BY LETTER
Technological Taboo
Variant of the Encyclopaedia Everythingiana Worldbuilding Competition. A game (usually played-out in virch, but occasionally in r/l as well, as with the usual Worldbuilding Competition) popular with sapients and low-level transapients of all types. The object of the game (whether real or virtual) is to achieve the highest "general" level of technology possible, while avoiding one or more specific "taboo" techs. Techs commonly forbidden include: forged metals, electricity, internal combustion, nuclear fission, and semi-conductors. Vecs and anti-biont AI often play a version of the game in which any form of biotech - use of any material or process that has a biological origin, or that involves biology even distantly or incidentally - is forbidden.
The idea behind the game is, sometimes forcing oneself to work within (usually reasonable) constraints, can "force" one to be more creative. To look for, and find, solutions and possibilities one would not think of otherwise.
The "taboo" can be, and often is, enforced by placing the contestants in an environment (real or virtual) where the forbidden tech(s) won't work (a place suffering frequent EM storms to discourage the use of electricity or semi-conductors), or where materials necessary for the technology to work are unavailable or in prohibitively short supply (an absence of heavy metals, fossil fuels, fissionable isotopes, or biological materials).
The idea behind the game is, sometimes forcing oneself to work within (usually reasonable) constraints, can "force" one to be more creative. To look for, and find, solutions and possibilities one would not think of otherwise.
The "taboo" can be, and often is, enforced by placing the contestants in an environment (real or virtual) where the forbidden tech(s) won't work (a place suffering frequent EM storms to discourage the use of electricity or semi-conductors), or where materials necessary for the technology to work are unavailable or in prohibitively short supply (an absence of heavy metals, fossil fuels, fissionable isotopes, or biological materials).
Appears in Topics
Development Notes
Text by Mike Parisi
Initially published on 28 July 2003.
Initially published on 28 July 2003.
