far out of their technological field, like introducing a cave man to an AK47, point squeeze boom, is a simple concept, once it stop going boom, weeeelllll shit, I don't know how to make it go boom more



The we have 'the watcher' approach to the multiverse. We have the tech, your universe isnt smart enought for it yet, we dont interfere.

Thywolf wrote:

ok stabs, with the level of knowledge you have at your availability while reading this, tell me how you would reverse engineer an android.

Remove its batteries, sell it to Google, DARPA or the Japanese for 25 million US dollars and leave all the hard work to them.

Alternatively, magic.



Srsly though, if we have every step in-between up to the infinite, it's not likely that anyone could've hoarded their own tech if they brought it to Felarya. There'd be someone up to the task of finding leftovers, there'd be someone up to the task of reverse-engineering it, and there'd be someone up to the task of introducing those two so science can happen.

ravaging vixens wrote:

Really glad you said that, i'm right now working on the government and military aspect of them, wouldn't mind having some inputs and ideas to flesh them out.[/quote]
Well I'm glad somebody is! I have Vishmital characters, but honestly I don't know enough about Vishmitals to even describe them other than "the traitor" who works for one of my villains and Isolon Fist as a tech expert.

jedi-explorer wrote:

I imagine cities that are in huge tiers would have a crazy alien look just by going around the corner! ... So Negav must have like a dozen or more places that look unique per level and then there's the levels themselves. @_@ Ultimate tourist stop.

According to the map of Negav, the tiers aren't set out like what you may be thinking and I used to think before seeing it. Perhaps the higher tiers are higher in elevation, but they're not literally stacked atop one another, like a hive city from the Warhammer 40,000 universe,

with the likely exception of Negav's Underground, of course. It seems more likely the highest Tiers are simply higer on the hill Negav is built on, or maybe the buildings are just taller.

But onto the topic at hand: tech levels.
From what I've seen in the manga, at least one adventurer was equipped with what (very) vaguely resembles a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun, while we see a squad of Isolon Fist members using a pair of high-tech binoculars capable of variable zoom. Interestingly, one member appeared to carry a bow and arrow, while another had a firearm capable of launching explosive ammunition with sufficient power to give Anna a burn/flesh wound.

And if this is any indication, semi-modern to futuristic weaponry and armor is used alongside more medieval arms, such as swords, bows, and spears, which is backed up by their entry in the wiki:

Negavian Factions wrote:

These soldiers also tend to be equipped with a wide variety of amulets, enchanted items and charms, helping to increase their resistance to curses and illusions, as well as giving the otherwise non-magical soldiers access to a wide variety of beneficial magical effects. They have access to a wide assortment of weaponry depending on the mission and the type of creatures they have the most chances to encounter, whether it is humans, or some of the giant, dangerous creatures that prowl the Felaryan wilderness. The soldiers of the Isolon Fist use everything from assault rifles and grenades, to bows, electric spears, machine-guns or rockets grenade(sic) launchers. Most Isolon Fist weapons are often reinforced with enchantments of them(sic), allowing for increased performance, as well as many other special effects.

And the Vishmitals are said to be advanced themselves, and "largely control the military might of the city", which would seem to imply they have either the numbers or tech to be considered 'mightier' than the Magiocrat's personal fighting force.

I personally think the tech available to any individual would be limited by what they can either fabricate or afford, be it through legal or black market channels. Also, the Isolon Fist might not like civilians, adventurer or no, carrying around automatic weapons or explosives, though the presence of magic or psionic abilities that could match or exceed the effects of military hardware means that police forces might simply not care who owns what weapon, so long as they play nice.
Then again, with Negav at least being vaguely dictatorial in rule, and with the battlemages of an Isolon Fist squad always being the leaders before any mundane soldier, it's also possible that Negav favors magic users for positions of any power or privilege simply because they already rule the city and magic is so omnipresent or superior by comparison to technological things.

Sorry for rambling a bit.

If I may throw my two cents at the thing, I try not to begin to pretend I know what the tech level for the every day life in Negav would be. I like Karbo's idea a little bit, that the level of tech improves the higher up the tiers of Negav. Since the Higher Tier is where the wealthy people live, they have the best comfort and so the technology level is a noticeable step up from the Middle Tier. I go with the assumption that tech level in the Middle Tier is fairly close to modern Earth tech, at least in the developed countries, with probably things here and there swapped with magic. The Lower Tier is where the majority of adventurers live and since the majority of the revenues from the Lower Tier come from the services toward adventurers and the like, I imagine there are a lot less residential areas, but the level of technology is largely comparable to the Middle Tier, Cremona Maze notwithstanding. The Underground, since it's where the poor live, and where a slum is located even, would most likely have very low tech level compared to the rest.

As for technology used by adventurers, I mentioned this in one of my journals: As the level of technology increases, the more it becomes difficult to keep that technology properly maintained.

An axe or a sword wouldn't be very difficult to maintain, normal iron would most likely be common in Felarya, and worst case scenario, they can just import it from worlds rich in such resources. A firearm I think would be more difficult to acquire and maintain, particularly if you aim for the more powerful modern weapons, but old and conventional firearms likely wouldn't be much of a problem to find. When you get to future tech, however, I like to think that it's where maintenance become a big issue. I like to think that repairing something like a laser rifle on Felarya would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Things like these would likely be more complex and even need components that you can't easily find on Felarya, or anywhere else outside of the world the item originated. While definitely more powerful than your standard rifle, I like to think that adventurers would find those impractical due to being more difficult to repair or replace than the cheaper alternative who can still do a good enough job.

That's just me, though.

Shady Knight wrote:

An axe or a sword wouldn't be very difficult to maintain, normal iron would most likely be common in Felarya, and worst case scenario, they can just import it from worlds rich in such resources. A firearm I think would be more difficult to acquire and maintain, particularly if you aim for the more powerful modern weapons, but old and conventional firearms likely wouldn't be much of a problem to find. When you get to future tech, however, I like to think that it's where maintenance become a big issue. I like to think that repairing something like a laser rifle on Felarya would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Things like these would likely be more complex and even need components that you can't easily find on Felarya, or anywhere else outside of the world the item originated. While definitely more powerful than your standard rifle, I like to think that adventurers would find those impractical due to being more difficult to repair or replace than the cheaper alternative who can still do a good enough job.

Just by my experience for being in the military, I'll tell you a pretty funny situation that The USMC runs into afghanistan. So now that you mention that modern tech would be hard to maintain, hear this...So most often as we go out on patrols from our fobs we encounter a few funny things when it comes to weaponry. Now by Federal law, soilders can not personally pick up enemy contraband (such as the AK series which is littered all over the place in that part of the world) One time while checking in a "certain" district, we found rifles that belonged to the M-16 family in a building next to one of our bases. Now normally we bring those in or they were imported way back during or before the 2001 invasion usually by private military contractors or stolen from one of us (keep in mind the contractors usually sell them in civilian models such as the AR-15). But what we found was quite the irony. An a local Afghanistan gunsmith managed to somehow obtain that prints and the plans to start building the more recent of the M-16 family;M4A2 to M16A4 and its predecessors, more successor models though. All this from scratch that he managed to find around with out having to steal from military personnel. Fully ready Afghanistan branded M family weapons! That's super rare that anybody can do that with out having to talk to one of use or our allies and manage to have a producer make or send all the raw materials to do that!? It baffles me how smart people can have the capacity to produce something like that from a warzone.

So... why not the same for felarya since you have people coming all over the place and sharing ideas and concepts from worlds that are highly civilized to very primitive? Taking into account also that all those worlds have their own special traits to collaborate together the ever more stranger things people can come up with. So in my opinion, finding weapons that we have in this modern age or higher would be no different to maintain or produce then the common double edge sword that you would have back in the day due to technological influx that is a;ways changing from all sorts of civilizations that just so manage to melt into a pot of a city like negav. It'd be very thin gray line to see what kind of technologically (or not so) advanced weapons outnumber the other since you see both used prevalent by their respected civilizations. Supposed that's how it's balanced right?

As far as reverse engineering goes and the example I have given is a valid one. Human capability seems endless does it not? that's how civilizations climb. and since most of our peak technological jumps have been through war (you disagree with me or not on that) which uses A LOT of reverse engineering to reach goals, who's to say that it's not general and if not a natural instinct to do that?

The thing is that, since I brought up adventurers, you run into a problem.  It's in human nature that we want to take what works best for any given job, and so you have to have to ask yourself: "If it wouldn't be too difficult to come across something like a laser or gauss rifle in Negav, then why don't more adventurer use them, since they're significantly more powerful than the Totally-Not-AKM?"

But I think there are other things that needs to be addressed.  For instance, if Negav has easy access to worlds with futuristic technology, why isn't that technology more commonly used?  It's better than swords and magic, or modern Earth tech, so if they do have it, what's stopping them from using it to improve everyone's living conditions?  It just seems logical to me.  Does Negav even trade with worlds with futuristic technology, or are the Vishmitals all they have?  The way wiki is written, most, if not, all of the high-end tech is delegated to the military and city defense, which is in under Vishmital jurisdiction, so it personally wouldn't surprise me if the Vishmitals are all they have.

Assuming the Vishmitals is really all they have, it would make sense why high technology isn't widely spread out in Negav.  The Vishmitals are the remnants of a destroyed empire and they already suffered heavy losses from trying to make a outpost in the Great Rocky Fields.  As such, they don't have all the big technology to spare.  Their primary focus is rebuilding their empire, and since Negav is pretty much a mean to that end, they're willing to use what's left of their tech to ensure the city will keep standing no matter what, while hogging all the rest for themselves.

Anyway, food for thoughts. Personally, I like to think that the mere existence of this thread is a testament to how much the tech-level in Negav, or how Negav handles its trades, needs to be polished, cause it's a mess IMO.

shady knight wrote:

But I think there are other things that needs to be addressed. For instance, if Negav has easy access to worlds with futuristic technology, why isn't that technology more commonly used? It's better than swords and magic, or modern Earth tech, so if they do have it, what's stopping them from using it to improve everyone's living conditions? It just seems logical to me. Does Negav even trade with worlds with futuristic technology, or are the Vishmitals all they have? The way wiki is written, most, if not, all of the high-end tech is delegated to the military and city defense, which is in under Vishmital jurisdiction, so it personally wouldn't surprise me if the Vishmitals are all they have.

One answer to this question and the weapons question. Personal and/or cultural preference. Magiocrats (even the name gives it away) would use magic over tech because that's how they have been running things for centuries. Since vishmitals are new comers, technology users should gradually adjust to the social levels soon, given that most of the defensive military would be tech users but that doesn't mean it overwhelms the main populations levels of what's being used (magic of course).Just like your saying for the vishmitals, It'll take time before that probably would get evened out, especially as the vishmitals continue on their slow crawling progression of expansionism and population support/growth.

Shady knight wrote:

Anyway, food for thoughts. Personally, I like to think that the mere existence of this thread is a testament to how much the tech-level in Negav, or how Negav handles its trades, needs to be polished, cause it's a mess IMO.

*raises hand* defintely agree. Lets all that are willing together shall we?

I woulden't say it's a mess, just not really expanded on. And the reason for that is in a large majourity of narratives, Negav serves for only two plot devices.

It's either treated as 'fortress Lesona' and therefore only amounts to what the Magiocrats or Vishmitals are currently up to

Or if the hero is human, then Negav is the handy rpg village where he will visit quickly to stock up on stuff on his adventure.

Outside of those simple plot devices, Negav itself is barely expored. The stories normaly only focous on the elite at the top or the adventurers and crooks at the bottom. But the actual citizens, what they actually do and how the city operates around them is vague at best and greatly varies on the author on the rare occasion it is explored.

I don't mean to be harsh on Karbo, I'm fairly sure he writes things in the wiki as he goes along, but when you think about it, many articles appear concise at first, but if you read them closely enough, you start to realize that a lot of information it could elaborate on is missing, and it's hardly limited to life in Negav.

Those of you who remember my journals on the dA group might remember how I brought the fact that the limitations on a fairy's size-shifting abilities appear concise at first, until you realize that important details are missing, like how close she has to be and if the process is instantaneous or not, which can make or break an ability that a lot of people in the past saw as too powerful. (and thanks to me, we now have those shiny new limitations! )

Another example, I was talking about fruit harvesting with Azure Jass, and while Felarya has a lot of edible plants mentioned in the wiki, their article doesn't mention how half of them are typically harvested.  Do parties go out in the jungle to pick them, or are they grown in greenhouses in Negav?  There's no clear answer to that, not now anyway.

I know it may seem rather stupid and obvious what people would do with that problem, but keep in mind that everyone views the setting differently, the subjects of the many stories on the group could tell you that, and so what may seem stupid and obvious to you may not be to someone else.  As such, because of this lack of information, it leaves writers having to patch that information, and because people can have radically different views of what the setting is about,  we get conflicting ideas about what the answer is, which may lead to people shouting and their monitor for a good half-hour.

Back on the subject of technology, vixen brought up a very good point.  The Magiocrat prefer to rule by magic and so prefer low tech.  That's fine.  It then opens up the chance to elaborate on why the Magiocrats prefer the low-tech over the high-tech, because preference or not, despite the fact even they should realize that advanced technology almost always achieve better results than common technology.  Perhaps after they don't trust it after their run-in with the Vishmitals because such technology rivals their magical powers, and so subtly keeps it from being easily attainable to common citizens, so that they remain too powerful to challenge.  It may sound dark, but really, more than half of the stuff in the wiki has very dark undertones, so I don't think that clashes with the rest.

By the way, I know Negav also has the Othemites, but for the most part they contribute fuck all to the development and welfare of the city, so I don't really count them. Their shrine giving light in The Pit is nice, but that's pretty much the only act of altruism they did with their technology, and even then, it's fairly obvious that part of it is to get the people of The Pit to preach about their god.

Also I think the tech level of Negav is worth bringing up because of the question of how easy it would be for an outsider to be rich relative to Negav. If an author had a character with a tech level that is higher than Negav, then the fact that the character's stuff is highy valuble in Negav could interfere with the author's attempts to write the character's motivation.

If the Negav tech level is low, then anyone living in a high tech but crapshack world could potentialy just pick up whatever fancy tech is laying around in their home, head over to Negav, claim patent to it (who's going to argue?) and with the riches they earn they then can buy a nice house in the high tier and have their own servents. The item might not cost much in their world, but it could be worth millions to a world that hasn't already got it. That person could buy himself the sort of power and influance he could only dream of back at home, I think luxary would be a decent trade off for living in a less sophicated world.

Which seems really werid when we sometimes see newcomers in Negav armed with highly advanced tech that never think of doing that, and instead prefer to use their equipment performing more mandane and lower paying tasks.

But of course if the tech level in negav is high, then this woulden't be an issue. But of course if any world could connect with Negav, then surely there's always going to be people who could just repatent something from their world that Negav would deem valuble. Which is why I say there should be a limit of worlds that can come over to Negav.

Shady knight wrote:

Back on the subject of technology, vixen brought up a very good point.  The Magiocrat prefer to rule by magic and so prefer low tech.  That's fine.  It then opens up the chance to elaborate on why the Magiocrats prefer the low-tech over the high-tech, because preference or not, despite the fact even they should realize that advanced technology almost always achieve better results than common technology.  Perhaps after they don't trust it after their run-in with the Vishmitals because such technology rivals their magical powers, and so subtly keeps it from being easily attainable to common citizens, so that they remain too powerful to challenge.  It may sound dark, but really, more than half of the stuff in the wiki has very dark undertones, so I don't think that clashes with the rest.

Keep in mind Shady, As seclusive as the vishmitals are now socially (particularly with the most of the rulers in 'their' power) They are very much capitalist minded when to comes to their tech and culture. They see people of different worlds using tech (the civilization advancement that they are most familiar with) they wouldn't mind sharing political/economic interest so that they can rebuild their empire and "find" more of their personal interest in felarya (that's a hint of their goals.) So with tiers that are developed with our worlds level of tech or higher, you can bet that's supported by vishmitals and their like minded associates, which if you wanted to add a bit color on a political spectrum of negav, this could be one of the reasons that the Magiocrats have a thorn in their skin for not liking the vishmitals. They wan't power through their preferable incentives while the vishmitals are bringing in a different ball game to it.  If you wan't to know more of their government before and after they came to negav come talk to me and we can share concepts and ideas.

And now speaking of which, brings up the question darkone has:

What kind of tech is coming in? What is the most common type of technological achievement tech you'll be finding in a city like Negav?" How much is the it worth?

I Have been thinking a lot about this recently ever since this thread came up and about how and what is the social aspect of having "people of all sorts" coming in with their tech, and came up with a way in my mind and a lot help from one of my other favorite universes.

Technological advancement tiers

I borrowed this from 343's (Initially Bungie's Technological advancement Tiers project.) I tried modify it a bit so that writers and think tanks could get a good concept of what negav's emigration/immagration population of technological influx would look like in tiers.

#1 Pre industrial
Knowing only simple tools and farming at best, these type of people are nicknamed as "Broken green horses" or "greenies." because of their ignorance of higher technology and political structures that they would find in an industrial age (what most people are in). Moving past being nomadic hunter gathering and farming communities, to the more robust lifestyle from the city states in the deep past of our history.

[Often to found in lower or poorer parts. Akaptor nomads are put in this classification]
[common but not at common as tier 2 immigration flux]

#2 industrial age
This is where you would find most of the lower tier population and if not,most of the population period, of Negav.
If the civilizations manages to go past the pre industrial stage it usually promises advancement of improved environmental and medical understanding such as mechanized food production; concurrently with mechanical and transport advancement. Then engaging to the politically dogmatic and population strain societies With all sorts of political pressures that you would see in the settings of 14-19th century of our world.

This is tier is very often where agriculture is most of the people's ideology of making a good living in Negav or other city/towns.

[Often to find in lower and middle class parts of negav but have been seen working alot the market sections of all tiers]
[common immigration flux]


#3 atomic or energy efficient stage
These type of people started out in civilizations that usually begin focusing on clean energy production. The occasional belligerent species will use atomic energy for weapons, often resulting in mass extinctions. In-atmosphere craft are a hallmark, often leading to manned space flight, albeit in a short-scale.

Imagine these people as more closely related to those of post world war II/beginning coldwar era, and to possibly be more like focused on old school nuclear fission, not paying much attention to silicone based tech research as we currently do but with vacuum tubes and seriously over sized computers, meanwhile making technological jumps that can relate to 1960's pulp science-fiction. (Go ask your grandpa or grandma for old comics and toys and you'll see what i mean)

[would prefer to be in the middle tiers but likely to be found in low to middle.]
[common but not as much as tier 4 immigration flux]


#4 information age
This age is exactly as the name insist and is much like how our world is currently operating. People from the worlds have advanced to the point where information is almost instantaneous and very prevalent to the social structure of that world with such a significant innovation like "the internet" With this type of a lot of interesting developments, such as better understanding of atomic nuclear fission to the point where they can make clean energy and have a moderate to good level of physics at fine use. Energy production is also put to good use through recycling materials already used. Medical advancements such as stem cell or instant transplants, and if the world has reach a higher level "cloning transplants" are also an option. The immediate space around the world at this point is littered with information transferring machines such as satellites and building in atmosphere or terrestrial instillations around the immediate planet is commonplace for better economic standing leading to industry innovations from semi to full power armor, mass drives, or hydrogen propulsion.

People from these type of worlds most often face the "make or break" point where the world has progressed enough to get away from the planets gravitational cradle, or fall victim to several world wide conflicts to make civilizations bounce back to the aforementioned tiers or face annihilation entirely.

This tier of people have been known to be very intuitive and creative to making many developments of hybrid magic/technology products.

[Most people from these worlds would prefer living in the mid tiers but are found in lower as well tiers]

[Note:This is the level where the Miratans and the people of the bowl have reached, but the Miratans have trans-dimensional travel capability. Which will be explained later]
[common to uncommon immigration flux]

#5 Space Age
This is often the final resting place for species intelligent enough to break free from their cradle's surface only to fill the gulf surrounding it with war. Their comfort-focused technology can include medical advances such as machines with complete cell molecular breakdown and regeneration (good examples would be the movie Elysium) Space Colonization in the immediate system and Harvesting raw materials in celestial space or nearby systems is most focused due to common problems such as overpopulation and low natural resources supplies.

[This people would be living in the middle or higher tiers]
[uncommon immigration flux]

#6 Space Faring Age
Species has efficient Slipstream,hyper drive,jumpdrives (what ever you want to call their means of faster than light travel) navigation, mass drivers,space elevators, asynchronous linear-induction weapons, holocrystal storage and semi-sentient AIs. Have a fix on Intergalactic colonization and exploration. Implementing ideas of common social and economic actions as terraforming new found planets and building numerous deepspace artificial habitats to ensure survival of species. They typically will have no outside influence.

[These people would be living in the higher tiers as likely of nobles or people of high rank while commoners will be living between the high and mid tiers]

[Note:Vishmitals as a whole fit in the classification even though near the end of their war, this had them at the beginning levels of interstellar age technology and dimensional travel.]
[Very Uncommon immigration flux]

#7 Interstellar age
The species has the ability to perform exceedingly accurate FTL navigation, near-instantaneous vast distance passive FTL communication and man-portable application of energy manipulation.

[There very few of these species in negav, and if there are any, they would be in the high tiers depending on the status and presentation they bring.]
[Rare immigration flux]

#7.5Dimensional enlightment
This is one is rather a wildcard, as civilization that have the status of tiers 5-7 and the very rare 1-4, have enough understanding of universal physics to make amends to build machines or constructs of successfully travelling through dimensions. Seen common in species or civilizations in tier 7 to be conducting functions like this in a general scale. They should have the intelligence at this point to manipulate energy enough to control dimensional spaces. On the same token, it doesn't mean that civilization in the lower tech tries cant achieve this through their own methods.

[Note: People coming from this will vary a lot. As you can see with all the human and non human species we see now practicing technology in felarya, reaching this point varies on how fast (with concentrated effort I imagine) to build these dimensional travelling apparatuses takes while other technological developments may exceed or suffer. A good example would be how the Miratans have large battlemechs in their military where as The vishmitals can equip regular infantry with laser rifles but do not have the same capability of production of miratan battlemechs without the influence of research and reverse engineering. Both with our current technology think are hard achievements to come by and vice versa same comparison for each human race development. So people you find in this tier will have most items/developments of one exclusive tier or many depending how far their civilization progresses or is damned through its findings in other dimensions. Expect population growth.

This also makes these kind of people valuable as scientist because most likely then not, they seen many different variables on how other species grow to their highest civilization peak therefore applying to the any particular research in their findings.

[Very variable to where they settle. You can seriously find them most anywhere because where ever they came from was anywhere if you catch my drift]
[uncommon immigration flux]

#8.0World builders
The species has the ability to manipulate gravitational forces, create AI with full sentience, fabricate super-dense materials, perform super-accurate Faster than light navigation, the ability to create life, and the ability to create worlds.

[If you found these people who'd know where in the devil they may be, this is much I know, they'd be in a handful of numbers and would be very covert or hard to reveal about the tech they have. Hiding or locked up in the high tiers in negav is my guess]
[very rare immigration flux]

#0.0Transsentient
Your basically are dealing with a person of guardian status or is a god at this point. It is suspected that they can travel across galaxies and accelerate the evolution of intelligent life. Along with this the use of neural physics is suggested at this stage.

[You can't find them, maybe if they visited.]
[legendary immigration flux]

*wipes her face and sighs with victory*
That's my idea so far as much was classification of what kind of people would be coming in. I'd imagine most likely the vishmitals would be using this as a gauge in their security to balance what kind of people are coming in so they don't cause a ruckus of things in Negav. Now keep in mind, this is for gauging tech people. Sure there's a lot of them that will implement magic in their skills but this is to gauge in a general sense of what person would fit in which tier. Now does anybody else wan't to add their idea/suggestions or a new idea altogether with the thing I typed? One more thing to let you know that this was for simplicity sake obviously you could add more information to each tier but i'm just hoping that it all made sense in a not too complicated way.[/color]

Also to keep in mind, all we can do at this point is speculate what the tech level in Negav is and why it is so. We could come up with dozens of theories about anything in the wiki (there is a LOT of missing information on many pages, and I'd wish to have a way to fill them all, but oh well), and we could probably all be far off from what Karbo had in mind. Only he has a definitive answer, and until he decides to come back to this thread and give us said answer (hopefully some time this year *hint hint*) all we can really do is just muse about it.

Anyway, to answer Darkie's idea, I think the entry for Negav's dimensional gate implies that it's voluntarily connected with only specific worlds, mostly those the city is willing to trade with, so there would be a limited number of worlds connected to Negav. It'd be nice if that was elaborated on, what exactly Negav looks after in those worlds, it'd at least give us a pattern of whether or not they routinely do business with high-tech planets or not. There are other worlds who connected themselves involuntarily to the gate, but they all seem to be crapsack worlds that want nothing with Negav, as if the mining world planting all sorts of traps near their gate wasn't good enough evidence.

Negav only being connected to specific worlds does make sense, it would also allow for Negav secuirty to actually function and have strong diplomatic relations with these worlds. Limitless amount of worlds coming through would have just meant that Negav security woulden't have been capable of keeping track of them all and their ability to keep track of who or what is entering their city would have been compromised, which would have meant that outside worlds could attack Negav from the shadows and not be held accountable since Negav woulden't be able to efficiently narrow down any suspects from the infinite list of worlds

So yes, I like the idea of limited amount of connected worlds.

RV The Awesome wrote:

Technological advancement tiers

I borrowed this from 343's (Initially Bungie's Technological advancement Tiers project.) I tried modify it a bit so that writers and think tanks could get a good concept of what negav's emigration/immagration population of technological influx would look like in tiers.

That is just genius! o.O It's like a guide of who you're most likely to encounter in Negav! Brilliant really. It could even be used as a NPC sorter with a little help from 'Ol Mr D-20.

Sorry if this has already been said but it occured to me while I was asking Karbo to do new land vehicles. Somebody said "Negav doesn't have much to export" well I found a flaw in that theory. High tech anti-predator weapons, vehicles and gear may be useless on some worlds where they're aren't any preds, but we know there's at least two canon ones. Karob's and El Portero's...Donodo? I think. I'd have to look at Elle's bio again to be sure, but the point is things like Suped Up APCs, Jetbikes and 0Vom Hotrfiles and such would radically shift the balance of power on some world and be in some demand right?

jedi-explorer wrote:

Sorry if this has already been said but it occured to me while I was asking Karbo to do new land vehicles. Somebody said "Negav doesn't have much to export" well I found a flaw in that theory. High tech anti-predator weapons, vehicles and gear may be useless on some worlds where they're aren't any preds, but we know there's at least two canon ones. Karob's and El Portero's...Donodo? I think. I'd have to look at Elle's bio again to be sure, but the point is things like Suped Up APCs, Jetbikes and 0Vom Hotrfiles and such would radically shift the balance of power on some world and be in some demand right?

Yeah I have to question the claim that Negav doesn't have much to export. Actually it can have alot to export if they put their capitalist thinking hats on.

Let's start with the obvious, Felarya soil. It's literally pay dirt. It's healing properties are reduced by 80% when outside of Felarya, but that remaining 20% would surely still be beneficial to outside worlds as a healing agent ingredient. And since it's purely natural it will be more attractive to the market than more unnatural ingredients.

And there's Felarya fruit that can exported, the 'Negav Citroise Smoothie Stands' can try setting up franchises in other worlds. Of course the best tasting smoothies are best experiaced at their native world, but that doesn't mean Negav shoulden't try to make a buck from the people too warey (or smart) to actually come to Felarya.

The brothels could try expanding to other worlds, a place where you could get it on with Nekos, Elves and all sorts of races would be very exotic to human dominated worlds.

'Felarya Predator Erotica!' pictures taken of naked Felarya predators and sold as porn to worlds that don't realise that the pictures are of man eating creatures.

'Traveling Tinie Circus' Who woulden't be amused at that? And it gives Tinies a more relatively more safer way to make income. (Stay in Negav where Nekos might eat you? or go to perform in safer human only worlds? Not a hard choice)

Selling books about Felarya to other worlds could be profitable (and could be used as a sneaky advertisement to lure tourists to the world)

and that's all I can think of just off the top of my head