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<blockquote data-quote="Jay Verkuilen" data-source="post: 7785056" data-attributes="member: 6873517">I stole quite a bit from Scarred Lands for my own campaign world, although I didn't actually run Scarred Lands per se. I should also note that there are advanced human societies where stasis was enforced by government policy: China went through such a period when one of the Ming Emperors set it on a very inward-looking path. The Japanese under the Tokugawa Shogunate banned essentially all foreign contact from about 1600 until Commodore Perry showed up in Edo Harbor in the 1850s. In both cases, substantial social change really only happened due to the pressure of external events. Absent that, I would not at all be surprised if things had just continued on for quite some time. There are other examples, even contemporary ones, where a state becomes focused on autarky and essentially freezes in place (North Korea, I'm looking at you... but there are other examples). The notion that &quot;progress&quot; is desirable is not universal. In sci fi settings like Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun this preferences for a decaying stasis is central. I'll have to check him out.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jay Verkuilen, post: 7785056, member: 6873517"] I stole quite a bit from Scarred Lands for my own campaign world, although I didn't actually run Scarred Lands per se. I should also note that there are advanced human societies where stasis was enforced by government policy: China went through such a period when one of the Ming Emperors set it on a very inward-looking path. The Japanese under the Tokugawa Shogunate banned essentially all foreign contact from about 1600 until Commodore Perry showed up in Edo Harbor in the 1850s. In both cases, substantial social change really only happened due to the pressure of external events. Absent that, I would not at all be surprised if things had just continued on for quite some time. There are other examples, even contemporary ones, where a state becomes focused on autarky and essentially freezes in place (North Korea, I'm looking at you... but there are other examples). The notion that "progress" is desirable is not universal. In sci fi settings like Gene Wolfe's [I]Book of the New Sun[/I] this preferences for a decaying stasis is central. I'll have to check him out. [/QUOTE]

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