Johannes replied to me: > > Can one "court artificer" with a few henchmen maintain a technical > > civilization? How many practitioners do you need to keep a science > > rather than rote learning? Can the pet engineers of different Evil > > Overlords talk to each other? > > > > Overall the Goa'uld seem to have inherited technology and are barely able > to keep it. Though i suppose important overlords will keep many > technicans.
Except for one-off lethal devices, they don't seem to innovate much, but the tech level doesn't seem to decline across the board, either. Some grumbling, "they don't build them as they used to," but that could be simply grumpy old men. > Yet an other option is, that something more scary then the Goa'uld is > lurking somewhere out there, and there are one or more technological > civilisations, that exchange technology and the services of technological > advisors in exchange for protection. The overlords will likely treat them > well, after all the system lord who treats them worst, is most likely to > loose access to technology first. Conquest or blackmail propably have been > attempted in the past but failed. If that civilization is more scary, the Evil Overlords who mistreat them will be history. But are the Overlords a different civilization or part of the same society? Psychopaths who go beyond the reach of the law to build their pocket empires among the savages. Doesn't say anything good about a civilization which allows that. > > Too many castes, and there are too few members of each caste in the > > base of each Overlord. How many Jaffa did a typical Goa'uld have? > > > > Agreed. > > Still outlying colonies could interface only with troops. How many people do you need to keep a caste with separate traditions going? Say for every Evil Overlord you have on average the Evil Overlord himself/herself, a semi-retired senior, a heir and a spare. Same for Trusted Lieutenants and other senior sycopanths. Assume that each lord has a dozen lieutenants who are qualified to go on missions and a dozen courtiers who just fawn, and the 'high nobility' are 100 persons. With an average lifespan of 100 years, the average age group are ten per decade -- a young underlord will grow up with a few other kids to play and socialize. The warriors will have a different culture. How many do you need to keep the unit going? > > I would have thought that each planet has one ruler. One gate > > per world (more would be wasteful of scarce tech) and whoever > > controls it has the planet. > > > > Natives can be all over the place. Rival overlords can come by ship for > scouting missions, to take over the place, or to stir up trouble, so > troops are moved there from some other place. > > A take over attempt might be a long affair, starting with finding native > allies, who do some of the fighting for you. OK, but taking/holding the gate will be the endgame. Without the gate, you have troublemakers and an insurgency. With the gate, you have a new colony. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
