On Thu, 21 Nov 2013, Onno Meyer wrote:
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.
Maybe they have some production lines going, that can rund for tousends of
years, without intervention by anyone, who actually understands the
process. Goa'uld tech would be doomed then on the long run, but not
within the timeframes interesting for adventures.
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.
I was thinking about 2 players, one scary but not yet active (like the
Magog in Andromeda) and a technological civilisation, that keeps the
Goa'uld running, because of the assumption, that they will be hit first by
the "Magog" and slow them down.
Yet an other option is, that the Goa'uld are eqivalent of third world
despots, who are backed by first world corporoations or other business or
strategic interests.
Your version with the overlords being expatriate empirebuilders has
multiple options too. How does the home society see them? Does it follow
the archetype of the european explorer, who adopts some native tribe,
tells them how to live better and makes them a more civilized and more
powerfull tribe.
Or is the home civilisation very peacefull, and would not use violence not
even to stop psychopaths and would not even permanently exclude them from
trade. Kinda high tech Amish. An explaination would be required, what
keeps psychopaths from wrecking havoc at their home worlds, especially if
the player character were to ever go there. If everything else fails, you
can always postulate psionic powers, that require a critical mass of
peacefull minds to work.
Or do they follow some code (propably similiar to the Star Treck Prime
Directive) that allows a savage lifestyle in savage territories. The
primitives just have bad luck, to be born there.
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?
If they are some sort of Janissaries (children of other classes taken away
to be raised as soldiers) you avoid many problems of a warrior caste (such
as how to control how many warriors you actually have) and it fits to the
Goa'uld IMO. You still will have something of at least 15 years lead time
to increase your army.
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.
Sure taking the gate is the end goal. But enough trouble might over a long
enough time might convince the system lord, that the world is not worth
the effort to keep. Or yet an other insurgency will draw the attention of
the guards away from the gate, and if one is a regular occurence, it does
not really lead to a general red alert. Or you start insurgencies in 5
worlds, take the gate of 2 hopping to eventually keep one. All the rest is
to spread your oponents troops and to allow your opponent to keep his face
in defeat, because after all he repelled most of a massive attack.
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