Strigoiverse Collections (Original stories from various genres); latest chapter: An Explorer's Guide To Technological Trends
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(I have been advised to stop beginning documents with “Greetings, fellow travellers.” Although pithy, this is - I have been informed - apparently a dogwhistle for certain detestable groups, meant to sound harmless to outsiders while informing other adherents to their appalling attempts at philosophy that a kindred mind is speaking.
Rest assured, I have seen people from too many walks of life being shit to waste time on something so stupid as hating one category for things they cannot control. Bigotry has always seemed, to be, an exercise for those without enough energy to be actual misanthropes. But I digress.)
This delver into mystery has heard that, lately, a certain acquaintance has been going around talking about his travels. The truth is that Walker is a tourist, not a real man of travels. Your unbiased writer is rather baffled that he has managed to make a life out of being a tourist and talking about it.
Indeed, your humble writer is more than mystified at the idea of tourism even being respectable or enjoyable. Tourism is, after all, a mere formalised mix of showing up like an unwanted guest and being a rubbernecking arsehole, and I do believe I have just answered my own question about why Walker likes it.
This gentle-tempered and amiable writer was in no way affected by Ryu’s exploits being chronicled here before those of a better pursuer of mystery were even mentioned.
It should be noted that the following covers broad tendencies using this writer’s homeworld as a point of reference; as such, it is best applied to (mentally, though physiology also plays a role) humanlike sapients. Even in such cases, it functions better as a set of guidelines than anything definitive.
Nevertheless, your writer considers the present exercise interesting. After all, applying this to nonstandard societies and expanding on it is half the fun.
Before proceeding, your writer would take some time to address certain queries that have been addressed to the loose coalition that can be said to include him. Most of them can be boiled down to “Why is inter-macrocosmic travel talked about as if routine enough to have an industry centred around it?” and “When exactly are you speaking from? We can’t tell, but since-” and here follows a reference to the first type of questions “-we do not believe you are close to our time.”
The second type is usually from time travellers.
In regards to the first: before the Wellspring’s Mover Awoke, contact between macrocosmoses was indeed relatively scarce (given how abundant they are in the Ur-City), and usually unintentional. That is, it was not planned by the Makers of said creations for their creatures to meet. Rather, it usually happened that something from one Creator’s Dream somehow escaped and found its way into another’s. I have been given to understand that Wellspring once found itself menaced by a monster able to mirror practically anything, which was destroyed by the Eye of Darkness, one of that macrocosm’s most destructive agents and the one (though unbeknownst to them, then, at least as temporal creatures count) tasked with removing anomalies from outside creation, as well as those threats within it that others, those actually meant to stop them, could not.
After Starlight Crowned With Ivory Awoke, however, things got a little more official, more streamlined. The “why” ties to the “when of the second category of questions…
As to that, one knows that time in the linear sense is an illusion, something plainly visible, for example, when one reaches the fourth layer of Wellspring’s dimensioned realities. At and past that point, events can only be described sequentially as a metaphor, for the sake of those challenged by timelessness. That is to say, if, from your perspective, the sort of things we talk about are scarce rather than common, it means they “haven’t happened yet.” But we know how greater existence really works.
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The earlier parts of the list cover technological progress prior to the moment your agreeable writer first left his homeworld, henceforth to be referred to as “modern times.” The later parts cover progress that is likely to occur after said modern day, as well as progress that has occurred in similar societies a given amount of time after stages similar to the Modern Epoch.
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The Path Of Progress
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The writer has decided to list each of the following epochs as a step on a metaphorical road to progress. For brevity’s sake, they shall be referred to as “Sn”, where “n” is the number of said step. It should be noted that there is significant overlap between Steps and that it is perfectly possible for a society to be more advanced in one field than others at the same Step, without actually being at the next. Those are counted as “Sn+x,” where x represents how many Steps ahead they are of their overall technological level in one or a few areas.
S1: The Old Stone Epoch. People begin working with natural materials and starting fires, with cooked food eventually replacing alternatives. The basic tools (aside from cruder carved sticks and rocks, the first simple machines are created: the ramp and - though also an inclined plane, it is small enough to be handheld - wedge, weaponised as the handaxe) and weapons (the club, spear, knife, axe, bow and arrow, bola, harpoon) are invented. Logs are strung together to make rafts, the first watercraft. Language develops, as do clothing, painting and early music, and the first funeral rites, in the form of burial and incineration (which serve as both sanitary measures and proto-religious rituals). Since people live as hunter-gatherers, knowledge of plants and animals begins developing, later giving rise to herbology and the domestication of wolves, which become dogs. Work with ceramics results in pottery
S2: The Middle Stone Epoch. Microliths proliferate, replacing the wooden points or blades of tools and weapons. Earlier inventions are refined. People begin weaving baskets.
S3: The New Stone Epoch. The common animals are domesticated. Pastoralism and agriculture develop. With the surplus of food and time, permanent settlements (consisting of manmade buildings, rather than people gathering around a cave or other natural shelter the invention of simple mortar in the form of mud and clay mixed with straws and roots), become possible, although social stratification is unlikely to appear until metallurgy and contemporary advancements are made; societies are more likely to be egalitarian and structured fairly simply. Dugout canoes and fishing nets are invented. People in cold areas might craft skis. Central heating may be used in some areas.
S4: The Copper Epoch. Metallurgy appears, with copper first being cold worked (hammered), then smelted. Gold also begins being used, though for ornamentation rather than practical purposes. Agriculture advances as the plough (at first an animal-drawn spike, later a wheeled contraption) is invented and irrigation systems proliferate, which results in a growing population. The lever, a refinement of the yam or digging stick, appears, first used in smaller machinery such as balance scales and looms. Later, it is used to aid labour, with early cranes appearing. The wheel is invented to help with pottery and later becomes part of another simple machine, the wheel and axle, which enables people to invent the wagons, enhancing trade and allowing travel over greater distances thanks to a greater capacity to transport supplies. Plumbing, using clay pipes, is invented, increasing sanitation (though cities will remain filthy cesspits, by the standards of most people, not to mention havens of disease, for millennia). The very first clock, the sundial, begins being used, as society is now regulated enough that timekeeping is necessary.
S5: The Bronze Epoch. Bronze is created using copper and tin; the first swords are forged and partial plate armour, for covering the chest and legs, appears. Ironworking begins, with meteoric metal first being used. It will only replace bronze when technology advances such that it is easier to extract and work iron than to make bronze, rather than because iron is better than bronze. Precursors to cement appear and early concrete might be used in some areas, such as the palaces of leaders. Candles, papyrus (used in scrolls) and (reed) pens appear. Clay and later wax tablets, with styluses used to write on them, are also invented
The pulley is invented and then, usually the last of the simple machines, the screw. The chariot appears and represents the apex of warfare. Sundials might be replaced by water clocks, in some cases. Medicine develops, as surgery and understanding of the organs’ purposes advance. The seed drill, at first a primitive wooden plow attached to a seed hopper and delivery tube, is invented. Most travel and trade centres around the first sailships, which are faster and safer than terrestrial vehicles. In addition, they outmatch the smaller boats powered entirely by rowing that preceded them, thanks to being wind-powered. For millennia, sails, sometimes aided by oars, will remain the most common form of watercraft propulsion.
Writing develops from earlier carvings and sketches, allowing people to record history beyond oral traditions. Since written numbers broaden the field of mathematics, the abacus is invented to aid in counting. As oral histories often become spottier and more fantastic over time, when they are even remembered, through writing, collective knowledge increases alongside societal continuity. People have a greater well of information to draw from, thus progress speeds up. There is more and more to do, so civilisations stratify, with people becoming specialists and the division of labour appearing.
Formal, organised religion is likely to form, with the aristocrat-warrior-priest-commoner model taking shape. Actual social status varies and will vary, but some traits are common: there is a small class of wealthy people whose life is split between statesmanship and warfare, although they are more likely to be idle and spend their time on leisure than the other classes, save perhaps the priesthood. If there is an official army, warrior-aristocrats are likely to be officers and the soldiery is professional, having no other focus to occupy their time. It should be noted that, like how the shamans of the earlier tribes were doctors, teachers, lawyers, priests, judges and sometimes more, it is possible for the aforementioned warrior-aristocrats to also be the clergy. Priest-kings, sometimes considered the earthly incarnations of society’s deities (or at least their representatives) are a common manifestation of this.
Lastly, there is a broad category of skilled or unskilled labourers. The majority of the population works for a living, and of those, most are farmers. Producing food is perhaps the first and greatest focus of society, so of course most people are involved in it. While farmers and builders might be ordered to perform other forms of manual labour than those characterising them, there are also specialists who rarely spend time on anything unrelated to their craft, such as merchants or the various metalsmiths.
S6: The Iron Epoch. The bloomery furnace is invented and iron begins being smelted; gradually, it replaces bronze. Rotary querns, a type of handmill, make the transformation of grains into flour easier, while screw presses are used in wine and olive oil production. Iron-bladed ploughs and weapons begin being used on a wide scale. Heating soft iron in coal beds infuses it with carbon, unintentionally creating the first steel blades. People start using coinage, which, while not fiat currency, enables standardisation, making transactions easier than in a barter economy, as people have to spend less time on determining the value of their possessions (the closest thing to this is the determination of whether coins are genuine or at least of good quality. Of course, coins are used because they last a long time, sometimes also because of aesthetics, and, as such, are fitting to represent the value assigned by society to the amount of metal used in them, rather than because coins are useful in of themselves).
S7: The Classical Epoch. Astronomy advances as the dioptra and the simple analog computer are invented; the former is also used for surveying and civil engineering. As parchment and, later, paper replace the more fragile papyrus, codices begin replacing scrolls and are themselves followed by proper books. Waterproof concrete variants are used in aqueducts, increasing people’s access to water. Keystone arches better distribute the weight of buildings, without needing mortar. The odometer allows people to record distances exactly by using wheel rotations and gear trains. Central heating becomes more common. Metallic seed drills start being used. Water wheels are used to grind grains, saw lumber and power various machinery; watermills appear. The diving bell allows brief periods of underwater exploration.
Steel begins replacing iron in some weapons. Iron armour, in the form of chainmail and partial plate, starts being used, and steel might feature in helmets and armour strips. Bloomeries make cast iron weapons and tools common in some regions. Later, blast furnaces, able to operate longer than bloomeries and fully melt iron (resulting in a greater yield of metal, since significant amounts were lost in older furnaces) into slag. Lamps of shaped terracotta begin replacing torches. Catapults and trebuchets are invented. Primitive flamethrowers appear as fixed weapons used in sieges and naval battles. Steam power is usually first used in such epochs. Though the turbines moved by steam are yet too weak to be more than a novelty, people’s understanding of thermodynamics grows as a result. Precursors to true rocketry appear, in the form of various contraptions propelled across poles and suspended wires by steam. However, most flying objects are kites or small hot air balloons such as sky lanterns. Burning glasses, precursors to lasers, might be used to incinerate ships in naval warfare.
S8: The Middle Epoch. Such ages can appear as times of stagnancy and even regression, with certain forms of knowledge being lost, larger societies collapsing, imperial bureaucracies being replaced by feudalism and professional armies being abandoned in favour of smaller levies. Yet such events are not always due to a lack of capability, but simply manifestations of civilisation’s current mores and needs. With more, smaller polities, there is no need for professional bureaucrats and career soldiers. Warfare might consist of fairly small bands of aristocrats’ retinues, backed by conscripted peasants, fighting for a relatively short time (by the standards of past empires, which sometimes waged total war between each other for centuries and often fielded tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of troops).
Not all civilisations shrink, however, and those that retain their capabilities are likely to be havens of invention. Mechanical clocks replace variants that use water. Eyeglasses are invented. Windmills appear. Agriculture is enhanced by the invention of the heavy plough and the horse collar, allowing said animal to pull greater weights without choking. Fiat currency, in the form of paper money, is first used. This allows people to carry the same value in the forms of burdens far lighter than the same sum in coinage.
Small iron and steel plates are used to reinforce chainmail over the joints, resulting in brigandines and coats of plates, precursors to full plate armour. Gunpowder, first used in fireworks, eventually gives rise to the first firearms and bombards (early mortars or cannons, often used in sieges; some consider the destruction of heavy stone walls by bombards to mark the end of this epoch). Wheeled and then portable flamethrowers are developed, alongside grenades that release burning compounds.
S9: The Epoch of Rebirth. Handwriting is augmented, sometimes replaced by the printing press, which speeds up the production of books by orders of magnitude. Not only does this enable widespread literacy (until now the province of elites and certain specialists), it enhances the preservation and transmission of knowledge, speeding up science and technology. Refinement of lenses enables the invention of the telescope and microscope, enhancing people’s understanding of the cosmos and the microscopic world. Inoculation counters certain diseases. Prostheses are now functional.
Advancements in blast furnaces and trip hammers make working sheets of metal easy enough for full plate armour to be practical, though firearms will make it pointless relatively soon. Pike and shot replaces muscle-powered weaponry as the most common form of warfare. Though still smoothbore, firearms develop, going from matchlocks to wheellocks, snaplocks, snapchances and finally flintlocks. Automatons, previously used in isolated spectacles, become more common. Entirely mechanical vehicles, such as tanks and ornithopters, are imagined, though it will be centuries before they are feasible. Indeed, even safe gliding is unlikely during such ages: the wearing of feathered wings is more likely to cause injuries than enable an imitation of flight.
S10: The Early Modern Epoch. Building on earlier advances in astronomy, people begin understanding the scale and mechanics of their solar system and start imagining those of their galaxy. Gravity and electricity also start being seriously studied. Coal starts replacing wood. The steam engine powers the mechanical printing press and various proto-industrial machines. Aviation advances to the point that hot air balloons can carry a few people short distances.
Chemical matchsticks advance, with the first self-igniting match appearing. Gas lighting starts replacing candles and oil lamps. Inoculation develops into true vaccination. Cities and armies grow as more food can be preserved and transported thanks to canning. Electrical experiments result in “lightning jar” capacitors and eventually the first real, “pile” batteries, with more efficient arrangements to follow. Devices capable of perceiving infrared and ultraviolet rays are developed. Mechanical submarines begin being used in exploration and warfare. The locomotive is invented. Prototypes to factories and metallic conveyor belts are created.
By this point, armour has mostly been foregone in warfare, as not only is a soldier unable to wear anything that can successfully counter a musket, the most common weapon, but armour would also weigh one down, making dodging more difficult (not that musket accuracy is too impressive). Artillery ranges increase, and small but powerful, horse-drawn artillery pieces and cannons are used. Muscle-powered weaponry, where still used, takes the form of attachments to firearms, such as the bayonets mounted on muskets.
S11: The Early Industrial Epoch. Factories featuring standardised, interchangeable parts and mechanized assembly lines appear, enhancing production. Rifled firearms replace smoothbores as materials science advances enough that rifling grooves no longer have to be made by hand; rifling itself is centuries older than its mass-adoption, though it only now becomes practical. Similarly, the older technology of breechloading replaces muzzle-loading. Early machineguns appear, allowing one soldier to kill many times their number of unprepared opponents. Ironclads are invented to counter the explosives and incendiaries so effective against wooden ships.
Freight and passenger trains are by now common enough for large railway networks to exist. Horse-drawn tramway networks span cities. Just as those improve transportation, the electric telegraph enhances communication and early photography improves record-keeping. Mechanical computers, using punch cards, are invented. Light, electricity and magnetism are understood as facets of the electromagnetic spectrum. Evolution, if not its exact mechanisms, is now being understood and studied.The first, non-rigid airship, the blimp, appears.
S12: The Middle Industrial Epoch. Electric lighting and trams replace gas lighting and the earlier, horse-drawn variants. Refrigerators, washing machines and vacuum cleaners improve home conditions. The vacuum tube is invented. Radiation starts being understood and studied. Communications and transport are improved by the invention of the telephone, radio and automobile; the first cars are electric. Photography becomes more common. Filming and sound recording appear. X-ray machines are possible, offering a greater understanding of biology and enhancing medicine, engineering and archeology. Steam ships start replacing sailing ships thanks to such advancements as the compound engine; eventually, fully metallic ships replace wooden ones. Rigid airships are invented, soon followed by airplanes. They soon enter military use alongside armoured trucks and early tanks. Artillery capable of firing beyond the horizon and poison gas are used in warfare. Synthetic plastics appear. Anaesthesia is invented.
S13: The Late Industrial Epoch. The first fully synthetic fibres, such as nylon (soon to replace silk in military parachutes and ropes), appear. Television begins replacing radio as the main form of information and entertainment. As oil replaces coil, cars with internal combustion engines become more popular than electric ones. The first rockets able to leave the atmosphere are invented. The war machines of the previous epoch become larger, heavier, faster and more powerful. Radios become portable. Radar is used for surveillance and scouting. The electric computer appears. Jet planes begin replacing their prop-driven predecessors. Aircraft carriers become the most dangerous thing on the sea, supplanting the battleship. Advances in atomic science enable the creation of the fission reactor and, later, the fission nuke, to be dropped from airplanes.
S14: The Atomic Epoch. Also known as the Nuclear, Jet or Space Epoch. Early renewable energy networks are created. Colour television replaces the older, monochrome variants. Jet propulsion is now the main paradigm of flight, with airliners becoming accessible to most people, rather than flying at all being a luxury reserved for the rich. Able to cross continents or oceans in hours and circle a planet in less than a day, these planes make global transportation and relations more common. Bullet trains and later magnetic levitation trains speed up large-scale transportation. Fission reactors begin being used for both civilian and military energy generation, often powering the heaviest vehicles in the latter case. DNA or equivalent structures are discovered. Organ transplants become possible, as does the cloning of simple organisms and, eventually, macroscopic animals.
The transistor replaces the vacuum tube, making computers smaller but faster and more powerful; the early fears about powering and cooling city-spanning contraptions (which, using vacuum tubes, would’ve been needed for grand calculations) are diminished. Eventually, they become small enough to leave the halls of government and business, appearing in homes. Mobile telephones and a global, digital information network make communications across the planet instantaneous. Remote visual conferencing becomes possible. Early robots might be used in factories with organic supervision, prompting talks of automation. Simple drones start being used for observation and warfare. Lidar augments radar. Infrared cameras and goggles using similar technologies enter civilian and military use.
Flak makes bullet-resistant body armour practical. Napalm might be used in carpet-bombing. Fusion reactors and thermonuclear bombs (fusion nukes) are invented, though the former will not be practical for decades. Nuclear missiles that can quickly cross continents and oceans make global MAD a serious possibility. Submarines able to carry such missiles become important parts of powerful polities’ defence network; they are nuclear-powered and able to run for years. Orbital and cislunar aircraft, first automated, then manned, are sent to space. Interplanetary ones remain automated for decades. Nuclear-powered probes able to fly across their solar system of origin are launched. Satellites enhance communications and enable global positioning systems, removing the need for physical maps.
S15: The Modern Epoch. This is the time during which your generous writer left his space and time behind, learning to see continua from all sides. Epochs equivalent to it usually start shortly after Atomic ones and last several decades. On my world, this is known as the Information Epoch or Digital Epoch. Rather than the flashy paradigm shifts of previous ages, this Epoch mostly features refinement and miniaturisation, though it is not without its visible milestones (not that the subtler ones are less important. On a sidenote, your gentle-tempered writer would like to reveal that during this Epoch, there was a baffling focus on inane warfare and space missions for clout, instead of combatting global warming and climate, countering hunger, spreading education, properly distributing resources…the shift towards renewables was seemingly incidental rather than planned by central governments. Those were even, in some cases, investing in the old “dark industries” of coal and oil rather than the cleaner, more efficient “green industries” of the future.)
Renewables begin replacing fossil fuels in certain areas, with electric land vehicles replacing their ICE counterparts and home electricity and heating often being solar-powered. However, battery energy density is still too small for large electric aircraft or ships to work. Likewise, extracting hydrogen from water to power airplanes is not yet worth the resources spent on said process, and nuclear-powered planes are not feasible either due to how heavy isolating the engine would make them. Even if such aircraft could work, plane crashes would be even more dangerous than they already are.
Drones begin playing a significant role in warfare, as well as civilian fields like the delivery of goods. Medical nanomachines enable doctors to work inside the patient without incisions needed and teleoperated robots let them perform surgery from a distance. Growing organs in animals, then transplanting them into people, is experimented with. Attempts are made to lessen cancer, many successful, though curing the variety of ailments under that name is yet impossible. Global digital networks develop further and can now connect with many devices that are not computers as such: network-linked mobile phones and even furniture are common to the point that not having one leaves people struggling to properly navigate society.
Automation of factories increases, with robots needing fewer supervisors; overseeing them is sometimes done remotely. Automated checkouts and other means capable of replacing clerks are introduced. In any sane society, leaders would look at the increased number of unemployed people and offer an universal basic income, if not out of common sense (actually a misnomer, apparently), then to prevent chaos and revolts by maintaining social cohesion. The civilisation your gracious writer grew in was far more concerned with concentrating everything in the hands of perhaps a millionth of the population, since everyone knows nothing makes society work better than piling all resources and power at the top.
Space travel is now easy enough that wealthy private citizens can afford to fund daily rocket launches. Manned interplanetary missions are contemplated. Automated vehicles start operating in specific areas. “Speaking robots”, precursors to genuine artificial narrow intelligences, proliferate. Prosthetics and virtual reality immersion devices improve, beginning to somewhat make up for missing limbs and senses.
S16: The Orbital Epoch. Also known as the Fusion Epoch. In this age and its equivalents, the ills of past Epochs are usually cleansed or reversed as much as possible and the species becomes physically, mentally and socially healthier, as well as more technologically capable. They usually start a handful of years after the previous and last until the end of their century. This is the first of the ages your humble writer finds halfway tolerable. The fact that being introverted has been normalised and that you leaving boring conversations or telling people you don’t care about their horseshit is now accepted has something to do with it.
Fossil fuels are no longer used. Instead, everything that was powered by them either uses renewables now or runs on nuclear fusion. Fission remains as a backup, and ways to transform waste (irradiated walls in the case of fusion and the more massive byproducts of fission) into fuel eventually. More energy is produced than in the times of fossil fuels, and cleaner energy at that. There is no developed region of the planet without abundant water or food, thanks to industrialised desalination and towering vertical farms, often featuring hydroponics, aeroponics and other methods more efficient than traditional agriculture. Removing hydrogen from water and making it into hydrogen cells to power aircraft and vehicles on a similar scale, such as trains, is now common. Fusion engines are used wherever possible. The Atomic Epoch dream of the nuclear-powered flying car is now possible, though the heavily-armoured vehicles kept afloat by fusion are mostly novelties, with their pilots needing to be heavily trained before they are trusted with them. Lasers and other directed energy weapons, once fixed, heavy devices, can now be miniaturised enough to be built into vehicles.
Fully-developed nanotech enables constant monitoring and self-healing of structures and people’s bodies. A growing understanding of biology allows for severed limbs to be reattached or for removed organs to be reintroduced to the body without losing efficiency or causing problems. Limbs and organs can now also be grown artificially, then attached, working as efficiently as if present from birth. Full immersion VR is possible, allowing those bereft of certain senses to experience the world without the implantation of sensory organs or equivalent devices. Almost all illnesses, including most cancers, are cured, and the most pernicious of the latter are now survivable for one’s lifetime, which is now half again, if not twice as long as in previous epochs. The most long-lived people might reach a couple centuries thanks to good genetics and medicine.
Prosthetics and artificial organs are now just as capable as their natural counterparts and offer the same sensory range. Thanks to inbuilt nanomachinery, they are equally resilient. Genetic engineering and editing become more common: aside from the “designer babies” phenomenon, editing a foetus to ensure no illnesses before, during or after birth is possible. Likewise, all but the worst ailments can be cured at any moment of one’s life, and those that can’t are no longer lethal. Revival or reconstruction of (relatively) recently extinct species is possible. Your writer can confirm that the dodo was indeed too harmless to have survived its first contact with hostile people, though it is endearing enough to be kept around. Note that there are billions of people I’d never say that about.
Smart clothing, able to react to the environment and restructure itself into a practical outfit, means people mostly have a few changes of clothes and the raw matter needed to “darn” damaged ones, which is done by them rather than a person. Military applications of this technology exist, with body armour able to go from knife-proof to bullet-resistant to configured against chemicals, radiation and other such hazards. Counterparts to this exist for smaller or simpler vehicles. Most of those are now automated, likewise for physical labour and most mental drudgery, thanks to ANIs, themselves an outgrowth of science’s continuing understanding of the brain. Furniture and devices capable of detecting brainwaves and automatically reconfiguring or adjusting themselves are affordable. Quantum computing advances enough to mostly make unpredictable weather and similarly chaotic matters a thing of the past.
Since most workers and soldiers are now mechanical, with living experts or elite operators also often functioning as supervisors, it is all but guaranteed for the government to pay for everyone’s basic needs. In order to keep them motivated to participate in society and maintain stability until a better civilisational paradigm is found, however, luxuries may remain something one needs to buy. However, a workday is now only a fraction as long as it used to be, and the tasks one needs to perform for money are less tiring. Commutes are faster and rarer, while remote work is the standard for most jobs. Physical spaces are maintained for those who prefer to separate work and home or directly interact with others at the former.
Graphene can now be produced and worked on an industrial scale, resulting in electronics just as if not more powerful than their predecessors but with a fraction of the energy use. Room temperature superconductors enter use. Larger, lighter and more durable (thanks to a combination of carbon nanotubes and various metals and ceramics) vehicles and structures might also be constructed from it or its spinoffs. The fastest trains are now on par with the previous Epoch’s airliners, while the passenger and cargo planes of this age can now go supersonic while remaining large and comfortable. Military aircraft and certain experimental civilian projects are hypersonic but comparatively cramped. Hyperloop networks might exist in certain regions, faster than trains but slower than aircraft. For those truly in a hurry, commercial space travel (rockets, of course, being fusion-powered) is now available. Thanks to this and the aforementioned advances, practically every polity can maintain a string of orbital habitats. Permanent mining operations are set up on the moon and nearby planets.
S17: The Planetary Epoch. People fully control and utilise their planet’s natural energies, with the species’ energy capacity and use growing by several orders of magnitude. In addition, tens of thousands of nuclear fusion plants dot the globe, outputting many million times more energy than could be obtained from their equal number in fossil fuel plants. Extensive renewable energy networks (such as the satellite swarms that capture all of the solar energy which isn’t used by on-world installations) and fission and cold fusion plants act as backup for mainstream, “hot” fusion. Microfusion cells (usually cold, though hot fusion cells also exist) also power now-portable DEWs, capable powered armour and smaller vehicles or robots of comparable scale.
Weather everywhere on the planet is set by people and natural disasters are a memory. Mountains can be broken down for materials and buildings as large as them can be raised. This often manifests in the form of arcologies, each housing many millions, surrounded by pristine wilderness. Every perceived wasteland that can be greened, utilised or settled without overly disrupting nature is. Thanks to abundant energy, producing larger amounts of antimatter (enough to power large, “clean” bombs) in particle accelerators, as well as other subatomic particles, is possible, enriching people’s understanding of physics.
This is when antigravity tech is invented in your affable writer’s timeline. I am given to understand that not all realities feature the physics for this. Nevertheless, graviton-repelling technology now enters use (where possible), enabling the construction of veritable cities in orbit, deeper space and on other celestial bodies. Adjustable gravity, in fact, makes building in almost any environment possible. Skyhooks, orbital launch loops, space elevators and other such megastructures are created. Similar though horizontal endeavours take the form of transoceanic or continent-spanning tunnels, highways and monorail or hyperloop networks (by now, both cars and trains are mostly maglev models, with some fusion-powered ones that truly fly). Every celestial body and noteworthy region of the species’ system is explored and, where there are valuable resources, exploited: for example, gas giants might be mined for the helium-3 used in aneutronic fusion. Swarms of constructs meant to harvest energy directly from the parent star of the species’ world are launched and, over centuries, end up draining a significant fraction of said star’s output for people’s use. There is enough energy to provide for the needs of tens of trillions, just counting natural sources (quadrillions, counting artificial ones as well), though the actual population might be lower, depending on mores.
The conversion of small amounts of matter into energy, followed by the conversion of that into another form of matter (colloquially named transmutation) is possible, though costly and mostly used for experiments and the study of the process itself. Rearrangement of larger amounts of matter into relatively similar configurations is easier and more common. Power can be broadcast at such density as to energise mst everyday technology, at least in more developed areas. Parts of the globe that are thinner in terms of infrastructure might receive enough broadcast energy to not collapse during emergencies.
A full understanding of the body and mind allows for the traits of any one person to be edited into anyone else; similar procedures exist for plants, animals and fungi within their species and between those that are similar enough. All illnesses are cured and the cloning of fully functional people capable of living a full lifespan (which surpasses two centuries without external action but can be extended indefinitely) is now possible. Any extinct species can be resurrected or recreated.
Sapient AGIs, or ones just as capable as people but without self-awareness, enable a post-work society without genuine, dangerous scarcity. People might even become AGIs, so to speak, with their minds being uploaded to mechanical bodies or virtual substrates; likewise, synthetic minds can be given organic forms without a loss of capability. Brains, often grown artificially, are no longer hampered by lacking bodies. Instead, without the need to split attention between locomotion, sensory data processing, reflexes and the like, they can be used purely for computing. Like this, they match the supercomputers of past ages in most regards while using a fraction of the energy those needed, although depending on the synth-brain’s model, certain mods might be needed for it to be as fast as an electronic computer.
S18: The Stellar Epoch. People harness the entire output of their system’s star. Every celestial body that can be settled is, and might become an ecumenopolis; in any case, the totality of their energies are also under people’s control. Gas giants might be converted into “brains” consisting wholly of computronium. Asteroid belts, comet clouds and the like are broken down for space habitat or stellar swarm materials, as are some planets. By now, mountain-sized starships capable of relativistic flight are possible, thus interstellar expeditions might be launched.
The abundance of energy makes matter-energy conversion and the reverse easy, further shrinking what scarcity includes. After all, there is practically nothing energy can’t be turned into, at least in terms of crude resources, though research into forming complex objects from energy is ongoing. Cold fusion and even antimatter plants might now be built, although the engine-star is the main source of the energy people use, which is enough to cover the needs of many sextillions. Antimatter bombs, missiles or derivatives more powerful than any past weapon can be built and might be used in near-lightspeed space battles. Broadcast power is mostly sent from the star to the planets, though each now has powerful enough industries to provide enough power to any region of itself, or to neighbouring planets.
Additions to the body and mind are now possible: people might be given animal-like abilities, and vice versa, without the risk of rejection or mental divergence that existed in past centuries. Due to this, animals can now be uplifted to sapience and given bodies like a person’s, which they can function in as if born with them. Or, people might be given animal bodies without their mental capacities deteriorating.
Swaps to mechanical or virtual forms and back are possible for all beings. They might also be given entirely artificial abilities without the need of the mechanical implants used in past times. Rather, the likes of retractable blades and armour, energy absorption and projection and more can simply be built into bodies. Artificial super intelligences and other mental superbeings can administrate and even directly control the infrastructure of entire settlements, regions and possibly even moons or planets. The largest of them use reengineered gas giants as their bodies, and eventually, the installations around the planet star might be converted not just into one habitat, but into the multi-layered chassis of an even greater mental superbeing. In times of war, the energies gathered by the installations might be focused into a “stellaser” capable of razing planets in moments.
It should be noted that interstellar societies might have access to the same amounts of energy and overall technological advancement as the type described above, even if they use different paradigms.
S19: The Interstellar Epoch. Multiple star systems, up to the majority of the species’ home galaxy, are “urbanised” to the degree the system they are native to has already been. Star clusters and whole galactic arms might be settled. Available energy increases several times, then by orders of magnitude as more stars are harvested, turned into star-brains or stellasers as the need might be. Both types of construction often double as habitats, though in the case of the latter, esoteric modifications may be needed to survive living there in active moments.
Nebulae and exotic celestial bodies are broken down or converted into infrastructure. Neutron stars, being stellar masses in city-sized packages, are extremely useful to seekers of hyperdense matter to use as fuel or the basis of computronium. Pulsars and magnetars are turned into batteries or ripped apart to be repurposed. Black holes become cosmic waterwheels, as their accretion disks are natural matter-energy conversion engines and the black holes themselves are massive and spinning, yet small and comparatively easy to surround with infrastructure. The energy of white holes and fractions of what quasars radiate might be gathered.
Weapons capable of quickly mangling celestial bodies are extremely likely, with superweapon projects capable of fully destroying them also being possible. Miniaturisation should be sturdy enough for people to carry firearms powered by matter/antimatter reactions fuelled by significant amounts of mass. Larger equipment, as well as constructs and vehicles up to starships, likely run on the same if (relatively) small enough. The largest megastructures and ships might be powered directly by celestial bodies.
Planet-scale and larger megastructures might be built, for aesthetic or cultural reasons rather than necessity. These can range from planet-spanning rings to ones that cover a significant portion of their star systems, as well as artificial planets, stars and the like. Exotic synthetics such as stable neutronium or magnetic monopole matter might need to be produced in order to keep larger constructs from collapsing, but thanks to abundant energy and people’s ability to convert it to matter, this is feasible.
The calculations and sciences of such civilisations are likely spearheaded by stellar-scale brains, which likely use most or all of the energy produced by the suns they are built around or into so they can run constantly. There is enough energy to provide for at least septillions of standard humanoids, or for orders of magnitude more in the cases of the larger civilisations.
Creating enough exotic matter to cheat the lightspeed limit is likely an important aim in realities without the physics for easy FTL movement. Generating wormholes, warping space into bubbles around ships, building “reactionless” drives that can push off the aforementioned altered space for something like acceleration or creating “inertialess” drives that can go faster with no limit except energy are all experimented with, as are tachyon devices, for both FTL movement through space and for time travel. If achieved at this Step, such technologies are likely to be rare and prized in realities with stricter physics. For example, if a wormhole is created, it is likely through the conversion into energy of a large celestial body’s mass, and only opened to enable a critical rescue, scientific, diplomatic or military mission. Comms are easier, since there is less to transmit, meaning bursts of data can be sent and a fairly cohesive society maintained.
S20: The Galactic Epoch. The species settles the entirety of their home galaxy, harvesting or industrialising every celestial body, nebula and miscellaneous matter in interstellar space. The galaxy’s supermassive black hole and surrounding quasar are turned into reactors. Forcing stars to explode or crushing them into black holes for industrial purposes or through the use of weapons is not difficult.
By now, exotic matter science is developed enough for wormhole networks or ubiquitous space-folding drives to enable quick and easy galactic travel; galactic comms are also commonplace. Depending on the universe’s physics, local inversion or other alterations of natural laws are possible and likely performed. Using spacetime as a substrate for data uploads or a construction material equivalent is not unheard of.
S21: The Intergalactic Epoch. Ranging from the first settling of a galaxy’s satellites to civilisations that span galaxy filaments and larger parts of their universe, this growth in scale often coincides with a more profound understanding of physics. The laws of nature can be rewritten across celestial bodies or even significant portions of an intergalactic civilisation’s territory. Instantaneous communications and transportation connect most of a cosmos.
S22: The Universal Epoch. The species fully understands its cosmos’ physics and is able to both rewrite them and export them to other realities, overlaying or fully changing local laws of reality. Multiversal travel and communication are even easier than this. The universe’s physics can be swapped with alternative models at will. Control of quantum fluctuations enables generation of particles, virtual and otherwise, from what seems like empty space. Extreme conditions, such as ones equivalent to the Big Bang’s and other universal events, can be recreated, though this might only be done locally to avoid disrupting civilisation as a whole (it should be noted that at this level of development, several galaxy superclusters and the area between and around them might count as “local”). This understanding of vacuum energy allows the civilisation to fully extract the amount of energy predicted by earlier cosmological constant researchers, as well as truly comprehend why it was so much lower than projected when the concept was discovered.
In the form of dark energy, this can be used to expand or contract the universe, whilst its other incarnations might be used to locally delay heat death or reverse entropy. The fundamental interactions are now understood as parts - perhaps colloquially known as “frequencies” or “phases” (like how matter has phases) - of one, overarching superforce. As such, they can be converted into each other like matter might be turned into energy and back. Thus, electromagnetism can become gravity and vice versa, or (depending on how the civilisation counts them) the strong nuclear force can become the electroweak force, that composite of electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force. These are, of course, simplifications. It is perfectly possible for one interaction to be split into several, for several to be combined into one, or for all to be fused into the aforementioned universal superforce.
S23: The Finite Multiversal Epoch. Travel between realities becomes easy and practical enough that the civilisation might very well reach into other universes to use their Big Bangs, or other, similarly powerful events, for energy. This is usually done by using sensors or equivalents to find nascent universes, though, for polities with industrialised time travel, going to the beginning of older ones is also feasible. Through the use of multiple realities’ vacuum energy, entropy can be reversed across the entirety of any universe the society spans and heat death can be delayed indefinitely. Realities can be moved or physically combined, while their physics can also be fused to result in new systems of natural laws. Freezing an universe in time or slowing down, speeding up and reversing its timestream, or making it diverge into parallel timelines, is also possible at this point, as is creating new universes from whole cloth and establishing their physics. The span of the civilisation’s territory varies, but the polities that achieve the aforementioned level of achievements often have outposts in an universe foreign to their, while even middlingly large ones might very well run more realities than theirs has particles.
S24: The Infinite Multiversal Epoch: Reaching this point usually requires extensive time control or similarly esoteric means to perform infinite actions over a finite period. As such, civilisations at this Step tend to be literally infinitely more capable than ones at the previous, with endlessly greater levels of resources and expertise. Creating, altering and destroying continua equivalent to the span of their territory is possible.
S25: The Higher-Dimensioned Epoch. Your writer admits that this and the following Steps were thought of by him following observation of the Unmoved Mover’s Wellspring and the City of Creators.
As it is known, in layered macrocosms, beings from, usually, the fifth layer of dimensioned reality and up see creatures from lower layers as unreal and are as impervious to them as three-dimensional people are to drawings and imaginary characters. Likewise, they are capable of destroying, altering and recreating such creatures, and their entire layer with all the realities therein, with a thought. In the Mover’s Wellspring, there is an infinity of such layers, surrounded by an “aether” of similar complexity but, effectively, endlessly greater scale, as it appears boundless to creatures whose being is equal to the whole of the aforementioned dimensioned multiverse.
Civilisations that attain this level of advancement often forego obvious technology, instead being one with their infrastructure and capable of effecting reality warping with a thought. More rarely, societies from as low as the third layer might devise technology capable of affecting the whole multiverse, their intelligence outpacing the rest of their development.
S26: The Dimensionless Epoch: Beyond dimensioned reality, there is a Land of Dreams, where spacetime and their aspects and counterparts are as insubstantial as visions during a trance and just as easy to disperse; that is, the inhabitants of this more-than-a-place, the Dreamlanders, transcend the multiverse and aether like their upper layers and arrangements transcend the ones below them.
Beyond that, there lies a series of Voids and Gates whose direct exploration might very well blast the mind of your writer. However, he is aware of their structure, so to speak, thanks to more resilient sources. First, there is a series of Voids that would appear the colour of dusk to mortals. They are infinite in number and each transcends the previous in the manner described above. After them, there is a series of darker Voids, which would have to be numbered not just by going from one to infinity, but by counting, also, the endless numbers between one and two, two and three and so on. There are infinities and infinities, and an Ebony Void for each. The pattern of transcending the previous holds.
Beyond and around them is an Outer Void where the Ideas that are the foundations and shadow-casting stars of everything below them reside. There is even an Idea of Voids. Some are greater than others, some not. There is an Idea of Endings that could rip most of its fellows apart more easily than a great ape dismembering a rodent. It presides over and is one with an infinitely-layered arsenal of forbidding and forbidden weapons, the first layer of which consists of endless creatures able to erase most Ideas beyond ever having been. Each of the following is countless times more dangerous.
Along with the previously mentioned Eye of Darkness and other destroyers, the Idea of Endings represents a minuscule but otherwise notable fraction of the Unnamed Darkness that governs the nothingness and cessation of most of Wellspring. It has a misty peer of equal power and opposite purpose.
They are, in turn, incorporated into a Supreme Archetype, something like the Mover’s lucidly dreaming self, which makes them look like humans in terms of complexity and might.
S27: The Sleeping Maker Epoch. Stepping into the Ur-City, we see the Creators whose potential is unrealised, but who nevertheless make everything mentioned previously look like a dream.
S28: The Sleepwalking Maker Epoch. Here, we see the Host and Warden of the Makers’ Metropolis, who have achieved their stations out of need and are individually capable of flattening the endless ranks of their sleeping fellow Creators. Various Wrongly Woken Makers, who would be called mutants of the species were they biological beings, can attain similar or greater degrees of might, perhaps to the point of being unstoppable by the City of Creators’ two arbiters.
S29: The Awakened Maker Epoch. The Unmoved Mover is “currently” the only Creator to achieve and begin using its ilk’s true potential. No longer hampered by its creations’ ending without direct attention given, it is peers with the Lovelorn and the frankly nightmarish creature it deemed regent of its macrocosm.
S30-S???: The Ascending, Transcending, Fractionally Quintessential and Quintessential Epochs. The Mover’s treatise on Ascension and Transcendence already covers the actions necessary for the magna-macrocosm to develop to this previously-unrealised extent. Your writer admits that he does not quite understand the difference between Transcending beings and the Quintessence’s greater facets; that is, whether the latter should be included in the same category as the former or if they should stand on their own. Regardless, all are equally infinitesimal before the Quintessence’s (even metaphorically) describable mask, which is nothing compared to the thing in of itself. As far as I know, it is the utmost development of everything…
* * *
Your writer can only hope that this will be found entertaining if not useful. As an attempt at an universal guide to technological development, it is dubious at best. Even within the category of humanlike creatures, they often diverge from these trends in baffling ways. I once saw a galaxy where, thanks to that universe’s physics, portal-based interstellar travel was extremely easy, leading to a bunch of coal-burners settling countless planets before they even bothered to try researching nuclear energy. I have walked villages where medicine men whose understanding of science is scarcely out of the Stone Epochs can move themselves and their surroundings through time or create matter from nothing with little more than a gesture and chant. I have seen stranger things besides, strange enough to make the previously mentioned look ordinary.
Nevertheless, I have also been to countless places where the tendencies I listed held true, and is it not a grand joy to spread knowledge for knowledge’s sake? I was certainly pleased to do it.