Technosphere Society

[Kirt Dankmyer]

Carolyn and I have been working on a bluesheet outlining the way
society was in the 'Sphere before the Fall, and what it's like on the
Daedalus now. This is what we came up with. If any of this seems
"wrong" in any way, now is the time to speak up.

The Silicon Valley Technology Sphere, with the help of the advanced
geniuses of the University of California Berkeley, was as close to a
technological utopia as any place has ever come. Of all the TL7
Threads, it was the most advanced, the "best of the best".
And then it was nuked by the forces of a Extra Branal Entity known as
Set-Apophis, a being that the Technosphere had never actively done
anything to oppose, busy as they were with attempting to stabilize
what was left of post-Event reality.
About 10,000 people were saved from the Technosphere in the battle
that ended with the death of the Technosphere. They were put on the
Starship Daedalus, the ultimate product of that TL7 near-utopia.
To understand what the Daedalus is like now, one has to understand
what society was like in the Technosphere, where people didn't have to
eat unless they wanted to.
Most Technosphere citizens are not Technomages as most people assume.
Berkeley's Technomage program was actually very elite. Very few
could manage to pass the program, and very few of those became part of
the ruling Council of Elrics.
That means Technomages are at least B-list celebrities, and Elrics
like Dr. Winter and Dr. Sim are A-list celebrities. Being a Technomage
was like being nobility, though legally they were citizens like any
other.
Not everybody who went to Berkeley went into technology. In fact,
there were quite a few liberal arts majors at Berkeley.
A very high percentage of the Technosphere's small population gets a
Bachelors degree, much like even police officers needed college
degrees in Berkeley before the Event. Education was both cheap and in
part necessary, an illiterate would have a tough time dealing with the
"basic" technology for living, so it's pretty much a "basic" thing you
get college educated.
With a big college culture, much of the pop culture was designed for
and by that age group. Also, the college was the social center of the
Technosphere.
There were some people that just never left their living rooms. You
didn't need to. If you wanted, you could attend school in the
Metaverse and never bathe. After all, most people had an implant that
could convert electricity into calories and nutrition.
Some chose to never attend school at all and just live in a fantasy
world, but this is considered a weakness of character in the
Technosphere, as these people could contribute much to society even
on the Metaverse. Few of these "Escapists" made it onto the Daedalus,
but their existence illustrates the luxury that was offered to a
Technosphere citizen, and there are fears that some on the Daedalus
may "regress" to this state.
There were the Boardmonkeys, the VR outgrowth of Internet BBSes like
4chan, all LOLs and porn. Some were "Escapists", but some were
contributors to society.
Many college students (and older folk) who don't want to be
Technomages are otaku. Anime, Buffy, Startrek, Sci-fi, Fantasy,
Starwars, you name it. It is rare that a Technomage has time to do
this, but most Technosphere citizens had a lot of free time. To give a
sense of the amount of free time available, these people lobied for
official "Star Wars" day, with sales in the stores, the trilogy show
on video screens everywhere, and live performances of parodies of the
Prequel Trilogy.
Some of the latest generation became farmers. Agriculture was big in
the 'Sphere. Sure, people CAN just use the implants, and the older
generation is used to it, but now that agriculture has redeveloped
post-Event and trade was established with other threads, a lot of
people chose to eat, as a sort of luxury. There were a lot of
vineyards; Technosphere residents were very proud of their wine.
Before the opening of the Gate network established trade, only the
most elite would eat real food, if they wanted to. Technology gave
them high yields. Not as high as the Hive, but the Technosphere food
actually tasted good. The farmers all had degrees in Agricultural
Science, and some want to start up hyroponic farming on the Daedalus,
though that would be a drain on resources.
There were, of course, a lot of neo-hippies in the Technosphere,
including a lot of those farmers. Marijuana was legal in the 'Sphere,
but really the people who grew it tended to consume it themselves and
it didn't spread very far.
The neo-hippies were very interested in green living, and despite
their preaching about getting back to nature they enjoyed the use of
technology to keep everything more green. There were very few
hardcore "no tech" neo-hippies and more were the type who had the
"minimum" needed to live in the 'Sphere, a Metaverse jack and the food
implants (in case they need it).
To get a sense of the sort of person involved here, these people
lobbied for "Hug a Tree" day.
Given the near-utopian nature of the society, there were a lot of
artists. If you didn't spend money on the luxury of food, relying on
one's implants instead, and didn't mind having a mediocre house, you
could make a "living" churning out sculpture all day. The 'Sphere was
a great place to catch decent theatre. Or even have a syth band.
That isn't to say it was all good art. As one Technomage once said:
"Look, I gotta be honest. Sphere music SUCKS. The real music is
happening in LA. But every once in a while, there is a good geek rock
band that's worth seeing in a coffee shop somewhere."
Many people chose to raise a family and relax. It was easy to
support a family and people could afford to spend a lot of time with
them. There was a low divorce rate. They had nice tomato gardens and
their kids rode their bikes in middle class neighborhoods before
jacking in at night.
The 'Sphere extended into San Francisco, so the San Francisco
homosexual community was very large, and of course overlapped with a
lot of the other cultures, particularly the artists.
Economically, the 'Sphere was highly socialist, like parts of Europe
before the Event. Most basics -- food (or the implants so you don't
need food), Metaverse access, clothing, shelter, etc. -- were
available for free. But if you wanted something more than the basics,
that was VERY expensive, on the order of several Econ, and only the
Technomages could afford that. In essence, you got money from the
government on a "merit" basis and that trickles into a sort of luxury
economy.
Most of that Econ went up in smoke with the rest of the Technosphere,
though it technically exists "on paper" in the Technosphere internal
records. People on the Daedalus have sometimes tried to use this
"paper" Econ, but inflation is already out of control and things are
rapidly moving to a barter basis, though the ship still provides a lot
of the basics, though perhaps not as readily or as well as the 'Sphere
once did.
The level of tech built into most people's bodies means even a
"normal" citizen can't survive outside a TL7 environment, at least not
without the Preserve Tech skill, which most of them don't know, and
that's not a skill you can just zap into people's heads with nanotech,
it takes real work. Asking a Technosphere citizen to live in even a
TL6 environment is like asking a 21st century diabetic -- someone who
isn't dead mainly due to modern science -- to live in ancient Greece.
And putting all their organs back to make that more viable would be
expensive at this point, as the Daedalus cannot provide the energy
that fed the great Econ factories in LA.
All the Technomages made it to the Daedalus, as well as anyone else
who was directly associated with academia, even the liberal arts
majors. The Escapists were mainly left to die, but the remaining
people are a good cross-section of the rest of Technosphere society,
biased slightly toward the friends and family of the Technomages and
then secondarily those of the other academics.
Though bigger on the inside than the outside due to advanced
space-folding techniques that were possible before ReUnification, the
Daedalus is very crowded.
There's a lot of chaos. It is both better than it could be, and
worse. Because only half the expected refugees ended up on the ship
(the original plan was to save 20,000 people), conditions aren't as
cramped or desperate as they could be. On the other hand, this means
more personal loss: More people with family and friends who died in
the nuclear fire that made the Technosphere uninhabitable.
People are sort of shellshocked, and wonder where they can go. Very
few take seriously the idea that the Daedalus can become a home to
them.

--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death

[Gordon Olmstead-Dean]

So I just wanted to quickly throw out a note on the *scale* of the Daedalus.  I don't have any issue with it, but if it comes up in game, I wanted to note that the suggestion is the thing is *huge.*  

I was trying to think of any existing vehicles that could carry 10,000 people who weren't hivers.   The best model is probably Troop Transports.  The Wilhelm Gustloff, carried about 9000 men, and was 684.1 ft long by 77.4 ft wide with a capacity of 25,484 gross register tons.  To be fair though the Gustloff was a short range transport and probably couldn't have kept that many people on board for long.  So...I figure Daedalus is probably at least 30-40k tons.  Since it's a sphere, it wouldn't need to be as long as a liner, but it must be at least say 300x300ft, meaning it's about as big as a football stadium.

Mostly wanted to get a sense of scale for the thing coming up in game...

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[Kirt Dankmyer]

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 9:32 AM, Gordon Olmstead-Dean <jgo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So I just wanted to quickly throw out a note on the *scale* of the Daedalus.
>  I don't have any issue with it, but if it comes up in game, I wanted to
> note that the suggestion is the thing is *huge.*

It's bigger on the inside than the outside. I'm still thinking on the
outside it's like the size of a flying aircraft carrier, using
"gravity lenses" to hang in the air in the exact way bricks don't. But
the idea is that advanced TL7 space-folding techniques allow for
something that's a lot roomier than it would be otherwise. I am
working with canon as established by Kammer in S2 and S3 here on the
bigger on the inside than the outside nature of the giant flying
saucer.

It's stuff like that is why they can't bring the Daedalus too close
too other Threads without endangering ReUnification. The Deadalus is
stuffed full of every single TL7 "cheat" the Technosphere ever
conceived, limited mainly by the fact it doesn't have the limitless
energy the 'Sphere once had.

The facilities with which one could do such a thing as fold space were
lost with the nuking of the Technosphere. This, along with things like
insta-cloning that puts the Hive to shame, is the sort of abilities
from previous season I see the Daedalus players possibly trying to
recapture with some hard work, if they want. Tho obviously folding
space isn't something you do on a whim even if you CAN do it.

[David Lunking]

Kirt,

I'm good with this description of the Technosphere and Daedalus. It captures the essence of our technological utopia and it's fall. 

Gordon,

As part of the Technosphere's unending geekiness (as well as the geekiness of the Technosphere players), we thought it amusing to have the Daedalus be larger on the inside than on the outside, similar to the TARDIS, by capitalizing on a stable n-dimensional space. Unlike the TARDIS, it wouldn't be infinitely large inside, but from an outsider's perspective it could hold a disturbingly large number of non-Hivers for its size. As such, you can probably reduce your size estimate to anywhere from 1/2 to 1/10th. The Daedalus is big, but need not be the size of a literal floating town. Other than that, it's only descriptor was as a 'flying saucer', so a flattened sphere or disc is probably more accurate than a perfect sphere.

Note the restraint - it does NOT look like an icosahedron. 

Note - Ninja'd seconds ago by Kirt. 

~D

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 9:32 AM, Gordon Olmstead-Dean <jgo...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
"A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent."
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[Kirt Dankmyer]

> Daedalus is big, but need not be the size of a literal floating town. Other
> than that, it's only descriptor was as a 'flying saucer', so a flattened
> sphere or disc is probably more accurate than a perfect sphere.

I'm thinking it looks like something like this:

http://bit.ly/91rXXM

...only with "Daedalus" on it rather than "Green Airways". I'll allow
someone with sufficient motivation and better Photoshop skills than I
do that.

I was thinking it was still *pretty* big on the outside --
aircraft-carrier size, as I said, only squashed to a disk -- because
while I'm a Dr. Who fan, I'm also a Macross fan. :)

http://www.gsoftnet.us/Anime/Macross.jpg

However, if you guys want the Daedalus to be able to transform, that
will require a LOT of BGAs and likely some co-ordination with Rising
Sun. :)

[David Lunking]

Why would it need to transform? Our Reflex Cannon works. It just (rolls percentile) needs 24 hours to recharge.

~D

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[Gordon Olmstead-Dean]

So...nobody was geeky enough to specifically model it on an ELO Album Cover?  Guess nobody in the Technosphere is quite that old. 

[Kirt Dankmyer]

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 12:20 PM, Gordon Olmstead-Dean
<jgo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So...nobody was geeky enough to specifically model it on an ELO Album Cover?
>  Guess nobody in the Technosphere is quite that old.

Kammer... I mean, Dr. Devlan... was that old, but I think OOC Kammer
was thinking more "Roswell".

Also, given the rainbow look, I don't think the Elrics were sufficiently gay. :)

http://img356.imageshack.us/img356/3862/elo7eh.jpg

[Tom Bethards]

Wrong.  I specifically described the Bridge as looking like the inside jacket of 'Out of The Blue', when Dr. Sim gave tours after it landed at the COG.  Dr. Sim is not old enough to remember ELO, but his parents are/were.

Also, I always thought much of the interior looked like a Minbari War Cruiser, especially the chapels and the Council's meeting chamber.

[Tom Bethards]

Right, not as much color, more blue and grey. Although some of our San Francisco transplants may want to give it a makeover, Dr. Sim will probably be cool to the idea, now that he's back to a low Kinsey number.

[Gordon Olmstead-Dean]

I love you man.

[Kirt Dankmyer]

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 12:26 PM, Tom Bethards <tbet...@mac.com> wrote:
> Wrong.  I specifically described the Bridge as looking like the inside
> jacket of 'Out of The Blue', when Dr. Sim gave tours after it landed at the
> COG.  Dr. Sim is not old enough to remember ELO, but his parents are/were.

For those who aren't Gordon or Tom:

http://bit.ly/1e6bhF

Gordon, you start working on that set for a later scene. :)

[Tom Bethards]

Oh, and I also said that the Captain's chair looked just like Captain Kirk's. And Lance, who had watched Star Trek, requested to sit in it.

By the way, I liked the summary of Technosphere society and politics. It's definitely in the spirit of what we have been playing.

[Kirt Dankmyer]

> By the way, I liked the summary of Technosphere society and politics.  It's definitely in the spirit of what we have been playing.

To give credit where it's due, a lot of the heavy lifting was Carolyn.
I edited it and added a couple of paragraphs to bring it in line with
the stuff I needed for my plot purposes.

[Tom Bethards]

I'm aware of that. Thanks, Carolyn!

[Kirt Dankmyer]

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 1:29 PM, Tom Bethards <tbet...@mac.com> wrote:
> I'm aware of that.  Thanks, Carolyn!

Figured you did, but I like to give appropriate praise. Also, I hope
to see if I can get Carolyn's head to swell up and explode. :)

[Gordon Olmstead-Dean]

Yeah, it's really good to see it written up.  Thanks and kudos to everybody for that.

[Carolyn Grodt]

Thanks for the edit, Kirt.

 

I think some prominent Technomages did die though - Annie did.  Jack did.

 

~C

[David Lunking]

Part of the discussion as to why there were not more Technomages to help with the defense of the Technosphere is that most were on site in the reunifying threads, monitoring activity and safeguarding equipment. Most of those remaining in the TS were in the bunker (us), on the Daedalus, or outside getting killed.

 

In short, of the ~200 or so Technomages expected pre-Reunification, an arbitrary number >= 4 still exist. 5 if you include both Archibalds.

 

~D

[Kirt Dankmyer]

I'm assuming a lot survived, but there weren't a lot to begin with.
How does 30 sound?

And not all have the right augments for defense by a long shot. "I'm
an engineer. I have the nanotech equivalent of an awesome wrench set."

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