So I was reading a blog post criticizing the model of technological development in Europa Universalis III (this one) and I had the thought that the scifi trope where Earthlings start off technologically behind the aliens but rapidly catch them up and overtake them (famously seen in Stargate: SG-1, Halo 4, Mass Effect, and probably originated in Arthur C. Clarke’s 1946 short story “Rescue Party”) is strongly analogous to the same outdated model of how European states were able to win so dramatically against bigger and older states in the rest of the world, from the Aztec Empire to India and China.
The lie being that Europeans valued liberty and freedom of thought more than the rest of the world and so through that won purely through having a better society, rather than a combination of brutal aggressiveness and luck.
