Tech levels and the end of the universe

[Morrus]

So one weird (unintended) result of the current tech advancement scale in N.E.W. is that a species is never likely to die out due to the death of its own sun, collision of galaxies, or even the end of the universe, because such events are billions of years further into the future than any civilization's ability to deal with them are. I'm not 100% sold on that scale yet - still tweaking - but at 100th+ century we have the ability to survive, prevent, or cause the end of the universe; manipulation of dark energy (like Doctor Who scale stuff - Davros's "reality bomb", the Doctor "rebooting the universe"). At 51st century equivalent we have complete control over dark matter on a galactic scale, and the ability to restructure or move entire galaxies.

So even if I expanded those number vastly, we're still billions of years short of any problem occurring before a civilization can handle it. The sun will begin to die in 5 billion years - that's a long way away. The Andromeda/Milky Way collision is 4 billion years away. Various end of the universe theories are many, many billions of years away.

Of course' all of this assumes a soft-sci-fi/science fantasy setting. If your setting is harder sci-fi there's probably no getting around the end of the universe!

This needs more thought. A lot more thought!

(The thing below is a draft; I tweak it all the time, so by the time you see this it will probably have changed....)

 

[dream66_]

I think it was Carl Sagan that refereed to a galactic species being effectively immortal. Evolution will probably change them into something else in a much smaller time frame than any galactic event could destroy them.

Ecological disaster, comet collision and death of a star are defeated by simply possessing more than one planet.

Even the collision of Andromeda with the Milky Way is unlikely to destroy even a society like ours, simply change the constellations up a bit. The space between stars in a Galaxy are so vast that odds of a direct collision are extremely low, and anyone society that existed on a handful of stars could survive even that.

I'm not sure what the solution for heat death is, but at 14 trillion (with a T) years away, it's pretty useless to talk about, we won't even be anything resembling human by then.

 

[Morrus]

I'm not sure what the solution for heat death is, but at 14 trillion (with a T) years away, it's pretty useless to talk about, we won't even be anything resembling human by then.

Well, I need to if I'm writing an RPG which encompasses such things! The end of the universe has been dealt with in fiction plenty - Hitchiker's Guide series, Doctor Who, etc. So there's no reason not to take a peek and see what awesome stuff you can come up with.

 

[Janx]

I guess the question is, what do you want to happen at the end of the univiverse>

at the upper ends of power, I can reshape the universe. Re-gather all the expanded matter. Reformat the existing "spent" matter back into useful stuff again.

There's also the question of whether or not such super-scify can actually exist.

Is there enough matter in the universe to create a sphere around an entire galaxy?

Can we travel all over the universe to collect all that other matter?

Is there enough energy to do all that travelling to collect all that matter (in a timely fashion)?

A species might posess the maximum possible super-science. But that science may still have limits.

 

[Morrus]

I guess the question is, what do you want to happen at the end of the univiverse>

at the upper ends of power, I can reshape the universe. Re-gather all the expanded matter. Reformat the existing "spent" matter back into useful stuff again.

There's also the question of whether or not such super-scify can actually exist.

Is there enough matter in the universe to create a sphere around an entire galaxy?

Can we travel all over the universe to collect all that other matter?

Is there enough energy to do all that travelling to collect all that matter (in a timely fashion)?

A species might posess the maximum possible super-science. But that science may still have limits.

I guess you present options.

The Doctor "rebooted it". That's sci-fi for "magic". Other options might be to circle back via time travel to the early universe and buy yourselves another few trillion years. Or discover a multiverse, and simply go to another universe.

I guess it's how hard/soft you like your sci-fi. I've used an "alien scale" in my game. Fantastic science elements are marked with a little alien face; really fantastic elements are marked with two little alien faces. So you can scale the hard-soft axis fairly easily.

 

[Umbran]

So one weird (unintended) result of the current tech advancement scale in N.E.W. is that a species is never likely to die out due to the death of its own sun, collision of galaxies, or even the end of the universe, because such events are billions of years further into the future than any civilization's ability to deal with them are.

Well, you do have some assumptions - that technological advancement is inevitable, that any barrier to technological advancement can be worked around, and that all civilizations arise when their stars/galaxies/the universe are young, and no accidents can happen.

But then, in Niven's Ringworld, the universe allows for FTL travel, but the culture that built the ringworld didn't have FTL travel, had not colonized much of the galaxy, and didn't have time travel. Meanwhile, the culture that later explored the ringworld had FTL travel, but couldn't hope to replicate the structure! In that universe, humans didn't develop hyperdrive - they bought the secret from another race.

In another book, (by Niven and Pournelle) we find a race that certainly could have managed that universe's FTL travel, except that the only jump point out of their system was inside their own sun, so there was no chance of them stumbling upon it. This has vast impact upon their culture.

So, these imply some places where the tech advancement scheme can have some dials and knobs - tech "trees" that a given civilization may not explore fully, or barriers to technological advancement that cannot be overcome within a given system. These things will imply needs and stresses between cultures, which can drive game plot!

 

[Morrus]

Oh, the whole thing is "options" - there's no default setting. Sorry, should have mentioned that! You could totally do those things, or not.

 

[Umbran]

I figured that - the point being that whether or not folks survive certain points does kind of depend on the options chosen. And, well, if there's time, page count, and/or stretch goals, why not suggest some options!

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I find Umbran's suggestions similar to what I was thinking of.

With the assumptions of standard advancement, there isn't a really good solution to the problem, unless you posit a universe that also has seriously dangerous civilization destroying or resetting events on a time scale sufficient to challenge development.

Such events could be things that we haven't really thought of in our science. Strange "phlebotinum" effects that happen somewhat "randomly" (use those dice in random design!) on a scale that ends up making it likely that most civilizations are going to be destroyed or reset before they become Timelords or Q, but that civilizations of the levels you prefer as the norm are quite likely to develop. If there is a random table involved, you can suggest modifiers depending on the type of universe. If you want a universe where most civilizations never make it past medieval feudalism, and in an entire galaxy you're never going to go past Imperial Star Wars, use the bonus or penalty to the roll that rules out the highest level and normalizes the desired level. Same thing if you want the Q continuum to be virtually guaranteed barring destruction by another species.

I can definitely get into something like that. You can make a major decision about the tone of your campaign by choosing that single modifier (or perhaps 2 values, one that determines the likely maximum levels, one that determines the median level).

 

[Morrus]

I find Umbran's suggestions similar to what I was thinking of.

With the assumptions of standard advancement, there isn't a really good solution to the problem, unless you posit a universe that also has seriously dangerous civilization destroying or resetting events on a time scale sufficient to challenge development.

Such events could be things that we haven't really thought of in our science. Strange "phlebotinum" effects that happen somewhat "randomly" (use those dice in random design!) on a scale that ends up making it likely that most civilizations are going to be destroyed or reset before they become Timelords or Q, but that civilizations of the levels you prefer as the norm are quite likely to develop. If there is a random table involved, you can suggest modifiers depending on the type of universe. If you want a universe where most civilizations never make it past medieval feudalism, and in an entire galaxy you're never going to go past Imperial Star Wars, use the bonus or penalty to the roll that rules out the highest level and normalizes the desired level. Same thing if you want the Q continuum to be virtually guaranteed barring destruction by another species.

I can definitely get into something like that. You can make a major decision about the tone of your campaign by choosing that single modifier (or perhaps 2 values, one that determines the likely maximum levels, one that determines the median level).

Yeah, options to tailor your setting go without saying. There's no default setting.

There's also the hard-soft sci fi scale. It's more a pair of axis.