Restricted Technologies

[Soban]

What technologies are restricted in some way within Yamatai and hard to obtain in the setting as a whole? While there is the YSE-HSC Restricted Technologies list, it's not as complete or as hard fisted as it might seem at first look. For example, while it seems that Zesuaium production is regulated strongly, ownership of it isn't as I detailed in this post.

To me, the purpose of the restricted tech list is to basically say "If you aren't Yamatai, you are going to have a hard time getting this stuff." Here are the things I kinda see as being Yamatai's special tech stuff. I might have left a few out of this list, but it's because I'm making it up on the fly.

• Zesuaium production (Although those secrets may have slipped loose in the fall of Kuvexia. I'm content to say that they didn't but even with that caveat there is a lot of used Zesu out there.)
• Aether tech (Debatable as I think it's fairly widespread in Yamatai and the more widespread something is the harder it is to keep a lid on it.)
• Nekovalkyrja (Specifically up to date Yamataian Nekos. Building yourself a genetically modified killing machine or an artificial body is doable.)
• Hemosynth technology (Again, specifically the Yamataian variant. The general idea is still doable even if your not Yamatai)
• Soul Transfer (Again, specifically the Yamataian variant. The general idea is still doable even if your not Yamatai)
• Teleportation tech. (This is probably the only one where I feel like Yamatai can really hang on to and not let anyone else have at all. I think we can retain it as an edge even over the Mishhu.)
• TDD (For out of character reasons this should remain pretty tightly held.)

Overall, I think any faction or sub-faction should have it's distinctive techs and flavor. The Restricted list is a way to help preserve those distinctions.

 

[raz]

Phasing should remain restricted to NPC factions like the Mishhu and Uesureya, imo. The Star Army has it, too, but doesn’t seem to pursue its development, so maybe there is an IC angle to keep it under wraps.

 

[Alex Hart]

• Aether tech (Debatable as I think it's fairly widespread in Yamatai and the more widespread something is the harder it is to keep a lid on it.)

Aether's become reasonably widespread by this point, both Nepleslia and the NDC have to have the ability to produce Aether technology I believe. The NDC's Noval produces some Aether drives, piggybacking off of the widely available Origin IAPD, and Nepleslia has the Checkmate.

ST, or ST like technology is pretty much out in the wild as well right now.

Zesu, Hemosynth, those are obviously impossible to replicate, though I don't think it's impossible to aquire. NH series bodies are a closed book, as is Teleportation tech and TDD.

I think we should consider having sections for every faction on a 'restricted tech' page, if only so that we don't have similar pages for each faction. Basically a list of the technological things that each faction keeps close enough to its chest that it's not replicable.

 

[Yuuki]

Aether is more limited by expense, manufacturing, and use policy (mainly environmental), Nepleslia technically has it, the Kuvvies had it... yeah what Alex said. Kuvvies also had a functionally identical hemosynth tech too, that only differed a little bit in practice as well

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

A proper article should be made if not already exist and just eluding some people imo.

It should also be revisited since many tech that is enforced OOC as restricted has been so for like 10-15 or even more years and the setting and its factions have greatly increased their technology and capabilities. Aether is held by yamatai, nepleslia, origin, and I think FSC or even the NDC (I cant confirm either of these, thought I heard them somwhere) are out there as well as perfectly good IC examples on how to get them for just buying an origin ship and voiding the warrenty, to capturing Kuvvie or Mishhu ships, to the fact that if random people on earth know exactly how nuclear reactors work and can build them were it not for government oversight, then there are likely millions or more randos in the sector that know how to build an aether reactor or the theory behind them.

The rest save for Teleportation are fine to me imo for yamatai to have a stranglehold. The former because teleporters are recently being revisited in a couple of articles to show how far yamatai has brought the tech and if Ames article passes despite the rule on no new FTL or equivalent types then I can say that Teleportation is now widespread enough in examples and the time it has been around for their to be trickledown.

And I dont think that unlike Zesu and Neko that Teleportation should be a faction staple for yamatai since it is a major Scifi trope in most Scifi settings and not something unique or made here first.

If TDD is trans-dimmensional stuff im sure nep could make it at this point. Im not going to track down the line but iirc before I made the mutants article, Mutants existed because nep was banging too many interdimmensional creatures and it made their DNA unstable so the tech is clearly around. And if not then it has been like 20 years, it should be.

Zesu, tho, everyone keeps saying is made by the elves and should prob be updated to reflect that and why it is made by them exclusively since magic is not a thing.

 

[Ametheliana]

Xiulurium is made by elves. Zesu is made in a weird fabrication-like process.

 

[raz]

Teleportation has always been a Yamatai faction staple. It’s a highlight of the Mindy’s capabilities, and teleporting PAs is one of the faction’s defining combat hallmarks.

 

[Alex Hart]

Teleportation has always been a Yamatai faction staple. It’s a highlight of the Mindy’s capabilities, and teleporting PAs is one of the faction’s defining combat hallmarks.

That's true and fair, though it's also true that it's been around for a very long time and it'd be strange for other nations to not have started working on their own systems, even if they weren't as good as modern Yamataian teleporters. We can maintain an OOC lockdown on it, but Char's point is relatively solid about technological trickle-down after near on 20 years. IRL is a decent example of that kind of thing.

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

Tbh I think yamatai went about it backwards. You are supposed to build the big teleporters first and then downscale. Yamatai should have had big teleporters or more abundant ones on ships, stations, and cities long before they were small enough to put in mindys.

as for being a staple it is a scifi one imo. And it has been around in setting long enough that the idea that nobody else can do it because OOC blocking and the excuse that yamatai is so advanced that nobody has even gotten close in these past couple decades doesnt hold up. It is time to develop more new technologies and loosen up on the old/enforce it OOC.

 

[raz]

Everyone wants to be Green Yamatai and Red Yamatai when we got Yamatai right here. I think OOC restrictions are great. They keep the Star Army in Star Army Dot Com.

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

What?

*Edit:

This is nothing like that. Please dont pull up this old argument it offers nothing to the topic at hand and is a direct insult to other factions players, FMs, GMs.

 

[FrostJaeger]

Everyone wants to be Green Yamatai and Red Yamatai when we got Yamatai right here. I think OOC restrictions are great. They keep the Star Army in Star Army Dot Com.

I think decades-old OOC restrictions are not great because they a) needlessly stifle creativity and b) don’t make a whole lot of IC sense. Also, what the heck is a “Red Yamatai” and a “Green Yamatai”?

 

[Alex Hart]

If we acknowledge that OOC restrictions on what would otherwise be sensible and logical IC progression of technology help to maintain factional identities (Not wrong, even if it's stifling), and we've constructed a list of technologies that will stay locked to Yamatai on an OOC basis, I think it follows that we should include in any page detailing Restricted Technologies page technology that's restricted to other factions.

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

If we acknowledge that OOC restrictions on what would otherwise be sensible and logical IC progression of technology help to maintain factional identities (Not wrong, even if it's stifling), and we've constructed a list of technologies that will stay locked to Yamatai on an OOC basis, I think it follows that we should include in any page detailing Restricted Technologies page technology that's restricted to other factions.

I, as a GM, former FM, and occasional mass wiki contributor would also like more than just because on some things if that becomes a thing.

Neko, Zesu and Xil, ST and the like make sense and are yamatai.

The color blue, Teleporters which are base Scifi Tech as much as lasers and plasma, Fast light-tier PA, and having an abundance of women are not defining to yamatais identity.

 

[Ametheliana]

I made the teleportation pad hoping that it would mean new technologies elsewhere in the setting get made and how the trickle down effect will take place in the setting as a whole. With war comes new technological advancements and that's realistically being portrayed, it makes me so happy. But also realistically, other groups would look over Yamatai's shoulder and try to do what they're doing. In real life, the countries that do that often fail in coming up with exact replicas and more often than not, what they created is a completely different piece of technology that utilizes the fundamentals or newly discovered principals of the original models.

I want to see that happen, honestly, instead of direct rips off of Yamataian tech ICly or a pitched fit OOCly over why Yamatai gets to be so cool. As Soban said in his original post, having the restrictions lends to factional flavor. A thread about which distinctions Yamatai has held close to its chest is becoming a thread about why Yamatai gets to do so. Instead think like Alex and try to figure what new or old technologies different factions other than Yamatai have and how to quantify that. If they don't, start adding new ones like I was hoping would happen. Every faction gets to be cool, it's just a matter of thoughtful creation to make it so.

 

[Wes]

Guys, the list that answers this question is literally linked in the OP.

 

[FrostJaeger]

Guys, the list that answers this question is literally linked in the OP.

Telelporters aren’t on that list, though…

 

[Wes]

I guess that's true, teleporters were so secret they weren't in the law, the Star Army just came and killed you if you had one.

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

Ignoring that single inconsistency frost just popped up. @Wes the thread has kind of moved (been derailed) into another topic into the viability of if it has been so long that some of these technologies have trickled down IC.

10-20 years of using these technologies in the face of others and things on the list is a long time to justify nobody else having it just because. And if it is time to loosen that restrictions for things such as teleporters (im prob going to make one now with that justification!) trickling down into the wider sector.

Not ST or Zesu or the like. But in general what might be considered on the Advanced tier of technology and if it is time to open those up and create new technologies now to replace them.

 

[raz]

When I made the EUNA, I specifically left off it having a teleporter even though the Uesureyans have the tech. Beyond the first OOC balance consideration of that armor phasing instead of teleporting, I doubly made the decision to not have a teleporter because “that’s a Mindy thing, teleporting is a setting element that helps give the Star Army of Yamatai flavor.”

Maintaining factional distinction, even by artificial OOC means, is essential to good worldbuilding for me.