Fusion - the fire of the Interstellar Travellers?

[Christopher]

There is an interesting setting called galactic civilisations, wich just got it's 3rd installment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwYfjMlsuSk

 

In that setting aliens developed FTL travel, but it never amounted to anything usefull. Both parties in an exchange had to build a humongous gate, wich needed tons of power to operate. Don't even think about interplanetary warfare, trading or the like.

 

They freely send probes through the universe and shared that tech, but there was never any actuall military action or colonisation going. One generic evil/agressive empire actually launched a military invasion once. By "sneaking" a gate at STL speed to the target system. It only took about 40 thousand years to pull of that plot and the result was meagre at best.

 

Then the aliens shared thier tech with the humans. They said "screw that, those gates are impractical. Here are our plans for a Hyperdrive! Everyone can have it."

 

Humans almost casually revolutionized interstellar travel and warfare. But what allowed us this unique breakthrough?

Was it our reckless nature? Our interest to do the dirty deed with any other alien species (especially the humanoid ones with odd skin color)? Unique insight into the nature of the universe granted by researching an abandoned precursor base found in our solar systems?

Nope, it was mostly a unique energy source. Something humanity had that nobody else ever thought of: Fusion Power.

 

When first reading that explanation it took me a few seconds to process it. Somehow these FTL capable species - some with THOUSANDS of years of global unified government - had all failed at developing Fusion tech? You literally see natural examples of this power in every single starsystem out there.

I tried to come up with a historical comparision of equal absurdness. The only thing I could come up with was that somehow a species had developed the wheel, but never tamed the fire. So they also never got the idea to replace ineffective Animal or Human labor with fancy stuff like a Steam Engine and thus never learned to travel faster then the speed of the horse.

Never mind that this also meant they never learned stuff like pottery, smitting or really any crafting of any relevant kind. So they would not have have been in the state to develop a steam engine to begin with.

 

For all intents, Fusion is like Fire for any interstellar civilsiation (and propably backwards interplanetary "barbarians" too).

As was with Fire, fusion will open up new materials in the long run we can not even dream of right now. Like we have known of alluminium for centuries, but never had tbe power to mass produce it.

 

But as with Fire there might be a lot of room between knowing it and having mastered all the auxiliary fields it opens up.

So in the interstellar community there might be "primitive natives" that barely manage to get a Fusion process running.

Others might have mastered the Fusion-Bronze to Iron age. Maybe even got past the Fusion-industrial revolution?

[Doresh]

The fire analogue works pretty well. Both are something already found in nature on more or less frequent basis, and require a certain amount of understanding and ingenuity to reproduce (fusion obviously much more than fire).

 

Being a bit of a Galactic Civilizations 2 fan, I would say this plot point exists as a way to get all the newer races on the same level FTL-wise. Well, except that one mantis race that actually comes from the far future, but can take about as much advantage from their superior knowledge as an expert progammer in a world where the fanciest computer available is an abacus.

 

And humans aren't the first ones to get their hands on such phenomenal power. GalCiv2's plot involved the Dread Lords, a precursor race so advanced that a single scout ship could utterly demolish entire fleets*, and their planetary invasion forces could be counted on one hand. That might probably require post-Fusion energy.

 

*) Suffice to say the campaign was a bit frustrating, but most people just stuck with the sandbox mode anyways.

[薔薇語]

I do not know the books mentioned here myself so I can't comment in detail as to why they did what they did but I'll offer up a little bit. There are tons of examples of civilizations never developing something or only doing it at the most basic level because they didn't see the need for it or couldn't.

 

Let us look at China for example. They have two keen examples of this: black powder and glass. In the case of the former, they developed the compound and expanded on it a bit but never took it to what we consider its natural progression. It wasn't until the Europeans got their hands on it that it really revelutionized warfare. The Chinese, for a myriad of reasons never saw the need to create the massive cannons and such the europeans did. That also held them back in developing the same kind of portable cannons (muskets). And isn't like they didn't have time. Gun powder existed in China for a very long time before being introduced to the west.

 

In the latter case, the Chinese knew of glass and made some uses of it but never, to my knowledge, expanded on it to create lenses, telescopes, or researched the heavens quite the same way. And some of their chemical knowledge was hampered by not exploring more with various bases and acids because they didn't see that much interest in it.

 

All that is to say that if these aliens had no need to fuse things, then they might just have never thought to do the extensive reseach. Afterall, if you have all the energy you need and don't need to kill massive numbers of people, why waste time trying to recreate the explosive and highly radioactive innards of a star?

 

Also, there could be tons of other anti-tech social issues. Maybe they had a fukushima event and proceeded to ban all nuclear development. Maybe they think fusion is God's domain and not to be messed with. Civs that made contact later probably never got to the tech level that would inspire them to develop nuclear power before having their civ lifted into opulence　via other techs that the older group had.

 

La Rose.

[Christopher]

Also, there could be tons of other anti-tech social issues. Maybe they had a fukushima event and proceeded to ban all nuclear development. Maybe they think fusion is God's domain and not to be messed with. Civs that made contact later probably never got to the tech level that would inspire them to develop nuclear power before having their civ lifted into opulence　via other techs that the older group had.

It's not a book, but a computer game series.

Also they operated those gates and thier interstellar probes using Nuclear Power.

 

Even if one of those species (Space China) had no interest in developing power tech furter, what about the other 7 (before humanity)? I can't be that all of them - inlcuding the generic evil ones - decided there was no point developing better power sources. Especially considering one of them send thier nuclear powered STL Gate sneak attack´all the way to another home system.

 

I know it is only a game and they might not have thought it trough. But I still found it baffling they choose Fusion of all the techs to be what only humans developed.

They had the FTL drive tech for the Gates (Wheel), but not the Fire (Fusion) to run it effectively.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Words fail me, they really do....

[massey]

There's a short story by Harry Turtledove called "The Road Not Taken".  

 

http://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf

 

A near-future humanity is invaded by aliens with hyperdrive and anti-gravity tech.  Of course it turns out that hyperdrive is really really easy to invent.  Most civilizations discover it about the same time they do gunpowder or iron working.  We just didn't discover it, for some reason.  The alien army attacks with its musket volleys.  Hilarity ensues.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Yeah, well, until you get a whole species doubling down on a sub-2% growth rate 'cuz technology is going to come and save us all real soon now.

 

Invention doesn't work that way! 

 

(Just thought I'd hijack a light-hearted thread with politics. What I am suggesting is that an incorrect concept of the history of technology is helping forestall Keynesian solutions to 'secular stagnation.')

[Christopher]

There's a short story by Harry Turtledove called "The Road Not Taken".  

 

http://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf

 

A near-future humanity is invaded by aliens with hyperdrive and anti-gravity tech.  Of course it turns out that hyperdrive is really really easy to invent.  Most civilizations discover it about the same time they do gunpowder or iron working.  We just didn't discover it, for some reason.  The alien army attacks with its musket volleys.  Hilarity ensues.

That was an interesting story.

 

I can not agree with the asumption that development of the hyperdrive would totally prevent improovemt in other areas. With that many starfarign races someone somewhere should have thought about building a better musket or better cannon. As the number of people to fight war agaisnt increases, development to make sure you would win that war is focussed more.

 

 

Going back to the china example - China could actually afford to do no research for quite some time. Because it was superior to all neighbours already. It's biggest contenders were riders with bows. And riders with bow can not conquer a land that big fast. Every province, every larger city was like a whole tribe on it's own. And they had standing alliances to all other tribes back to the ocean.

At the same time it had a sort of internal equilibrium.

 

At the same time span the Europeans nations were persistently looking to "out weapon" and "out resource" each other.

 

Something similar happened to Rome. They got too successfull, too secure. It had beaten it's nearest contenders (Greece, Karthage). All it still faced were "barbarians" for thier definitions.

However then the barbarians adapted roman advacements (military and otherwise) and zerg-rushed them. The barbarians had a need to out-compete the romans, but the romans had lost the impulse to out compete it's neighbours. Until it was too late.

 

Every time a great empire fell it happened because it got too great, too secure for it's own good.

 

 

Side thought:

Something often appearing in fiction are the "scientific but pacifist" Progenitor Races. These also usually got "too powerfull" for thier own good. And could not return to the savage warriors in time when faced with a weaker, but more agresive species.

[massey]

That was an interesting story.

 

I can not agree with the asumption that development of the hyperdrive would totally prevent improovemt in other areas. With that many starfarign races someone somewhere should have thought about building a better musket or better cannon. As the number of people to fight war agaisnt increases, development to make sure you would win that war is focussed more.

 

(snip good stuff)

 

 

Side thought:

Something often appearing in fiction are the "scientific but pacifist" Progenitor Races. These also usually got "too powerfull" for thier own good. And could not return to the savage warriors in time when faced with a weaker, but more agresive species.

 

The Road Not Taken is actually a prequel of sorts to a short story called Herbig-Haro.

 

http://www.lunsfordnet.com/get/pdf/Herbig-Haro%20-%20Harry%20Turtledove_20254.pdf

 

It deals with humanity in the future, after we have the hyperdrive and went out on a conquering spree.  Eventually the human empire breaks up for some reason, and a lot of the planets lose their technology and revert to barbarism (they can still fly through space, and have AK-47s, but advanced computers and things like that are beyond a lot of human planets now).  Then one of the more advanced worlds runs across an advanced alien race who have the stardrive and 1950s tech.  Seems to fit with your Roman Empire/China comparison.

 

The explanation given for why research stops is that having anti-gravity devices so early in your development really screws with creating anything like the scientific method.  Isaac Newton is not going to say "What goes up, must come down" when the apple lands on his head if he has flown around on an anti-gravity ship.  Apparently it requires a very advanced understanding of physics to explain how the hyperdrive works.  So most civilizations get stuck there.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Which, as explanations goes, lacks the terse simplicity of "A wizard did it," while being far less plausible.

[Christopher]

The explanation given for why research stops is that having anti-gravity devices so early in your development really screws with creating anything like the scientific method.  Isaac Newton is not going to say "What goes up, must come down" when the apple lands on his head if he has flown around on an anti-gravity ship.  Apparently it requires a very advanced understanding of physics to explain how the hyperdrive works.  So most civilizations get stuck there.

Honestly, that explanation makes even less sense then not having one in the first place.

 

We humans are quite able to say about something we can't explain or understgand: "Okay. Let's skip that and come back later."

Thier Isaac Newton would have said: "What goes up, must come down, unless it is affected by a Antigrav device".

The theory of Relativity literally said "this theory does not apply to very extreme sceanrios" (inside of an Atom, Black Holes, Big Bang). It predicted all the scenarios it did not apply too, so it survived with only minor additions.

 

That Isaac Newton should have made an even greater leap: He would have known for a fact there is no Air resistance and next to no gravity in space. Just knowing that there IS Air-resistance to screw up all planetbound formulas and experiements for motion is a great leap. He would never have created his whole flawed Mechanical Rules and skipped half the way into the Relativity Theory.

 

 

Edit:

It is still a nice story. Just the explanation...would better have been left out.