Why the long night?

[Shonner]

Far-Trader, you are more optimistic than me (or I, whatever).

Earth/NASA had been shooting space shuttles into space for how many years? Now that NASA is pretty much gone, and with the economy the way it is, and out of the 8 billion people on Earth, what are the chances of a new space shuttle being built right now (using already developed technology that had been in use since the late 1970s) and finding a trained crew to fly it?

 

[Poppyseed45]

Far-Trader, you are more optimistic than me (or I, whatever).

Earth/NASA had been shooting space shuttles into space for how many years? Now that NASA is pretty much gone, and with the economy the way it is, and out of the 8 billion people on Earth, what are the chances of a new space shuttle being built right now (using already developed technology that had been in use since the late 1970s) and finding a trained crew to fly it?

That was mine (and I think DT's) point - "technology" takes training, the ability to build the tools to build the tools, and the ability to then manufacture the thing in question. I can imagine a scenario, say 20 years from now, when the US might want to start up its space shuttle program again. It'll take at least 10 years to roll that out, assuming they DIDN'T get rid of infrastructure in-place now to deal with the space shuttle. They'll have to rebuild EVERYTHING. And a lot of the people who have that knowledge might be dead by then. And maybe the manuals are, gasp!, on a pendrive somewhere that's gotten corrupted since then...

 

[Shonner]

My idea was that this planet I mentioned before (with the billion people) didn't produce anything. It only bought stuff. Or someone was donating everything to them for whatever reason.

The last ship left that planet's starport with its crew and never came back. And no other ships would be visiting that planet. The planet's money is worthless. Or whoever was giving them free stuff eventually had to cut back.

 

[Icosahedron]

My idea was that this planet I mentioned before (with the billion people) didn't produce anything. It only bought stuff. Or someone was donating everything to them for whatever reason.

The last ship left that planet's starport with its crew and never came back. And no other ships would be visiting that planet. The planet's money is worthless. Or whoever was giving them free stuff eventually had to cut back.

This is a trade impossibility. In order to buy stuff they must have money, and in order to get money they must sell stuff - or they can cut out the money and just barter, but they must have something to give back.

A poverty-stricken charity world is possible, but will be a rarity. If the charity stops, yes it's screwed - but once its population has fallen to a level it can support, it'll be able to survive at that level.

Such fringe exceptions are no basis for analysing the wider effects of the Long Night.

As others have stated, the only way that a true Long Night could take place is if the majority of worlds descended into barbaric civil war immediately and nuked themselves back to the stone age rather than some polity preventing/halting/winning the war and taking over the infrastructure.

Did the 1I have a universal ban on nukes and bioweapons like the 3I? If so, how did all those worlds manage to destroy themselves completely? Even if not, is it realistic to assume that the majority of 11,000 worlds nuked themselves back to the stone age in response to the bank having a run...?

 

[Shonner]

This is a trade impossibility.

Not impossibe. Just a bad trade.

In order to buy stuff they must have money, and in order to get money they must sell stuff - or they can cut out the money and just barter, but they must have something to give back.

In today's world, bankrupt countries are able to buy stuff, and get loans still to buy more stuff. I don't see that business model changing on future planets.

A poverty-stricken charity world is possible, but will be a rarity.

Yes, it could be seen as a rarity. But in an Imperium of 11,000 worlds (let's say 9,000 for the era), it could be more common.

If the charity stops, yes it's screwed - but once its population has fallen to a level it can support, it'll be able to survive at that level.

If they can produce stuff on their own. This was a planet/society that didn't produce anything.

Anyway, everything we'll be told about or hear about The Long Night will be wrong.

 

[mike wightman]

Exactly, the long night was not a time of nuking back to the stone age or even tech regression. Don't believe everything 3rd Imperium historians tell you

It was a time when the Imperium ceased to be, world became more insular and only conducted trade in local clusters, and technological development stalled.

IMHO the reason for the latter is that actually going up a TL is hard, new science has to be discovered, new engineering principles based on that new scientific paradigm have to be developed. It is usually hundreds if not thousands of years between TL improvements
Earth achieved TL9, encountered the Vilani and a few decades later wast TL12, 1 whole TL above the Vilani.

Simple explanation - the Vilani were a stable TL11 culture so the Terrans could rapidly beg, borrow and steal the necessary data. Thing is the Vilani had been TL11 for an awfully long time.
Discoveries and new science was culturally suppressed, but it would have still been there in the data bases and the universities etc.
Terran merchants, spies, exchange students, whatever, managed to get hold of the secret stuff and Terran scientists and engineers didn't have the same cultural blinkers to stop them developing TL12 stuff.

But then we have a problem - making the leap to TL13 requires brand new research with no clues, no secret data bases etc.

So what I think happened - tech stagnation on the developed, self sufficient worlds.

Tech regression and then progression back to TL11 on many Vilani worlds that could cope with the initial trade disruption.

There would have been riots, economic migration, refugees, civil wars, epidemics on worlds that couldn't cope, probably quite a lot on the worlds that could too. But eventually things would either calm down or the world would fail.

 

[Shonner]

If China (for whatever reason) stopped shipping to the western coast of the US, how many days would pass before rioting would begin in California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Texas?

Remember, most stores only stock a few days of inventory at a time. How long would it take before another country steps in to ship goods through the west coast ports? No nukes were involved, by the way.

 

[mike wightman]

So come the day when the US and China go to war over Taiwan and North Korea you don't think the US government or corporations have plans to source all their high tech needs form other sources?

Could make an interesting setting for a game, why not call it Twilight 2050?

 

[Shonner]

So come the day when the US and China go to war over Taiwan and North Korea you don't think the US government or corporations have plans to source all their high tech needs form other sources?

Let's say the US government and corporations did have a plan. How long do you think it would take them to execute it and work out any bugs?

 

[DangerousThing]

This is a trade impossibility. In order to buy stuff they must have money, and in order to get money they must sell stuff - or they can cut out the money and just barter, but they must have something to give back.

A poverty-stricken charity world is possible, but will be a rarity. If the charity stops, yes it's screwed - but once its population has fallen to a level it can support, it'll be able to survive at that level.

Likewise I found it hard to believe that a planet with a billion people wouldn't know *something*. Even a welfare planet would have a few people who had hobbies that would lead to useful skills. As for a planet of retirees, there's a lot of skills there.

The only thing I can think that *might* cause this is if they were exporting people. Maybe they are very poor, but they make good slaves. As long as they breed quickly and don't sell off more than they can breed again...

 

[Carlobrand]

If China (for whatever reason) stopped shipping to the western coast of the US, how many days would pass before rioting would begin in California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Texas?

Rioting?? Goodness, you ARE an optimist, aren't you. Not much faith in your fellow Americans.

We've been in an economic slump now for, what, 3 years? 4 years? I lost track. Real estate bubble burst, bunch of financial companies hit the skids hard, banks needing bailouts, states putting workers on furlough and slashing costs while private sector workers were losing their jobs - and the only rioting I recall during that time was the "Occupy" kiddies occasionally getting carried away. But we keep hearing people talk like an economic setback is just gonna drive all of us to charge out with pitchforks and torches. Where the heck is that idea coming from?

 

[Shonner]

I said, "If".

How much stuff you buy comes from China?

And by fellow Americans, you mean my neighbors that can't speak English? Skip eating your next 9 meals and see how you act when told you're not getting any food. Times that by the number of people in your city and neighboring cities. The food you eat now, does it come in packages made in China? Are you able to live off your own land right now?

 

[Dragoner]

Yes, America is a net exporter of food.

IMO, the long night was a breakdown of trade and unity as people no longer believed in the Imperium, it wasn't until faced with outside threats did people actually begin to see the need for it again. Also, I look at tech as paradigm shifts, like the Imperium of 1105 is TL 15 max, standard is around 12; the 2nd Imperium was max 12, but more like 11, with a standard of around 7-8, so as the high tech veneer was stripped away, most places just didn't have the capability to maintain trade. The shift points for me are 0-2, 3-4, 5-8, 9-11, 12-15ish, 16 or 17+ and on up to the singularity tech levels.

 

[Shonner]

I think of The Long Night as another Katrina. People waiting for their government to come save them. Eventually, the government takes them away to another place that is livable.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

/SNIPPETY/

Looking at it with gamer's eyes, I would say the heart of the Long Night would make for a better RPG experience than 3I, where the setting is under the same cultural paradigm for years in travelling distance around.

During the long night you could have multiple Spinward Marches all over the place each with their own peculiarities.

I agree (with the snipped stuff, too). It's why I manufactured a TU that is smaller (8 sectors, though I only have numbers for 3 ATM), and had its own Long Night (essentially caused by a jump space EMP, to put it simply, with jump "re-discovered" around 150 years ago). This makes J-1 clusters natural polities. Since J-3 is still a new thing (the few places where they have it), there are still un-reachable planets, and some polities are "closed" - that is, they don't allow visitors.

(There are 25 polities of various strengths and sizes and governing philosophies in just the sector and a half I am currently detailing. Only one of them is "empire" size, with 208 systems. Yes, it is a huge J1 main, covering about 3 subsectors, total. Someday I'll publish it. )

 

[Shonner]

City on the Edge of Forever. I don't know why I just thought of that Star Trek epsiode, where Kirk realizes the Enterprise is gone. Not in orbit where they'd expect it to be.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Rioting?? Goodness, you ARE an optimist, aren't you. Not much faith in your fellow Americans.

We've been in an economic slump now for, what, 3 years? 4 years? I lost track. Real estate bubble burst, bunch of financial companies hit the skids hard, banks needing bailouts, states putting workers on furlough and slashing costs while private sector workers were losing their jobs - and the only rioting I recall during that time was the "Occupy" kiddies occasionally getting carried away. But we keep hearing people talk like an economic setback is just gonna drive all of us to charge out with pitchforks and torches. Where the heck is that idea coming from?

Europe, where that's exactly what's happening:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/greek-riots-picture-of-hate

The Eurozone crises is precisely the kind of thing that triggered the Long Night - a failure of interstellar banking confidence caused first banks and then whole planetary financial systems to implode. Businesses went bankrupt, nobody could afford to run their ships, especially if they couldn't be sure their customers would have any money when they arrived. Large scale trade collapsed, taking the Imperium with it. Some areas prospered, some died off completely, most survived, but crippled. This didn't happen overnight, or everywhere at once, it rippled out in waves from every local collapse.

 

[Whipsnade]

Getting back to the topic...

Most of the incomprehension surrounding the Long Night has to do with people once again being confused by the differences between what they've been told by in-game commentary and what they've been shown in library data, historical time lines, and other descriptions.

We see this Told vs. Shown problem every time the topic of Major Race comes up. Despite repeated explanations both in canon and across internet fora, some people simply cannot grasp the idea that inventing jump drive has nothing to do with Major Race status. In a similar fashion, people confused about the Long Night read the in-game commentary of 3I historians eager to burnish the founding mythos of an new Imperium expanding into the howling wilderness of the Long Night bringing civilization back to the stars and ignore the historical evidence of large polities, extensive trade, enemies of the Sylean Federation nearly equal it's size, and an early 3I emperor who had to build his palace with an eye towards defenses against jump troopers.

What we've been shown about the Long Night is abundantly clear to anyone who cares to actively think about the setting and not just be passively spoon fed information.

The Long Night was not the end of interstellar civilization. Instead, it was the end of a single widespread interstellar government. The Long Night was not the end of interstellar trade. Instead, it was the end of widespread interstellar trade within a single financial system. Some worlds died when the ubiquitous trade mechanisms of the Ziru Sirka and Rule of Man finally shuddered to a halt, some worlds experienced technological retrenchments when the same processes occurred, and some worlds were barely effected at all.

The largest effect of the Long Night was not political or technological. Instead, it was cultural.

The Vilani spent over a thousand years fighting a war across a region larger than the later Third Imperium hammering every know sophont species into a single polity known as the Ziru Sirka. In order to maintain control of that polity, the Vilani then enforced certain cultural norms while fostering an economic system which was wholly dependent on imports. Even before the Terran Confederation conquered Vland, this system of control was already breaking down.

Under the Rule of Man the myriad of cultures, both human and alien, began to reassert themselves. Once the Rule of Man fell and any semblance of central control vanished with it, that myriad of cultures came to the forefront as can be seen in the Cultural Regions map in MT. The Long Night was an "inward turn" more than anything else. Sophonts across the former Ziru Sirka were more interested in exploring and developing their own worlds and own cultures than exploring and developing large scale interstellar polities.

The Long Night was a change in emphasis, not a dark ages.

 

[DangerousThing]

That was mine (and I think DT's) point - "technology" takes training, the ability to build the tools to build the tools, and the ability to then manufacture the thing in question. I can imagine a scenario, say 20 years from now, when the US might want to start up its space shuttle program again. It'll take at least 10 years to roll that out, assuming they DIDN'T get rid of infrastructure in-place now to deal with the space shuttle. They'll have to rebuild EVERYTHING. And a lot of the people who have that knowledge might be dead by then. And maybe the manuals are, gasp!, on a pendrive somewhere that's gotten corrupted since then...

While the information loss have its costs, I think that rebuilding the infrastructure might actually be a good thing.

As a programmer there were a few times when the source code to an important project was lost. I was able to redo the project in half the time and make it much more efficient in the process. (Please note: only once was this my fault that the source was lost. Once was due to an idiot tech who put the source in an encrypted disk and left the university under a cloud and "couldn't remember" the password.)

There are times where having a 30-50 year old infrastructure in place blinds people to new possibilities.

 

[aramis]

Bill:
where is the proof of significant local interstellar polities in the area of the 2nd imperium before about -100?

If you're going to claim we've been shown, tell us where to look. (I suspect T4, but I hated T4... except for the Psionics rules and the Character Families rule.)