Things got better after the 3I fell

[Sir Brad]

Ok for a NOTU CT game I was making a quadrant of Sub-Sector representing one of the far corners of a now defunct star empire a few generations on, I cooked up the Pre-Collapse UPP's and put them through "Hard Times" then a TNE "Recovery", the cluster of worlds I expected to become a pocket empire ended badly, but some other clusters actually improved. admittedly a few of them where pre-Industrial Garden Worlds who a few generations later where bumping up against the industrial era or had dove right in to it, But I had two worlds that where TL-5 & -6 both where Ag, Ri that ended up at TL-8 who's populations where about to tip the trade classifications.

a few of the Pre-Collapse high tech worlds despite the Tech Crash got better as well, population die off and change of goverment saw some become Ri and a couple Ag (just wit much lower TL's) and one group of Belters throw off their corporate overlords to abandon the Belt for their in system support world going from Early-Stella Belters to Space Age normal worlders.

so anyone else had this happen when using the tables to try and make a TNE Pocket Empires region for TNE?

as far as I can figure the Pre-Industrial worlds just went through natural tech development, where so could the "Rock Star" worlds, but perhaps with a little help from refugees fleeing some slightly distant more high tech worlds that went in to full collapse.

 

[savage]

so anyone else had this happen when using the tables to try and make a TNE Pocket Empires region for TNE?

as far as I can figure the Pre-Industrial worlds just went through natural tech development, where so could the "Rock Star" worlds, but perhaps with a little help from refugees fleeing some slightly distant more high tech worlds that went in to full collapse.

IMTU I had a very significant number of refugees fleeing and stopping at several of my key worlds. It's been too long since i tried going through the PE system to remember original stats.

 

[epicenter00]

It does happen, it's pretty interesting.

There's all kinds of reasons why it might happen, though I actually rate refugees / the Doom Trade as less common. By the time the Virus rolled around and people were trying to do the Doom Trade a lot of the passenger shipping tonnage was already space debris; however it does make for a good alternative explanation.

The typical explanations I use are:

Brain Drain Stoppage. Given the nature of the 3I, I'm thinking there's a constant stream of the brightest and most ambitious population of any planet to naturally gravitate towards the downports of lower TL worlds. Then they do whatever they can to go to a higher-tech planet where they feel are more opportunities and excitement. With the stoppage of interstellar travel, these people no longer drained away and hang around on their own worlds thinking up things to do.

The Market Capitalism Was Holding Them Down. I imagine that a lot of these worlds were being "technologically oppressed" by the market capitalism of the 3I. To be a part of the large markets and trade of the 3I is likely to require certain kinds of guarantees of the opening of planetary markets. Given the "yankee trader" mentality of the 3I (as described in T4 as the cornerstone of the Imperium), many worlds find their native industries totally outcompeted by dirt cheap imports from the 3I, made using mass production on a staggering economy of scale; there's no way local industries can compete. At the same time, the people want these things, so their treasure is constantly being drained away to buy these imports. All of this isn't very conducive to developing vertical chains of technology necessary for actual technological development so they're stuck. The Virus comes around and interstellar imports (and copyright lawsuits) stop; the world experiences rapid growth as resources can be consumed locally instead of being exported off-world. The resource sites are no longer controlled by some Megacorporation which ships all the products off-world.

These next two are like the "doom trade" - probably not as common as the first two but interesting to add some variation:

Well-Intentioned Academia Was Holding Them Down. The Scout service is full of well-intentioned people who want to keep the above from happening. So when they find a world that is vulnerable to it, they try and establish an Amber or Red Zone around the world to keep them from being snapped up by Imperial capitalism. However, this lack of contact also means they might be stuck in the Bronze Age or the Iron Age similar to how long we were stuck in it on Earth - centuries or millennia, maybe even longer if you subscribe to Jared Diamond's theories about technological development being accelerated by wide lateral landmasses instead of vertical landmasses, and they happen to lack such things. With the collapse of the 3I and contact restriction no longer being enforced, the tenuous Free Trader network shows up and kickstarts development by injecting ideas ("hey you know, you guys ever hear of the horse collar? it makes plowing fields with horses feasible and faster than using oxen, no it doesn't require anti-gravity or steel, just wood and leather like you guys have...it's in the design...see, your current collar blocks the windpipe of the horse...") that accelerate development.

Downport Fertilization. Many worlds have downports on worlds with a pretty low TL. With the Virus collapse, these downport people are now residents of the world they once were physically, emotionally, and technologically apart from. Again, the ideas that these people have might spark rapid economic development. Even a starport stevdore might have some hobby interest relevant to raising the TL of a low TL world - these worlds can be assumed to have bright and industrious people, so just a mention by some hobby historian about the Bessemer Process (even if the person doesn't precisely understand how it works) might make something click in the mind of someone who can understand how it works for him to go staggering off into the night shouting, "Eureka!" (or the older Chinese methods to mass produce wrought iron would probably have a larger impact and pave the way for the Bessemer Process).

 

[savage]

Every sector has unique physical and political characteristics. Playing off characteristics enhances believability.

I agree with one and two. I doubt three and do not support number four.

IMTU downports we're managed/supported by world citizens, or immigrants.
These settlers we're rewarded for spreading knowledge to new worlds or given wages for supporting the commerce of their own world.

Virus locked everyone down but the Vargr caused mass migration. Anyone on a border world that could get a ticket off-world (pay someone on the spot to jump out of system) ran for it. It was clear that 3I Reserve forces we're not adequately setup for the invasion defense. Some worlds with a reasonable defense force held on briefy but the waves of Vargr corsairs overstepped them. Natural migration is away from the invasion. DGP tells up that refugees headed for the Domain of Deneb, but based on invasion reports they'd also head rimward.
Of course, that meant the safest places we're naval worlds. Depot Corridor was flooded with refugees and their ships.

I have a large ship universe, post-3I. A lot of people ended up in Corridor Depot when the Vargr arrived. They we're flooding the system after the Vargr arrived.
War is like that. Virus shut everyone down. Vargr ran for home, or for the Domain, and the smart ones dug in. Those that ran for the Domain became border control cannon fodder vs Virus. Those that ran for home never made it.

IYTU, find the physical and political barriers during the collapse of 3I and use them.