The Coalition Universe

[Graham Kennedy]

But my problem is your cycle is to large.

By all means have them fall, as you said it makes sense, but falling to stone age is to much in my opinion. It would make more sense to have them fall to a pre industiral revoultion era.

Some of the rules govern the duration of cycles and magnitude of falls. Not every fall is back to the stone age by any means. The basic rule is that fast rates of development are followed by crashes that leave you worse off than when you started, while long slow rates are followed by crashes that leave you slightly better off than when you started. So cycles are inevitable, but if your society is very stable and very slow in its pace of advance then it will progress overall.

[Teaos]

Ok in your universe humanity is spread across hundreds or thousands of worlds with a fleet of ships and a friendly AI neighbour. It is also mixed up with several other alien species.

Since they are in a rapid cycle give me an example of how they could fall hard and fast to stone age level.

[Graham Kennedy]

It varies somewhat from species to species, but it's a sociological thing for the most part. A species generally just kind of turns in on itself. Becomes decadent, loses interest in science and technology, loses interest in expanding their borders. Anti technological groups start to rise, and gain prominence. Political systems become more and more corrupt. Infrastructure starts to erode; often civil wars erupt, leading to the destruction of the systems which sustain a complex society. Ultimately the society just gives up on itself. Individuals or small groups may struggle to keep things going, and may do so for a while, but it's never really sustainable. These falls take centuries or millennia themselves, and attempts to stop them generally just fade away and aren't sustained.

[Teaos]

I can see a the fall, it makes sense, but I still dont see how it could possibly hit every world and drop them all the way to the stone age.

But I guess it could be possible, and its your galaxy

[Graham Kennedy]

Well how can an economic recession hit every town and city in a country? How can a political movement span whole continents?

[Teaos]

City =/= planet.

Since planets could be set up differently it is very possible that they are a few very issolated ones.

[Captain Seafort]

The problem with a civilisation crash is that once you lose modern (i.e. mid 20th-century) technology, you're never going to get it back. The bronze and iron ages were possible because the stuff was litterally lying around all over the place. Today we need massive digging equipment to get down to it. Without that equipment you'll never have another iron age, and you'll be stuck with stone age technology forever.

[Teaos]

It didnt just disapear you know, if a civilisation crashes it will leave ruins which are one giant salvage yard.

[Graham Kennedy]

I imagine there would be whole fields of study of how civilisations rise with different availabilities of raw materials and/or ruins of other civilisations to build on.

[Monroe]

I made this post last night but for some reason my net crashed before I could submit it:

I'm with Teaos on this one. I really like the idea of the cycles in theory but there should be a point where a civilization becomes 'immune' to this. Like once they get several self substaining colonies they're immune to it. Where we are now in technology we could easily revert back to stone age after a few generations past a nuclear war. But if a world has something like half a billion colonies how would they all revert? Granted its likely many would at one point or another but not them all.

Also since new intelligent species are born constantly you have the problem of the Galaxy becoming more and more crowded with intelligent races. Many races will develop their own spheres of influence only to discover they are long lost relatives of each other. That also could lead to some interesting powers. Like maybe a branch of the Triceratop people who are a regional power but developed their own civilzation and have slightly different evolutionary means and a wildly different culture.

You could do something like how Descent Freespace solved the problem with the Shivians. Other universes have something similiar. A race that clense species when they become too powerful. Or maybe its assumed war at one point or another will destroy a species.

And exceptions to the rules. That's always what makes for good reading. Its fine that you have cycles but what about that black sheep of the bunch which has an Empire two billions years old and occationally are seen outside their space. Maybe they're the shivians. Maybe they destroy races they see as a possibile threat. And maybe they don't do a complete job and some exist as Stone Age peoples.

You could do a whole novel of a race of Stone Aged people that are found on like a billion worlds with only minor evolutionary differences. Maybe they lost a war and were blockaded on their worlds and eventually their cities destroyed. The survivors striking out into the wilds.

And as I've said before why not have a race that is noted for reaching the atomic age over and over but each time they blast themselves back into the stone age? You could do some real political commentary in there.

Also are there any races like the Independence Day aliens who travel from world to world in a giant mother ship? Since you have such a vast amount of species it seems likely there are at least a few.

Don't get me wrong I love your universe, just trying to knock ideas ar

[Teaos]

Yeah what he said.

I like the idea of a super species that is happy to just hold its own block of space but that goes out and curbstomps anyone who could threaten them.

And the idea of having a major power that had its arse kicked and is now just a bunch of stone age people on a hundred different planets... the possbilites are endless with story lines.

[Monroe]

Hey its been awhile since you posted GK! I'm interested in learning more.

[Graham Kennedy]

Look at the forum, I just posted a new battleship design.

[Monroe]

I know But I wanted a response to what I posted

[Bryan Moore]

Was there any galactic-wide catastrophic happening or something major that preempted the formation of the Coalition? Love the idea.