LosTech? Seriously?

[rolypoly]

I'm new to the Mechwarrior universe, so the lore here is new for me, but I'm just about up to here with this overdone trope that over time space-going civs lose technology that they had before. Especially if there is war. This is completely opposite reality - war breeds technology like no other. There should be tons of new innovations in all kinds of fields, from materials to manufacturing techniques, to energy generation, to invention of whole new theoretical concepts and the like. Just look at Earth's history!

And no, claiming that the "fractured" conditions of the civilisation doesn't hold when you can fly from planet to planet in less than a week or have FTL transmissions of insane bandwidth capacity.

[terrycpa1972]

Wrong game for you then.

[Cervidal]

You must have lost your mind watching Firefly, huh?

[Werecat101]

Originally posted by Meatball Panini:

I'm new to the Mechwarrior universe, so the lore here is new for me, but I'm just about up to here with this overdone trope that over time space-going civs lose technology that they had before. Especially if there is war. This is completely opposite reality - war breeds technology like no other. There should be tons of new innovations in all kinds of fields, from materials to manufacturing techniques, to energy generation, to invention of whole new theoretical concepts and the like. Just look at Earth's history!

And no, claiming that the "fractured" conditions of the civilisation doesn't hold when you can fly from planet to planet in less than a week or have FTL transmissions of insane bandwidth capacity.

well lost technology lets see after the Roman empire the dark ages loads of lost technology could be used but not recreated by the people around. so our own history says it can happen.

This game shows far more lostech than would be normal in the old BT manuals and novels,

The fact is in the BT universe everything is going down the tubes its a slow decline.

[GameMaster]

Originally posted by steve:

well lost technology lets see after the Roman empire the dark ages loads of lost technology could be used but not recreated by the people around. so our own history says it can happen.

This game shows far more lostech than would be normal in the old BT manuals and novels,

The fact is in the BT universe everything is going down the tubes its a slow decline.

Not exactly, by the time of the Jihad, in many ways the Inner Sphere is more advanced than it ever was during the 1st Star League 'Golden Age'.

... it just that the first two succession wars really went to town on infrastructure. By the 3rd Succession War, the phrase 'broken back' takes new meaning.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by Meatball Panini:

I'm new to the Mechwarrior universe, so the lore here is new for me, but I'm just about up to here with this overdone trope that over time space-going civs lose technology that they had before.

Battletech first came out in the 80's. So maybe that trope wasn't so "overdone" then. /shrug

[Named]

It's not a "trope" considering there is historical precedence for technology being lost when empires collapse.

Hard to understand how that's difficult to grasp on a fictional setting.

It's not just the case that a war was occuring in some conventional sense and therefore the various factions devoted their resources to the production of war machines.
There was mass extinctions, nuclear fallout, an exodus of the engineers and soldiers (the Clans).

You are so taking for granted that we have a transfer of knowledge because we have systems preserving it. If those systems were to collapse (the internet, information storage, loss of books, loss of education institutions, loss of educated people) how exactly would life magically go on as it did before?

It is not science fiction that we might lose what we have if our systems collapse or are severely disrupted.

You have not devoted much thought to this of you think the "trope" of lost technology does not have a basis in reality.

[Mudpony]

The lore of BTech is pretty reliant on that trope, and it goes through a lot of effort to explain why it is. Basically, it involves three massive wars, full of nukes, biological weapons, orbital bombardment, and so on. First the Amaris Civil War, and then the first two Succession Wars. By the end of those three wars, things are so damaged that warships are gone, an accord is signed banning nukes, orbital bombardment, and such, and it becomes pretty much the order of the day that you don't destroy jump ships or factories. Furthermore, the people with the most advanced tech, the Star League Defense Forces, take off into deep space... and booby trap anything they left behind.

So basically, the most advanced tech got nuked, and most of what survived, and the people that invented it, left. Leaving just rare pieces floating around.

[Loot Hunter]

Originally posted by Meatball Panini:

I'm new to the Mechwarrior universe, so the lore here is new for me, but I'm just about up to here with this overdone trope that over time space-going civs lose technology that they had before. Especially if there is war. This is completely opposite reality - war breeds technology like no other. There should be tons of new innovations in all kinds of fields, from materials to manufacturing techniques, to energy generation, to invention of whole new theoretical concepts and the like. Just look at Earth's history!

Except there weren't wars in Earth's history that devastative. As I understand it, the result of Succession Wars was akin to Fallout - most of infrastructure was simply nuked and a lot of those scientists and engineers who were supposed to keep all that knowledge were killed or scattered over the Galaxy.

Yes, I do agree that losing tech and being unable to rebuild all needed factories over decades is far fetched - considering how fast science can progress even without knowledge already existed. But still, the LosTech scenario isn't entirely impossible.

[Dux Aquila]

>lostech is unrealistic
>ignores the fact that decent hygiene was lostech for centuries

I'll agree that some of it's stupid. A factory gets destroyed so we can't build the 'Mech produced there AT ALL anymore? That's pretty stupid.

But by and large, the sheer scale of the Succession Wars was apocalyptic. Entire planetary populations and infrastructures were completely erased. No one cared to actually preserve anything. Hyperpulse generators were destroyed for something so rudimentary as covert operation, because if the enemy can't tell anyone you're attacking their planet, there won't be any reinforcements. Who cares if we don't have the means to replace the HPG?

We've seen the same happen in real life, although not quite on the same level. We've never bombed ourselves back to the stone age, at least not yet. They have in the BattleTech universe.

I mentioned hygiene already. There's also stuff like Greek fire, Damascus steel, ancient Greek analog computers and steam engines from more than 2000 years ago. A lot has been lost. Some has been rediscovered. Think of the BattleTech setting as suffering the destruction of the Library of Alexandria but a thousand times worse.

[irishmafia2020]

Well it happened a couple of times in Earth's history - probably more than a couple. The bronze age collapse saw the destruction of most of the civilizations in the Mediterranean Basin followed by a three hundred year dark age, and the collapse of the Roman empire left some knowledge gone from western civilization for almost a thousand years. Some civilizations in North and South America appear to have completely collapsed as well at different points based upon archaeological evidence. Egypt fell into multiple "dark ages" as well, in spite of being connected to the greater world.

[Wantoomany]

The succession wars were not just one little war where people went a little bonkers with nukes. But nearly 300 years of no holds barred, constant, warfare. Even the most robust infrastructures will collapse under that kind of pressure.

But even more insidious then that, is game was rigged from the start. Comstar controlled every single FTL communication system in the entire inner sphere. And Comstar was actively playing a long game to reduce each major inner sphere power back to the stone age. Anytime it looked like one side might get the upper hand, they would tilt the favor to the others. Anytime a power looked like it might have a technological edge, it ended up sabotaged or destroyed. Anytime technology was discovered, Comstar ensured it stayed lost.

Comstar wanted the inner sphere broken, totally. So that they could be the saviors of mankind. And they had the power, control, influence, and religious zeal to make sure it would happen.

[valerian68]

ever hear of the dark ages?

[FlashBurn]

Fall of the Roman empire.....Dark Ages... only smaller wars with modern industrial bases can lead to technological advances. However, a protracted conflict with economies getting wrecked loosing entire generations is going to have a slip backwards. This happens ALL the time in history. China was massively more advanced than anyone else but just got stuck for over a 1000 years. Charlemagne managed to stop and even reverse the plunge of the Dark Ages in his region of Europe, till he died anyways. Middle East was the bastion of learning making massive strides in Math and chemistry and what not. Then they turned into goat farmers for whatever reason. I mean hell, Western history was a freaking mess and a half till we got our heads out of butts during the Renaissance and have been bounding forward but are now slowing...... But its been a hell of a run and its not over. But the slip backwards is a VARY common theme in history for all of humanity.

[Wayz]

By my logic mech tech wouldn't have developed far enough for tech to get lost in the first place.

Bang for the buck the whole concept of mech warfare is flawed , why invest so much R&D into walking robots that have to be moved form planet to planet when the same resources and R&D teams could go into destroyers to shoot down any threat to a planet? or orbital defences or mass drivers to pacify any planet side threat robot or meat?
Doesn't have to be super high tech star trek rubbish either, low tech near future style destroyers like in the expanse would make pretty short work of a drop ship and its mech payload before they could even deploy.

The answer according to a mate of mine is they exist on the "rule of cool" and they are really=)
The lostech gives you something to look for that is a bit more special than the average heat sync or laser.

[GameMaster]

Originally posted by Wayz:

By my logic mech tech wouldn't have developed far enough for tech to get lost in the first place.

Bang for the buck the whole concept of mech warfare is flawed , why invest so much R&D into walking robots that have to be moved form planet to planet when the same resources and R&D teams could go into destroyers to shoot down any threat to a planet? or orbital defences or mass drivers to pacify any planet side threat robot or meat?
Doesn't have to be super high tech star trek rubbish either, low tech near future style destroyers like in the expanse would make pretty short work of a drop ship and its mech payload before they could even deploy.

The answer according to a mate of mine is they exist on the "rule of cool" and they are really=)
The lostech gives you something to look for that is a bit more special than the average heat sync or laser.

That isn't the case. Capital weapons (i.e. the stuff used in warships which can mass 2.5 megatons at the heaviest and take 500kt nukes to the face and live to tell the tale) would go one end of an Expanse warship and out the other, even the lightest can do this. There are ships like the McKenna which is armed with 48 heavy naval PPCs as it's main battery with a helping of heavy naval autocannon (which use plasma as a propellant, aka 'orion in a bottle').

Also, they had that mentality back before the Star League broke up, it is the reason that the Inner Sphere was in the shape it is in during the first three succession wars. Just throw nukes all over the place, dump enough chemical and biological weapons to turn entire planets into hellholes that require special enviromental gear just to go out for a jaunt outside...

The most pessimistic of a 'maximium nukage' nuclear exchange would have ended modern civilization permently because -like in Battletech- infrastructure was specifically targeted for maximium effect...