Aspects of Civilizations
The Means To Power
At different times (and sometimes simultaneously) the 3 means
to power have been used, lost, found and discarded.
The Means to Power
are Magic, Technology and Psionics.
The use of Magic requires specific knowledge of spells that can not be
discovered by the users themselves. When the knowledge is lost, magic
disappears until the Secrets are again introduced.
The use of Technology requires a huge industrial infrastructure that
can only be supported by rapid use of the worlds resources and is
vulnerable to any number of natural disasters and war.
The use of Psionics is only possible through a genetic modification
combined with extensive and specialized training.
This is the Deus Ex Machina for the appearance and disappearance of
these means to personal
power at different times.
Allignment
Although this is most often applied to individuals, it is often used to
describe societies and political systems. Certainly the Naze government
could be called "Evil" and we could call the Athens government could be
called "Good". The normal classification of Good-Neutral-Evil will be
used to describe cities, nations or other groups of people.
There is one change being made to the Allignment system as it is
applied to groups of people. Instead of using the Law-Neutral-Chaos
classification, I will be using Law-Justice-Chaos. Law and Chaos are
used as you would think. The "Justice" classification refer to a
society that values the individuals rights and well being above dogma,
religion and personal opinion. Most despots rule a chaotic society
where royal fiat trumps any other factor in law making. One of the keys
to understanding this classification is to consider how the social
system deals with unpopular opinions. A chaotic society will deal
lightly with them as long as they do no damage to the group. A neutral
society will usually isolate them (sometimes in informal barios) and
ostrisize the disenters. Lawful societies will brand them criminals and
activly suppress their views perhaps even imprisoning or killing the
disruptive elements.
Time and the Means to Power
Consider that "Magic" has been a huge part of earth society until very
reciently and even now has adherents. The Voodoo cult is an example of
magic use in the current day. It is now considered to be the way
primitive societies attempt gain some measure of control over events.
OK, so magic doesn't work on Earth (we think!). It is still a part of
the legend and life of everyone on the planet.
Given this, you can see a progression from the primitive nature of
magic to the societal embrace of technology as a way to influence ones
enviornment. In a fantasy world it is not difficult to tack on the
introduction of psionic powers to this progression with the reliance on
technology waining as the power of the mind grows. This is the sort of
progression found in Traveller and other d20 games.
On Berth, this time line becomes very non-linear. The 3 Means to Power
appear and disappear at various times in it's long history. To
describe this more fully, there must be a quantification and
description of them.
The typical way of describing the passage of time's effect on the game
is using Tech levels.
0 is Stone
Age, most D&D campaigns take place in Progress Level 3 (Middle
Ages) we're at PL 5 (Information Age), 6 is Fusion Age, 7 Gravity Age,
8
is Energy Age, and 9 is "And Higher". Here
is a complete description of these classifications. This system is
inadequite for anything but technology.