WWMWBI - Genuine Anagathics Were Available

If it was rare then only the nobles or equvilant would have it.If it were common there would be massive overpopulation and the poor would probebly be forcibly steralized to prevent the population problem getting even worse.

Those who control the spice, control the empire...

Well those who control the anagathics can control the world, they can barter their anagathic agent for temporal powers or immense wealth (with which they can buy more power). They can shape society to their whim by the nature of their distribution.

If anyone can have it, if the have enough Life chips... then they can oppress the poor by keeping them poor.. by dangling immortality infront of them... pushing them into lottery or gambling for Life chips.

If they set up a tournament of champions, only those that survive the gladiatorial and other contests win a dose. Entertainment for the masses and selective development.

If only the rich can have it, then the rich will eventually become poor... as they pour their wealth into anagathics.

You see the point.

In Kerren, they would limit or ignore the existance of the anagathics agent. The existance of anagathics is so against their creedo (and they come from a world where medical life extension through nano-tech is just a bit rarer that common place) that they would purge the knowledge of the anagathic agent from the computer's database and take steps to ensure that people did not learn of it. Sounds fantatical? In many ways, the colonists were fantatics, and the descendents are much the same way.

In Arth, the existance of such substances would cause the Imperium to crumble,and chuck a bit of chaos and war into the Known World. In the Imperial Court, experience determines power and respect. Experience is a serious function of age for the Immortal High Elventi. Certain standard Elventi mutate into High Elventi - showing their divine right to rule (mutations occur due to no tracable factors). High Elventi become court officials based upon their aptitudes and their age/ experience. Do you see the issue brewing?

The existance of anagathics would disrupt Elventi culture. Elventi never wanted to claim that immortality makes them special, thus their right to rule. They claimed experience is the determining function. (Though many do believe that ascention the key factor.) Those who were effectively immortal through the use of the anagathic could upsurp the existing status quo... by becoming surplanting natural immortals... and seizing power... without the divine mandate of ascention (acheiving high elventi status).

This is not that much of a problem now, given the slow Elventi birthrates. Eventually it would create a top heavy government, with too many chiefs and not enough indians.

Now if the anagathic worked for any other species, then the Elventi Imperium would eventually collapse. Immortal Humanti, Dwarventi, et al would eventually bring radically different ideas to the Imperial table and tradition would demand that after a time they be given appropriate powers in the Imperium... yet these people are not living in 'The graceful flow of days'/ Elventi time. They live in Humanti time.

(Of course, living a human scaled life with an immortal lifespan will lead to madness, depression, and other insanities. (See Highlander or Forever Knight for good examples) Which these immortals will bring into the imperial government. Given that all Elventi respect the 'experienced' without thinking about it, and most Imperial citizen would probably go along with any immortal's orders.... Chaos. The known world will come to a crashing end and a new radically different culture would eventually emerge after all the death, dying, war, plague, etc.

While in most worlds, anagathics would cause widespread social chaos and necessitate many changes, in Midian this probably wouldn't be the case. Elves and other Fae (with the notable exception of Hobgoblins) are already immortal. Their societies have never had mortality as an issue, so there would not be any changes, even if the rest of the world stopped aging. There is a rumour that some mutant Firps aren't showing any signs of aging. However, the mutants are banished from their city-state, and have more of a problem with surviving other obstacles than those associated with advanced age. If it were readily available, the faster breeding races (Humans & Orcks) would slowly gain even more of a numeric advantage, but that is occurring regardless of their lifespan. For Orcks, their lifespan is a century or two, biologically speaking, but due to their cultural and environmental pressures the practical average lifespan is reduced to about 30 years. As most of the major Human nations--along with the Killian Empire--are hereditary monarchies (and currently in capable hands), there would be an elimination of the typical minor chaos that surrounds a new ruler taking the throne. There is a chance that Formour will become an informal geriatocracy, as that culture favours experience and wisdom. Byzant would be the nation with the greatest changes, regardless of the availability of agathics, with the gap between the wealthy (and now near immortal) and the poor widening. However, this condition already strongly exists there, the only real change would be that money will change hands less. For some, the cost of immortality would never be too high, but these are likely to seek out Undeath as a viable option. For others, immortality would not necessarily be seen as a good thing--such as the Human who worries that he and his countrymen would become as strange and aloof as the already-immortal Elves.

For the record, the life expectancies in Midian (without agathics) are as follows:

Dwarf: 200-350 years

Elf (or other Fae): Immortal

Firp: 40-60 years (legends talk of much older Firps)

Ghoul: unknown; estimated to be at least 100 years outside of hibernation

Hobgoblin: 50-80 years

Human (all varieties): 50-110 years

Killian: 50-800 years (upper end reputed from antiquity)

Ogre: 150-300 years (estimated)

Orck: 100-200 years (cut them in-two and count the rings)

Troll: 40-400 years

...another way to a longer life.

What if suddenly it was possible to ressurect people, if it wasn't before? Maybe they had to be dead for only a short time, maybe anyone could be brought back. Maybe it requires a special ritual, maybe only the priests of a certain deity can do it... or maybe any wizard powerful enough.

In any way, the power to bring back one's friends (or enemies) could upset the society much like that genuine medicine. Or even more, as those who die can still come back.

So, what would happen?

The interesting thing about large systems, be it an organism, or society, or in our area of interest, a game world, there is a constant effort towards balance. Things that upset the balance have a natural tendancy to smooth themselves out in sometimes spectacular fashion.

Many thanks for the quote Moon!

Quote from: 'Scrasamax'

The interesting thing about large systems, be it an organism, or society, or in our area of interest, a game world, there is a constant effort towards balance. Things that upset the balance have a natural tendancy to smooth themselves out in sometimes spectacular fashion.

Welcome to a somewhat complete summary of Toynbee's work. Society is an interplay of competing inputs. The Society/ group develops various adaptions to fufill the needs of the society and group. In times of crisis, the structures break down... things unimportant are stripped away... and the surviving structures form the foundation of the society/group.

Toynbee, Arnold Joseph

1889-1975, English historian; nephew of Arnold Toynbee.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee (April 14, 1889 - October 22, 1975), British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934 - 1961, (also known as History of the World) was very popular in its time.

Toynbee, a prolific author, was the nephew of a great economic historian, Arnold Toynbee, with whom he is sometimes confused. Born in London, Arnold J was educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford. He worked for the Foreign Office during both World War I and World War II. He was Director of Studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (1925-1955) and Research Professor of International History at the University of London.

Toynbee was interested in the seeming repetition of patterns in history and, later, in the origins of civilisation. It was in this context that he read Spengler's Decline of the West and although there is some superficial similarity, both men describe the rise, flowering and decline of civilisations, their work moved in different directions.

Toynbee agreed with Spengler that there were strong parallels between their situation in Europe and the ancient Greco-Roman civilization. Toynbee saw his own views as being more scientific and empirical than Spengler's, he described himself as a 'metahistorian' whose 'intelligible field of study' was civilization.

In his Study of History Toynbee describes the rise and decline of 23 civilisations. His over-arching analysis was the place of moral and religious challenge, and response to such challenge, as the reason for the robustness or decline of a civilisation. He described parallel life cycles of growth, dissolution, a 'time of troubles,' a universal state, and a final collapse leading to a new genesis. Although he found the uniformity of the patterns, particularly of disintegration, sufficiently regular to reduce to graphs, and even though he formulated definite laws of development such as 'challenge and response,' Toynbee insisted that the cyclical pattern could, and should, be broken.

Toynbee's books, huge in scale, achieved wide prominence but he was more admired by the History reading public than by fellow historians, who criticised him for contorting information to fit his alleged patterns of history.

The ideas he promoted had some vogue (Toynbee actually appeared on the Cover of Time magazine in 1947). They have not however proved to be of decisive influence on other historians. Toynbee's work was subject to an effective critique by Pieter Geyl and an article written by Hugh Trevor-Roper, 'Arnold Toynbee's Millenium' - descibing Toynbee's work as a 'Philosophy of Mish-Mash' - dramatically undermined Toynbee's reputation.

http://www.google.com/search?q=toynbee+A+Study+of+History+&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=