...into the boundaries of human limitation

While playing mass effect 2 today I came across a quote I thought was rather interesting.

"All scientific advancement due to intelligence overcoming, compensating for limitations. Can't carry a load, so invent wheel. Can't catch food, so invent spear. Limitations! No limitations, no advancement. No advancement, culture stagnates! Works other way too. Advancement before culture is ready, disastrous. Saw it with Krogan. Uplifted by Salarians. Disastrous. Our Fault." Mordin Solus, ME2

Despite drawing an obvious parallel to our own world I wondered how it applied to my own Crystal Shores.

In my game humanity initially tapped into their destroying technology in the natural way; more energy was needed, so a solution, Deus, was created to fulfil it. This solution created the first true sentient life. By creating sentient life humanity nullified the greatest limit of all, mortality.

In my world humanity didn’t have time to stagnate; they where immediately destroyed by the total loss of control of Deus. The unknown, and frightening prospect of an uncontrollable machine lead to panic and anarchy of the population. The government which was already weak fell quickly and society collapsed. For them the sudden overstepping of their technological bounds played against their fears and destroyed their society. Society was not ready to accept a sentient machine, and like a child the sentient machine reacted aggressively to that revulsion.

The collapse of society also created a time distortion, allowing people shift through time. Now you have the potential to introduce technology from the future, technology far outstripping anything known to early society. How would that society interpret this new, alien technology?

Immediately I see four difficulties: Unknown limits of the new technology (how far does it take me?), no appreciation of the steps it would take to develop the technology (abuse), a serious ethical dilemma (is the cost proportionate to the benefit?), and the integration to the technology (where does it fit within my life?).

How would society see these hurtles? Would society reject any new technological leap from the start? Would they quickly bridge the gap between this cultural lag?

I think at first there would be fear at what this new technology was or could do. As society experienced the technology there would be a curiosity phase, coming to learn what it was, how it behaved. A few brave ambitious people would take advantage of that technology, prompting others in society to elicit a “not fair” response, prompting ethical debates, and debates over who should use and what use they should use it for (societal laws). Over time the cultural lag would shorten and abuse would begin as fear dissipates and greed takes over.

This is also how early society would view the time gates that opened up. The technology is not obviously apparent except for the rumours of people disappearing in them. The unknown would drive people to fear them but the curious would experiment and be sucked in. From there it’s a mater of where they end up that determines what happened. A handful of people would end up in the unknown wilderness and parish, some would find human settlements and stumble in as confused crazies, and a small few would find others who came through the gates and together learned to cope with their new situation.

Ultimately this technology remains largely untapped, its effects too far reaching for its purpose to be discovered until well into the last century of human civilization. However a few would tap this technology, forming the council of twelve. This council is made up of those very people who entered gates in their time and have had the fortune to meet with others of like experience. For them they hold a monopoly over the gates and abuse them to their will, using them to ensure their own survival.

So the big question comes down to how the player party experiences this effect? Each member comes from four different time periods, each with no knowledge of time travel concepts or anything there relating with perhaps the exception of the Xiko story line, though his knowledge is limited due to memory fragmentation.

At first they would be sucked into the gates by some form of accident or surprise gate opening. From there they are taken into the future or the past depending on the current time line. Initially they would be confused, not knowing what they have just experienced. They would look for familiar landmarks from their knowledge base and find that they are changed in some weird way or do not exist at all. They can’t equate the experience to a concept they have no knowledge of and would accept that perhaps they are someplace different in the world of their home time period.

If they where sent to the past they would slowly begin to recognise past history, past technology. If they ended up in the future it would look like a hugely alien culture. If they where sent to the collapse of the world or a large distance away from their normal time then what they would feel isolated, totally disconnecting themselves from the world around them.

This is my primary issue with my game. How do I cope with sending a party to a new time? In Chrono Trigger there was suspension of disbelief, the characters didn’t talk about the cultural lag experienced during time travel and seamed to have no response against being thrust millions of years into a purely un-conceived reality. This is far too great a plot hole for a well told story and in my game reality is gritty.


A second quote from ME2 draws more truth from this dilemma: "Cultural artistic expression reflect philosophical evolution, interest in growth, perspective, observation, interpretation." Mordin Solus, ME2

A culture of a society is built up by its questing for information; the quantifying of the sum of its experience against the questions posed by sentient life. Culture is closely tied to technological growth. It provides the basis of understanding, the acceptance of technology in society as a whole, the drive for advancement beyond current technologies, and the foundation for future growth.


Humanity can only think so far into the future using its current experience and extrapolating the data to interpret where it will be in the future. In our own world very few visionaries are able to predict what the world will look like one hundred years from their hypothesis. That being said the real limit to technology is science and mathematics.

Humanity has constantly been changing the science behind how it quantifies the world. Where a hundred years ago we thought one particular theory was correct, new evidence indicates that the stream of thought was off the mark. In earlier times huge chunks of time passed before these theories where seriously questioned. As society increases its technology, the speed at which science grows increases.

At the beginning of the human cycle you would have entire generations or more who would experience little growth in their life time. Only in the last few hundred years have we seen technology double in our life time – multiple times in fact. My own grandparents remark that the world today is so different then when they grew up that they couldn’t even imagine the technology we have today.

With this monumental road block, how do you bring someone from the past into the future or vice versa? The shock would be overwhelming, eliciting a survival base human response. The body can’t cope with what its senses tell, so it reverts to fear and primitive function.

To overcome this you would have to quickly bridge the cultural lag. Too great a cultural differential and you would destroy the ability of the individual to function. A slow integration into the new world, the right mindset going into the transition, a guide to lead you through, and an anchor to tether you to your past experience. Basically you’re experiencing a complete loss and regaining of identity.

This is why so few would enter the gates and survive. You would have to be plunked away from advanced civilization to prevent a technological shock. You’d need an open mind, an acceptance between your experience and what your senses perceive. Someone who has been through the same experience would need to lead you through it slowly. Lastly you would need to maintain some form of your past life so you wouldn’t completely lose who you where before the transition.

Without this time travel isn’t possible.

Amazing how such an innocent observation can cause a large chain of events. Before I was having a difficult time rationalizing how my party was going to time travel, now I know the steps I will need to take to ensure the transition is realistic. I’ve also come to understand and appreciate culture in an enlightened society. Cultural growth opens up new possibilities by challenging limits, challenging beliefs, and widening the mindset of society. Without culture a society becomes stale, stagnates, and dies. With too much technology society becomes stale, stagnate, and dies.

“No minds, replaced by tech. No digestive tract, replaced by tech. No souls, replaced by tech!” Mordin Solus, ME2