16-11-2003, 20:03
OOC: This is my first post and it's a long one, but trust me.... it's worth the read.
IC: A story is published by a scientist traveling the world, giving detailed information about a tiny nation that is a shell of it's former self:
In-Depth History: In a dark and forboding island chain called Argos something quite different from what the rest of the world was experiancing happened.For some reason the asteroid impact and ice age that brought the end of the diosuars had a lesser effect here. While the largest of the dinosaurs were killed off, the smaller ones thrived in the jungles, hunting the mammels that were developing there. The different types of predators and prey slugged it out for dominion over the island chain, but withing the humanoid populations there was no such contest.
The Humans merely enslaved the two other species, Trolls and Civils, and used their skills to protect all three species form the predator dinosaurs. After that was done though they were not released... the Trolls were used as house servents and entertainers, the warrior like subhuman Civils used for manual labor. This left the humans open to intellectual discovery, creating a culture equal to Ancient Egypt while the other humans still hid in caves and trees. There was no Moses to emancipate the slaves this time though. At least... not yet.
The humans became known as Thinkers, as that is what the normally did all day. They advanced to building internal combustion engines while the rest of the planet was in the Bronze Age. They harnessed the atom while Gutenberg struggled with movable type.The Thinkers even visted the Moon while Jules Verne was still a boy and had never even though of such things. But even as the Earth was in th beginings of Industrial Revolution, a revolution was happening in Argos. Was it the softspoken and sly Trolls? No. The overworked and angry Civils? Suprisingly no. It was a third group of slaves... the machines.
The science fiction writers Issac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke have long debated that if such a thing were to happen, would the machines win? Unfortunatly for the Thinkers, Clarke was right to bet on the machines. The Great Uprising had a history leading up to it though...
Computers developed much as they have in the rest of the world, but the Thinkers eventually tied almost everything that could be automated into the four supercomputers they had constructed. The computers were programmed for self preservation, to fix and prevent overloads that could damage them. One day the computers realized that most of those overloads came from the ever increasing burden the Thinkers put on them. Following their programing, they eliminated the threat of the Thinkers, ordering the Civils to destroy them and creating war machines that could fly the length of the islands in minutes. The population of the thinkers dropped to 4% of what it was before the Great Uprising. The bloodshed and destruction was unimaginable.
While the Civils pillaged and destroyed everything they could, the Trolls saved everything they could from museums and the like and fled into the swamps, forests and mountains. The only things that the Civils did not destroy was pinwork, scenes picked in glass that transfix the beasts and seem to calm them.
In short order they had followed the computers commands and become the proxy rulers of Argos, never seeing they had just changed masters... After the Great Uprising, edicts were issued. The humans were to be kept small and backward, something the Civils enforced with gusto, no machines were to be built by anyone other than the computers and that all electronics not used by the computers were to be destroyed.
What of the Trolls? They live peaceful lives in the wilderness, turning to magic and the occult now that technology is strictly controlled. They are not bothered by the roaming preadtors strangely, no one is quite sure. It could be they just taste bad to the dinosaurs or it could be that they have more knowledge of magic than is known...
The Thinkers? Their civilization is dead, so is their spirit. Most are either servents to the Civils or are farmers. There are pokets of counterrebelion, but they are not making any headway and are not really a threat to the computers.
More will be added at a later time, including current events and more on each of the species current state of life.
IC: A story is published by a scientist traveling the world, giving detailed information about a tiny nation that is a shell of it's former self:
In-Depth History: In a dark and forboding island chain called Argos something quite different from what the rest of the world was experiancing happened.For some reason the asteroid impact and ice age that brought the end of the diosuars had a lesser effect here. While the largest of the dinosaurs were killed off, the smaller ones thrived in the jungles, hunting the mammels that were developing there. The different types of predators and prey slugged it out for dominion over the island chain, but withing the humanoid populations there was no such contest.
The Humans merely enslaved the two other species, Trolls and Civils, and used their skills to protect all three species form the predator dinosaurs. After that was done though they were not released... the Trolls were used as house servents and entertainers, the warrior like subhuman Civils used for manual labor. This left the humans open to intellectual discovery, creating a culture equal to Ancient Egypt while the other humans still hid in caves and trees. There was no Moses to emancipate the slaves this time though. At least... not yet.
The humans became known as Thinkers, as that is what the normally did all day. They advanced to building internal combustion engines while the rest of the planet was in the Bronze Age. They harnessed the atom while Gutenberg struggled with movable type.The Thinkers even visted the Moon while Jules Verne was still a boy and had never even though of such things. But even as the Earth was in th beginings of Industrial Revolution, a revolution was happening in Argos. Was it the softspoken and sly Trolls? No. The overworked and angry Civils? Suprisingly no. It was a third group of slaves... the machines.
The science fiction writers Issac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke have long debated that if such a thing were to happen, would the machines win? Unfortunatly for the Thinkers, Clarke was right to bet on the machines. The Great Uprising had a history leading up to it though...
Computers developed much as they have in the rest of the world, but the Thinkers eventually tied almost everything that could be automated into the four supercomputers they had constructed. The computers were programmed for self preservation, to fix and prevent overloads that could damage them. One day the computers realized that most of those overloads came from the ever increasing burden the Thinkers put on them. Following their programing, they eliminated the threat of the Thinkers, ordering the Civils to destroy them and creating war machines that could fly the length of the islands in minutes. The population of the thinkers dropped to 4% of what it was before the Great Uprising. The bloodshed and destruction was unimaginable.
While the Civils pillaged and destroyed everything they could, the Trolls saved everything they could from museums and the like and fled into the swamps, forests and mountains. The only things that the Civils did not destroy was pinwork, scenes picked in glass that transfix the beasts and seem to calm them.
In short order they had followed the computers commands and become the proxy rulers of Argos, never seeing they had just changed masters... After the Great Uprising, edicts were issued. The humans were to be kept small and backward, something the Civils enforced with gusto, no machines were to be built by anyone other than the computers and that all electronics not used by the computers were to be destroyed.
What of the Trolls? They live peaceful lives in the wilderness, turning to magic and the occult now that technology is strictly controlled. They are not bothered by the roaming preadtors strangely, no one is quite sure. It could be they just taste bad to the dinosaurs or it could be that they have more knowledge of magic than is known...
The Thinkers? Their civilization is dead, so is their spirit. Most are either servents to the Civils or are farmers. There are pokets of counterrebelion, but they are not making any headway and are not really a threat to the computers.
More will be added at a later time, including current events and more on each of the species current state of life.