snowythesanefangirl said: You should totes explain the deal with computers. Clearly only privileged have them. Is it just ‘cause they’re too expensive for other people, or is there some kind of limitation? Are they necessary for Roxy’s school or is it totally a luxury?
Ohhhhhhhh yes this is something that I've been vaguely headcanoning about for a while. Ready for some halfway-incoherent-because-I'm-tired-as-crap Magestuck meta? Because here it comes!
Right then. Technology in Magestuck is something that is heavily based in culture. The Empress has been in power a long, long time and as a result of her influence, most records of where she came from, how she ascended to the throne, etc, are very sparse at best and nonexistent at worst. What does this mean?
It means that the culture clash that occurred when she arrived with her Troll culture and values and identity and enforced that on people--those nearest her, which would become the Upper Districts--is largely unrecorded. People think that it has always been this way, but this is untrue.
In the days before the arrival of the Batterwitch, hundreds if not thousands of years ago, Skaia was a very different society, based on magic. Tools were enchanted, talents in the Aspects were nurtured and commonplace, and most needs were met using the science of magic and its applications. When the Batterwitch arrived, she took all this for herself and combined it with her already technologically-advanced, magically lacking societal construction. creating the lavish, mysterious culture of the Upper Districts and leaving the lower ones lacking.
When she began collecting mages, the common practice of magic became dangerous, and dried up very quickly. As a result, the Lower Districts, which retain a culture much closer to that of Old Skaia than the Upper ones, lack amenities that the Upper Districts take for granted, because in the past the City was much smaller and only included the Upper Districts. Its eventual expansion into the lowlands around the hills the palace was built on included the assimilation of several small villages in the surrounding area.
So it's a result of the geography and the suppression of the culture of Old Skaia in favor of the bright and gaudy newer, highblood-based Upper District lifestyle. Over the generations, it became commonplace to have the District system based upon geography, affluence, and inheritance.
