Why the long night?

[Andrew Boulton]

Persoanlly I find it difficult to imagine worlds with sizable populations (10 million+) that aren't self-sufficient in all the important basics. Not I-refuse-to-believe-it-if-canon-actually-says-so difficult, but certainly I-wouldn't-introduce-it-myself difficult.

Many countries that big aren't - they'd probably survive, but it'd be a struggle.

 

[Whipsnade]

The Antares Crisis of -1776 would not have happened if the political institutions surrounding it had been capable of deliberating with the authority with which they had been originally set up to do. The event was less a trigger than a signpost -- the proof that interregional frictions within the old Ziru Sirka/RoM had taken local interstellar culture beyond the event horizon.

Very well put. In the life of the RoM/2E -1776 is as much a signpost as 476 AD is in the life of the Western Roman Empire. Both are dates picked by historians millennia later to mark tipping points, nothing more.

The Old Order had been in steady decline for a millennium or more before the official date given for the collapse. It was the buildup of sand in the political gears that propelled the concomitant economic decline...

Agreed. I'll stress again that the Ziru Sirka used it's interstellar economy as a tool for political control. Great care was taken to ensure that very few worlds manufactured every piece of the TL12 puzzle and to ensure that even fewer worlds understood how those pieces had been developed. Many Minor Races were pre-industrial and pre-scientific when contacted, many more Minor Races were hammered back to that level during the Consolidation Wars. The imposition of Vilani cultural norms, complete with a Researcher caste, was only one of many methods the ZS used to enforce it's "peace".

Most worlds, including Vilani colonies, participated in the interstellar economy at a "black box" and "cargo cult" level of understanding. They made certain widgets in the way they'd been trained, received other widgets in trade, enjoyed whatever goodies a TL12 tech base allowed them, and took care not to ask too many questions.

... and also allowed the Terrans and Vargr (it was a joint effort, no matter what human histories say) to overthrow it.

Seeing as our histories of the ea are 3I histories, the fact that the role of the Vargr has been overlooked is understandable.

Terran social interference may have sped up the process of political disintegration, but it also revitalized many regions of space economically, perhaps allowing the Long Night to be less dark in some regions than others.

Exactly. For the most part, all those Minor Race found there was a much lighter boot on their neck. The Terran takeover of the ZS meant their cultures were no longer actively suppressed. They spent a good chunk of the Long Nightt not just relearning how to learn, but reinventing their native cultures.

...there's no reason to believe that some intransigent races weren't entirely exterminated.

Agreed. Why Earth wasn't nuked is one of my biggest problems with the entire ISW story. It's one of the reasons I believe that the Terrans didn't conquer the Ziru Sirka as much as they provided that polity with it's final imperial dynasty. (See the Manchus.)

The 'Terrans' never seemed too enthusiastic about the whole Rule of Man project to begin with; remember that the Second Imperium was founded as a 'Solomani' rebellion or coup against Terran authority.

I always found it rather odd that that rat bastard Estigarribia felt he needed to come up with a new label as part of his coup. I've always found it odd that the Confederation government, which displayed enough political savvy to first maintain the political balance act between Earth's major nations, then fight a centuries long war, then found and keep colonies on side, find and develop Minor Race allies, and turn captive Vilani colonies on the Rim into loyal members, would suddenly display such profound stupidity.

The original Terran plan was to rule the Vilani directly, as conquered subjects.

And we only have the word of the coup's participants for that.

 

[mike wightman]

Minor nit pick - the Vilani didn't achieve TL12 - they held their cultural development at TL11 for hundreds, if not thousands, of years deliberately.

It was the terranes who first achieved TL12 and with it jump 3 and advanced meson weapons giving them the edge in the later Interstellar Wars period.

I have no doubt that the Ziru Sirka had developed many of the scientific and engineering principles to achieve TL12, but they never made the jump to that tech base.

 

[rancke]

Many countries that big aren't - they'd probably survive, but it'd be a struggle.

I was thinking about amending my statement a bit. A world might import important stuff from neighboring worlds, but only if the transport costs didn't exceed the comparative advantage savings. Which is really pretty much saying the same thing another way: most worlds would be self-sufficient in the important basics. So I can't see the cessation of long-distance trade causing many worlds to collapse technologically. That's not to say that I can't see worlds decivilizing for other reasons.


Hans

 

[Rigel Stardin]

The only way the planet would decivilize is if the ruling class abandons the planet entirely. This would create a power vaccum which could lead to armed conflict. If the period last long enough and is extremely violent then, a planet may drop several tech levels before stablity returns.

But how I envision this period would be something like the Roman withdraw from Britian and their outlying territories. The Vlani culture would still influence the culture for a time before the local population would begin their own social and cultural evolution. In some case where the Vlani population quite large globally, there might be no change at all for centuries. The reason here is the Vlani on those worlds would wish to keep the collapse a secret and maintain their power over the general population.

Alot of what happened during the middle ages was based on localized culture. China, Far East, the Middle and Near East were more open about science and technology than Europe. The same problably happen during the Long Night.

The Long Night was just propaganda to make everyone feel good about their achievements...

 

[Garyius2003]

I gave this some thought, and while avoiding current politics I do note that we are on a world ocean choke down. America decided to patrol less routes of sea travel, with some countries running some local route security, as we use our budget for more local concerns (with exceptions--but how likely is the 2I to have a substance like oil?). The merchant ships themselves are running as economical as they can. It is easy to see a real life future for us where half the world's oceans will be closed to commerce.

The Chinese are doing a nice job with their current ownership of the Canal, but as they begin to grab off chunks of Africa who will control Central America? Can a 200 ship US Navy keep the Med/Persian Gulf open and re-control the Canal?

In the 2I I can also see routes being abandoned over time, as massive ships wear out, or the piracy gets too common, or destroyer's jumps drives are being conserved and they are used as system monitors instead of jump patrols. It may take 50 or 100 years, but at some point one world would only connect to two or three on a regular basis.

 

[Whipsnade]

Minor nit pick - the Vilani didn't achieve TL12 -

You are, of course, entirely correct.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I was thinking about amending my statement a bit. A world might import important stuff from neighboring worlds, but only if the transport costs didn't exceed the comparative advantage savings. Which is really pretty much saying the same thing another way: most worlds would be self-sufficient in the important basics. So I can't see the cessation of long-distance trade causing many worlds to collapse technologically. That's not to say that I can't see worlds decivilizing for other reasons.

40 years ago we had Concorde and men on the Moon. Now? Not so much. Why? Money and politics.

Priorities change, you stop funding certain projects, and before you know it factories have closed and people have retired, and all of a sudden you've dropped a TL. And maybe there's a brain drain - all the rocket scientists leave on the last ship heading for somewhere willing to employ them. And this, plus the reduction in trade kicks the economy into a recession - mass unemployment, standard of living drops, people die, and there goes another TL. It might take a few years, or a few decades, but it can easily happen.

In theory these worlds might know how to regain those TLs, and might even have the raw materials, but they don't have the infrastructure. They need to build new factories and train the workers, and if there isn't the money or political will to do it it'll just keep getting ignored.