Level of Technological Development (FT, PMT)

[Sskiss]

All this talk on the "IRON" threads had given myself time to think about how advanced our tech base is. This will apply on both general overall levels as well as more specific fields, such as physics, biology computer science and so on or even specific technologies. Also, equally important, is just how do we "measure" how advanced a given nation or race is within the FT community? Is it the "age" of the nation in NS terms? Its population? RP history? Or something else? How do we decide who is more advanced than who and in what? Furthermore, does your nation or race specialize in a certain tech, perhaps something unique?

[The Mindset]

RP consistency is what I'd judge tech levels by. If someone is a good roleplayer and can use advanced technologies without wanking them horribly, I'm quite happy to accept them. The inverse is also true.

The Mindset has large ships that are powered by batteries. There are no power stations on board Mindsetti ships. Rather, on sixty year cycles, they are brought home to port and recharged. This means that they do not explode when excessively damaged, simplifies maintainence and allows for more space for weapons/crew. However, it does mean that equipment that uses a lot of energy is limited - our energy weapons are not very powerful and neither is our shielding. Our FTLi is limited to around 200 lightseconds. Instead, we use c-fractional missiles, railguns and high powered masers in short bursts. We also tend to spam smaller craft to provide cover fire for larger ships. The Battleforge MkII capital class, for example, contains enough storage space for 2,500 automated fighters, and contains an automated forge capable of stripping asteroids to build new ones given sufficient time.

The Mindset has had bad experiences with AI in the past so any currently employed AIs are restricted to human-level (or below) intelligence, and are confined by programming to never spread beyond their installed system.

Human Mindsetti are routinely equipped with implants that cerebral access to a variety of systems - the internet etc. Many Mindsetti have had their biological nerves replaced with artifical ones giving highly enhanced reaction times. Some black ops Mindsetti have implants that grant skintight personal forcefields and low power weaponry embedded inside their bodies. Some can literally fire lasers from their eyes. It's highly variable. The lay person probably has around a dozen implants - HUD, internet access, enhanced reaction time, the ability to download memories and skills and a few others.

The Mindset doesn't routinely employ large numbers of ground forces, instead preferring orbital bombardment or small infiltration units. These units tend to have powered armour in addition to their implants.

[Altergo]

The Federation of Altergo, was once a colony of a inter-universal empire, that lived in an Alternate Universe where the Library of Alexandria was not burned by Romans, but was preserved. Given that, we have, cross-time technology, Anti-Matter Ships and many more technologies that you have never heard of, and are strictly classified. But, since our country is always prepared for war we use the majority of our technology to build weapons, improve are warfare tactics, and give the ability to prepare for a war before it starts.

[Solar Communes]

What defines the technological advancement one chooses is personal preference and convenience. I don't remember anybody throwing flat IGNOREs back when I decided to RP two concurrent versions of Solar Communes. A pre-ESUS one shaped in almost exclusively Hard Sci-fi existing in the 2200s AD timeline and the current one existing in the 6th millennium. It's also a matter of coherence, and even though there is no way to compare both versions, superficially the Far FT version of Solar Communes only leaning from hard science are in minor unobtainium like metallic hydrogen, uber materials that allow c-frac gauss guns and practical brain transplants and brain links with remotely controlled bodies.

It is actually dependent on whether one's goal is to go farther for writing a story that one feels more assured to do without having to research basics of RL science every time something is done or just to make an uber-awesome 1337 KILLER FLEET!!!! If the former, definitively it will be accepted, but if it is the latter, someone bigger will always come, or then an IGNORE will be in place if it gets too far.

As for the Solarians technology...

We distinguish between two kinds of technology, which we will call small-scale technology and organization-dependent technology. Small-scale technology is technology that can be used by small-scale communities without outside assistance. Organization-dependent technology is technology that depends on large-scale social organization.

It is in its very essence small-scale, mostly thanks to the advances of nanotechnology(ironic I know, considering where that quote came from, although in the same way a totalitarian state that existed once in SC timeline used nanotech for absolute control over its oppressed ones bodies and minds). Anyone can do anything without joining a major order or organization, including even raising a space fleet.

Their main expertise is small-scale engineering and industrial technologies and Slower-than-light spacecraft technologies. They can tap everything a single star system has to offer with maximum efficiency and will manufacture better and faster unless they are being compared to another FT civilization in an universe where there is no Special Relativity, Causality, Newton laws of motion or Second Law of Thermodynamics. Likewise, they are one of the few FT NSes that build spacecrafts with c-frac slower-than-light interstellar travel in mind. There are always people with enough will to explore distantly, and as most people have access to the means to attempt achieving such feats, development is particularly fast.

Their spacecrafts are classifed as Assault Core(Battleship-equivalent, usually teardrop-shaped) and Prime Assault(Death Star-equivalent, usually shaped as toroids). Smaller spacecrafts are totally pointless and completely unused, unless missiles with their own weapon turrets and active protection systems can count as spacecrafts. Weaponry wise, coil guns and missiles make the gross of their usual firepower in space, exceptions being the ridiculously big Gamma Ray laser, the Ultraviolet laser beams(invisible but deadly) and a FT-ized THEL, which also uses ultraviolet laser beams. Their real focus however is in land warfare, as their past story involved a nearly three-thousand years war against a "1984 meets Brave New World" totalitarian police State to liberate mankind, and involved massive, sometimes centuries-spanning battles in disputed planets, slower-than-light travels that took decades.

According to many researches, a real Artificial Intelligence is impossible. The Solarians just have pseudo AIs that are extremely gifted at pretending they are intelligent, some which are directly integrated with their own minds.

The average Solarian tends to prefer simplicity rather than "super-powers", believing they are irrelevant as any Solarian can easily raise an army from the small organization technologies anyway. Every cell in their body is integrated with nanobots that are inside their cells, working together with the organic parts to the point they can duplicate together with cells, spread and all, including actually being passed from parents to children during the seldom cases of natural reproduction and natural pregnancy. Due to this fact, Solarians are sometimes classified as "semi-organic" as they are neither man nor machine, but simply people who have microscopic machines deeply integrated in their bodies in a symbiotic relationship.

That also means that they can be killed by very strong electromagnetic pulses due to their interdependence with such nano-machines. It's technically possible to return them to a purely organic state, but it requires specialized medical support and only the most ardent bio-conservatives perform such kind of nanite removal.

[The Great Lord Tiger]

Ostensibly, the Immortal Lands were a colony from one of many fractal Earths, with a departure currently plotted around 2300-2500 A.D. As such, I feel comfortable placing myself at about the same level technologically as humanity in Halo; indeed, I have mostly adapted Slipspace as a FTL method, and our primary weaponry are railguns like the MAC.

But getting into actual technology:

My nation has not yet begun to research true, sentient AI, only slaved navigation systems and the like. They never will, out of fear of subversion. ICly, I define it as a psychological leftover from the Earth days; OOCly, I simply don't want to do what many other people have done. Offensively, Imglot is quite a ways behind; the Ragnarok, the railgun mounted on all my ships, fires shells at only 1/8C. Most ships possess Despair-Type missiles, which have low-yield tac nuke warheads, mainly meant to saturate rather than destroy. My 4 biggest ships, 18 km beasts, carry a small number of the Banshee Nova Missile, with an approximate yield of a gigaton. All of my fleet combat ships possess point-defense energy weaponry, lasers on the smaller ships and xasers on the bigger ones; these are quite powerful, but my ships only have a few dozen of them instead of several hundred like most RPers. That's the main disad of all my forces; they're big and tough, but if they're outmaneuvered, they can be easily beaten.

This is especially why I wanted to join this RP; if I work in tandem with a friendly force which is mobile and/or can control a jumpy enemy's movements somewhat, I can put a few dozen C-frac Polonium shells downrange, accompanied by a few hundred small nuclear warheads and one or two big boomers. I forget who said it, but in one of the other threads, someone pointed out that a war of attrition would be bad for my forces -- it would: we don't have anything like fleet tenders, only extraneous equipment and supplies in our carriers. When the railguns run out of shells and the missile batteries run out of warheads, that's it; we're down to our energy weapons, which are all close-in.

[Qurumaleha]

Qurumaleha is at a rather funny techlevel. I enjoyed 1950s sci-fis far too much and so the Qurumalese have colonized their solar system, but computer for them refers to a person who does calculations by hand. Though some mechanical "difference engines" do exist.

[Sskiss]

Some very good entries so far. I see good play balance all round. Altergo, can you be a little more elaborate? Qurumaleha, I enjoy 50's sci-fi as well. The 1953 version of War of the Worlds is a favorite.

[Sskiss]

Bump.

[Auman]

My military technology is based on the fact that I think cannons and missiles are cool and that I want to use them in my fleets, armies and air forces. Solid objects slamming into one another is always fun.

[The Xzarian Union]

I'm a far FT space power.

[The Ben Boys]

The Ben Boys have the tech for...
Artificial body parts or bodies
Extreme artificial intelligence
Lasers fired from satellites of spacecraft and massive space capability, including research and livable habitats on the Moon and Mars
We also are experimenting with underground cities
Lethal railgun capability.

[Auman]

The Aumanii military primarily uses magnetically assisted projectiles with various different warheads which will be deployed depending on the plot at hand. The ground force is a varied organization which is built to suit the needs of the planets on which they are deployed. I'd say that miniaturization of existing technologies is the strength of the Aumanii.

Your average infantryman is equipped with the following:

An Au67 assault rifle, which is a fully automatic railgun. A protective vest which is intended to stop slower moving fragmentation, like exploding walls and grenade pellets. A forcefield projectile, which is meant to slow down or deflect more deadly weapons systems... It's rated to stop dead round from the Au67. Fancy computer systems for increased infantry lethality. They also have a modular load bearing system. A good pair of boots and a powered exo-skeleton that assists with heavy lifting and punching peoples heads into goo. There are of course power armored units that are intended for more specialized use in lethal environments.

They're decidedly low tech, but that's because Aumanii military doctrine demands a certain amount of flexibility when it comes from the infantry, as they're typically deployed in small scale conflicts that don't require a high degree of technological sophistication.

Aumanii warfare on the large scale is usually decided by a plethora of combat machines, from main battle tanks to super heavy armored vehicles, as well as more specialized mecha units which are more or less mobile nuclear platforms, like the MAS/SADA... Or Mobile Advanced Support/Superior Armament Defensive Artillery, which is a vehicle that is deployed in harsh terrain and is more of a command unit and long range cruise missile platform than a front line combat unit.

[Sskiss]

Sskiss ship based weaponry includes the following; plasma cannons (variable pulse and beam), molecular disruptors (variable pulse), electron and neutron based particle beams, mass drivers (magneto/gravidic) firing small pellets degenerate matter and magneto/gravidic based launch tubes (missiles and torpedos). Most exotic is a type of anti-matter (anti-proton) based stream weapon, but with a high energy demand. All weapons though few in number (comparatively speaking) tend to be spinal mounted and focused in clusters. Basically the ship is built around the weaponry. Their are no turrets, defense is provided by a reactionless magnetic monopole based gravity drive (very high agility), quality armour, large numbers of fighters and hordes of combat drones.

Ground based weaponry will include the following bases; plasma, disruptors, portable magneto/gravidic based warhead launchers, magneto/gravidic based projectile weaponry and disintergrators. Also, a type of magneto/gravidic assisted "tank" (it does not look like a tank) is used as a war machine and is equipped with smaller scout/attack drones.

Defensive capabilities (ground based) include electo/magnetic based shields and full (self healing) battle armour. The armour utilized by the larger Sskiss species tend to posssess built in weaponry.

[Hyperspatial Travel]

The Technocracy exists solely at the Tech of Plot, varying on how powerful my opponents are. The Technocracy uses power armour because it's the armour of good oppressors everywhere.

The Realm, my primary nation (which I will no doubt be going back to after this little shenanigan with Hermes is finished) is a mid-range FT nation. It's run primarily on matter-annihilation, operates largely as a groupmind/consensus in which every member of society participates, and maintains precisely four naval vessels, each of which is akin to a minor god of death before the main systems are turned on.

The general consensus of the Realm on ground combat is that if it can't be hit from orbit, it's not worth hitting. Noting of course that Realm ships can go into really low orbit. Occasionally they pop into planet cores to hide if they're so inclined. This of course has deleterious effects on, well, the planets. Mainly because there's a lot of heat to vent at times, and despite my general handwaving on heat (super-awesome superconducting loops!) battleplates are still largely capable of frying a planet just by sitting too close.