How long can you live on anagathics ?

[Tiikeri]

The whole issue seems like it has a big passel of game balance artificialities stuck on to it. Like you can have this cool thing, but oh you cant have it because its expensive or its illegal or its too high tech or assassins or public opinion or some other rationalization for preventing a game unbalancing item from falling into the clutches of player characters. Or for preventing profound changes to the setting, like well of course the emperor, the nobility, the megacorp ceos are immortal, thats the point of getting rich.

The trouble is the rationalizations are only obstacles to overcome, and player characters are very good at overcoming obstacles.

Its illegal: bah, we're player characters. We dont care a civet for your laws.
Its expensive: double bah, were player characters. We sack gashikan and buy it.
Its only on a few high tech planets: we move there.
They wont let you: why not, were rich, remember?
They dont like you: we steal a shipment, analyze it and make a generic version.
But assassins: we send them back to their mountain monastery in pieces then nuke the site from orbit.
But the younger generations: dont know or care who we are, and if they raise their feeble npc hands against us, we kill them too.
But your heirs want to take over: we have never begat heirs upon any of the elf, sorry, darrian, maidens we compelled to endure our company. Just say we cant have it because of a ref fiat command instead of insulting us with these fig leaf obstacles.

If player character troglodytes can overcome obstacles with enough time and perserverance, it doesnt make sense that the most powerful people in charted space wouldnt be able to.

It has to be integrated into the setting or it shouldnt be in the setting at all.

 

[Condottiere]

Mandatory retirement, and progressive taxation.

Warhammer Eldar switch professions, to prevent stagnation.

 

[Tiikeri]

What if all the peacefully replaced emperors are still alive, and only decided to abdicate after a certain time, living in cognito on some distant moon?

Nothing speaks against people taking anagathics forever, and hence living forever. Moreover, real-life biology is beginning to reveal that it may actually be relatively easy to rejuvenate people - we proto-Solomani haven't quite figured it out yet, but we seem to be close.

That implies that immortal oligarchs (or in the OTU, nobles) should be expected to run everything, unless firm legal limitations against that are in place. But why would they, when the state is a feudal oligarchy anyway?

They wouldnt. The emperor would probably have a trust fund to pay for anagathics for loyal servants who get promoted to the peerage until theyre rich enough to get their own. Immortals might even be less confrontational with each other, since they know theyll be dealing with each other for a very long time.

The populace would probably support it since it would promote stable leadership, and the worlds have their own local govts anyway.

I doubt there would be generational conflicts unless the immortals enact policies which irritate oeople, like buying everything up and then price gouging people to use it. Even then it would be a conflict about economic oppression, not immortality. Even then, people could emigrate to a world with better opportunities instead of starting a war against the best funded most experienced people in charted space.

Heirs getting all mad would be a product of theur own envy and reluctance to build their own fortune.

 

[robject]

What if all the peacefully replaced emperors are still alive, and only decided to abdicate after a certain time, living in cognito on some distant moon?

[...]

That implies that immortal oligarchs (or in the OTU, nobles) should be expected to run everything, unless firm legal limitations against that are in place. But why would they, when the state is a feudal oligarchy anyway?

This could be a pretty good (and dark?) setting (but it's not the OTU).

 

[robject]

What if all the peacefully replaced emperors are still alive, and only decided to abdicate after a certain time, living in cognito on some distant moon?

[...]

That implies that immortal oligarchs (or in the OTU, nobles) should be expected to run everything, unless firm legal limitations against that are in place. But why would they, when the state is a feudal oligarchy anyway?

This could be a pretty good (and dark?) setting (but it's not the OTU).

 

[GamingGlen]

... actually, anagathics and the resulting conflicts generated between the old and young would provide a profound motivation and basis for mercenary and corporate and "brushfire" wars ....

SPOILER?




So the Ancients' FINAL WAR was about anagathics?

 

[robject]

SPOILER?




So the Ancients' FINAL WAR was about anagathics?

LOL

So the truth finally comes out.

No wonder Yaskoydray is in hiding. Everybody wants his secret formula.

 

[flykiller]

Mandatory retirement, and progressive taxation.

oh piffle. the eternal rulers would be above such rules, which would be applied only to those who threatened to rise to the level of the eternal rulers. just like all these modern real-world schemes to "tax the rich" and "break the corporate monopolies" - these are used only to tax those rich and break those corporations that are not in the club, while those that are in the club condescendingly carry on as they always have.

 

[CaptRet]

If anagathics make you "immortal" (and personally I would doubt it - I think there is some limit), then you could employ the Highlander solution. Fake your own death, leaving all your property to your young relative (really yourself). Amazing how the Hapsburg lip is passed down through the generations.

 

[GamingGlen]

If anagathics make you "immortal" (and personally I would doubt it - I think there is some limit), then you could employ the Highlander solution. Fake your own death, leaving all your property to your young relative (really yourself). Amazing how the Hapsburg lip is passed down through the generations.

I think people would catch on after awhile.

 

[CaptRet]

I think people would catch on after awhile.

It's a big Imperium, you could keep moving to other subsectors.

 

[Tiikeri]

It's a big Imperium, you could keep moving to other subsectors.

Doubtless that many worlds would want the money and power that an immortal would bring. Hey immortal, move here for ten years tax free operation if you start a business here.

Immortals with enough money could found a new colony world outside Imperial borders, hire colonists and some mercenaries to protect them, build a deep meson planetary defense grid, and turn the system into a neutral tax-haven and sanctuary resort.

 

[Tiikeri]

Something I've always had IMTU is that the Solomani Rim War was started by the immortal Solomani Movement aristocrats banished to Sol from the Imperial court. It was their money, their power, their influence, their fleets, their armies of loyalists, and their bitter grievances against the Imperium which drove the Solomani Sphere into rebellion and drove many of the Confederation's anti-Vilani policies. They threw their medals and titles over the Imperial fence and started a militaristic government to raise their collective hand against the Emperor who unjustly banished them, and created SolSec to make sure they were never betrayed by the enemy within again.

Their pride and rage blinded them to their lack of preparedness, or perhaps social-political trends forced their hand, but in the end they got what they wanted: an Empire of their own. But at such cost, such cost.

 

[Tiikeri]

oh piffle. the eternal rulers would be above such rules, which would be applied only to those who threatened to rise to the level of the eternal rulers. just like all these modern real-world schemes to "tax the rich" and "break the corporate monopolies" - these are used only to tax those rich and break those corporations that are not in the club, while those that are in the club condescendingly carry on as they always have.

Pretty much.

 

[Condottiere]

It's a question of a more or less level playing field; heirs to an empire pretty much want to rule an empire, whether they inherit it or with the same, presumably genetic, ambitions build one up themselves; not counting social mobility to reward similarly gifted individuals to rise, and relieve the likely pressure from class conflicts.

If the ultimate ambition of a sophont is immortality, or longevity, in whatever form it takes, individually, through from offsprings, or cultural impact, knowledge of the existence of these possibilities and lack of access is going to cause resentment, and eventual revolution.

 

[CaptRet]

And perhaps certain diseases/viruses could limit the effectiveness of anagathics ? Once you get "Rigellian Hepatatis" you can no longer take anagathics or, even worse yet, the cellular effects of the accumulated years come rushing back ?

 

[BlackBat242]

I've long had multiple variants of "anti-aging medical options" available.

I include those found in the following Sci-Fi authors' universes:

Elizabeth Moon: Familias Regnant universe

And what would happen to society if our Cult of Youth Eternal got help from Medicine, with the advent of rejuvenation drugs?
Certainly, rejuv is not the only theme but the exploration of our preoccupation with youth and the hunt for youth eternal is the main thread, and the series offers a close up examination of the consequences that follow.

The later books in the series explore the economic, social, and political ramifications of the building backlog of "heirs" with no prospect of replacing their elders for decades, if not possibly centuries (Rejuv is a relatively recent development - only around for ~40-50 years or so at the start of the series, if I remember correctly.

Rejuv is an expensive and intensive medical procedure, involving administration of multiple doses of several specialized drugs in a clinical setting over a period of time (a few months is implied).
This "resets" the body, basically rewinding it to a physical state of ~20 years old (or older, if the recipient wishes - some politicians prefer to retain a "mature" appearance, to indicate their accumulated "wisdom").
The recipient then ages normally, until the next time the individual's whim/finances see another round of Rejuv being undertaken.
It is stated that some wealthy people get Rejuv every decade or so, simply to avoid "looking old".
Unless a bad batch of drugs turns up (a significant plot-point in several of the novels) it is implied that there should be no limit to how many times one can be "Rejuved".


David Weber: Honorverse.
Prolong is the tech here - a genetic treatment done in adulthood (1st gen Prolong), and in kids (2nd-gen Prolong), that slows down your aging process, roughly doubling (if I remember correctly) your life-span after receiving the treatment. That part is important, as we see below.

1st-gen maybe gives you 50% or a bit more longer life, but all of that extra is after you are already an adult. You are "doubling" only 50%-70% of your life-span.
2nd-gen, as it starts much earlier in your development, slows your physical growth into an adult as well (mental development seems to not be slowed as much, whether this means that the mind will continue to age faster than the body is never addressed) - which means that those years are also doubled (or more than doubled, as is sometimes implied).
There were hints that it might be even more effective, in the not-yet-administered 3rd-gen (at least the books don't mention any 3rd-gen recipients, that I've run across).

Note that the "prolong generation" is referring to more than just the tech side (first-developed, refined and improved, etc) - it is also referring to whether you are the first in your immediate bloodline to receive the treatment.
With no recipients among your biological parents, you must wait until your body has stabilized in adulthood before receiving treatment.
If your parents (at least one, preferably both) received the treatment before conceiving you, then you can receive treatment before puberty!


Note that both of these are more-costly and more-involved than simply retiring to your stateroom to shoot up a batch of anagathics (usually derived from some alien plant or animal in Sci-Fi - see Stroon in Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith) you bought on the black market.
Therefore, they remained basically plot-hooks of the theoretical kind in the games I've run, rather than being used by any PCs.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on how you define the Fountain of Youth, physical integrity, or preservation of the spark that makes us unique, the consciousness, and the ability to transfer it to another medium or physical body.

 

[boomslang]

This could be a pretty good (and dark?) setting (but it's not the OTU).

It's a non-trivial part of MTU, however.

The thing is, the older these Methusaloids get, the more risk-averse they tend to become; they only care about securing an unending supply of their fix while avoiding absolutely anything that might pose a threat to their own continued existence. Unless, of course, they become aggressively suicidal out of crushing boredom.

Which makes even the still-sane ones their own worst enemies, most times, since other Prolonged Individuals make great sources of anagathics to take control of and add to one's own pipeline. Security through redundancy.

This eventually drives any oligarchy into a winner-takes-all autocracy, and at any technologically-sophisticated tech level, such a state will become impossible to maintain by overt military, economic, or political force.

So you are are looking a deeply-buried secret society of obscenely wealthy, mutually-paranoid kingmakers who value economic stability above literally anything and everything else, and trust absolutely no one, especially their peers. Who are also extreme physical cowards to the point of making the average Hiver look like a vaping, skydiving, fugu-eating, Russian-Roulette-playing adrenaline-junkie thrillseeker.

Pretty dark, but they do make fantastic patrons...

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Uhhhhh...

It's a non-trivial part of MTU, however.

The thing is, the older these Methusaloids get, the more risk-averse they tend to become; they only care about securing an unending supply of their fix while avoiding absolutely anything that might pose a threat to their own continued existence. Unless, of course, they become aggressively suicidal out of crushing boredom.

Which makes even the still-sane ones their own worst enemies, most times, since other Prolonged Individuals make great sources of anagathics to take control of and add to one's own pipeline. Security through redundancy.

This eventually drives any oligarchy into a winner-takes-all autocracy, and at any technologically-sophisticated tech level, such a state will become impossible to maintain by overt military, economic, or political force.

So you are are looking a deeply-buried secret society of obscenely wealthy, mutually-paranoid kingmakers who value economic stability above literally anything and everything else, and trust absolutely no one, especially their peers. Who are also extreme physical cowards to the point of making the average Hiver look like a vaping, skydiving, fugu-eating, Russian-Roulette-playing adrenaline-junkie thrillseeker.

Pretty dark, but they do make fantastic patrons...

Depends, me I read a lot of William Gibson and he's taught me they pay well and open many doors but it's like working for a capricious godling.