I've had the notion for Oddtech. That is, a civilization founded on technology which is workable for us, but we might not choose to use it. Steampunk is not an example as 'punk tech works on part-magic principles. A good example is an Orion nuclear bomb propelled 4,000 tonne payload spaceship. We could do it, but we chose not too as releasing several hundred or so airburst nukes seemed unacceptable for a rocket flight. That is Oddtech.
I've thought that it would be nice to do a series of worlds based on Oddtech, and also on Oddpsionic.
Carwinia does not have most of modern technology. Instead, they have genetic engineering of plants and bacteria. Lights at night are provided by genertically engineered bioluminescent squash, for example. Houses grow from pumpkins (what else?).
There are problems with power transport. No national electrical grid is possible in their circumstances. Energy transport is dangerous, chancy, and hard because it means carrying "Rocket Cane" which is sugar cane gengineered to hold nitrocellulose in its veins...highly explosive and unstable. Hence, the power transport is primitive, and decentralized. Most people grow their own power with Sunflower Weeds that often cursed, but very useful combination of Kudzu and Sunflower and Photovoltaic Cells. Its often cursed because it grows like Kudzu, and it somewhere in the gene-modding, perhaps from a gengineer with a curious streak, picked up a tropism for protecting itself via reflecting sunlight into the eyes of mammals nearby.
Carwinia developed from a modern world circa 2180. And then the Smash came when a comet from Jupiter flew, and smashed into Earth. Instant return to Stone Age tech for survivors. Centuries later, things started to get more organized. A kind of High Middle Ages complete with a Warming Period brought a blossoming of prosperity which led to the Learned Men which led to a blossoming of cultural life and intellectual inquiry. It is in this time that the first of the Great Cities became Great, and Kingdoms were founded.
In Brandyland, so named for its peach brandy, the town of Seigeiceau became great, and from it the Wine Kings ruled the Kingdom of North Brandyland. For, all the technology had been smashed by the Smash and the ensuing centuries, but searchers into ancient things found something that took Carwinia from the Middle Ages tech to a much higher level.
In the CGC buildings (Centre for Genetic Control in the Olde Tongue) there were strains of bacteria, and instructions in those bacteria (written in the very code of life by desperate researchers before the Smash). The 'Red' buildings were destroyed with their Death Virii, but the 'Useful Friends' had been growing by themselves for centuries in underground vaults.
In the space of two generations, village men whose grandfathers had lived by smoking torches now had clean, calm, safe bioluminescence, and in the great cities many further wonders were possible.
The Learned Men were rewarded for their help to society and enormous universities sprang up.
The work of an Archeologist became greatly honored. The first generation of professional Archeologists found wonders, and many mysteries.
One mystery they found were cars, and trucks by the hundreds and then thousands. This had the effect of strenthening the religion of the time which was the worship of the Five Gods. For some thought that these cars and trucks had run by divine power because no other cause could be seen for their running. Each type of car was identified with one of the Five Gods, and indeed there was an uncanny match to all this in a twisted sort of way.
Gem, the Lord of Learning and Master of Creation (GM)
The Hand, He who Crafts Well and Works Hard (Honda)
Toyman, The Jester, the Playful One (Toyota)
Shover, The Lord of Ambition and of Death for in the end we all are pushed to the grave. (Chevy)
Nissa, The Winged Lady of Victory and Adulation (Nissan confused with Nike)
And the land greatly prospered, and trade links between Seigeiseau and We-art-rid (USAMRIID) and other Great Cities were strengthened, and war came between such cities.
And it was so that the bounty of discovery was fading with the passage of generations for there remained few things to find, and the trade routes were firm and wide for the rich carvan masters who took camels through the tiger infested wastelands far from the Great Cities. And then a great man came to stand as Learned Man in the SGC University.
He taught, nay preached although he disdained that word, that Cars were the distant ancestors of Trucks. That such vehicles as the Sub-a-rue, which the followers of the Five Gods tried to fit into their theology as an angel was actually the ancestor of Four Wheel Trucks with combat capabilities shown by their 'rifle racks'. The 'Rebel Yell' truck was the evolved descendant of the Sub-a-rue. The Truck was larger, and more complex. It also had the ability to defend itself better which probably meant that when it had mutated to be on the scene, it had quickly wiped out all the Sub-a-rues.
This further meant that the 'Semi rigs' which were found mainly on the kings highways of that olde tyme were the most evolved predators, and they had probably been in the process of destroying the Rebel Yell trucks and spreading everywhere when the Smash destroyed everything.
It was good evolutionary logic. The larger, more complex descended from the smaller, and simpler.
One of the descendants of the great man who went by the name Lord Chuck, and this man was named Lord Hustler, was a famed pit bull of a man who came to reside at the President's Office of the University to this day. He affirmed the notion that the Smash had not happened.
Granted, there were thousands and thousands of cars and trucks, and this gave the appearance of some massive disaster overfalling them, but in truth, these creatures had been slowly buried over the millenia. He estimated that it would take nearly ten thousand years for a Sub-a-rue to be buried, and twenty thousand for a Semi Rig. Thus, the Olde Tymes, if they had at all been real as they were in song and myth (and how unreliable is all that?) had to have been at least twenty-five thousand years ago.
This had the benefit of distracting people from the fact that the Great Universities were not producing very much anymore. This was due to two facts. One, they had gotten fat, dumb, and happy in their privilege. Two, the digs where they had found so much information were mostly played out.
The new benefits to society came from young men and women who were trying to advance the work of genetic engineers, and make new advances of their own. Unfortunately, the Universities sucked up most of the research funds. And the Universities attacked the New Researchers as 'dangerous fools thinking they can improve on the work of the Ancient Gengineers.' because those in charge of the Universities could clearly see the threat from the New Research Movement.
And on another front, there was the Intelligent Designers who generally worshipped the Five Gods, but not always. They produced mountains of information, and clear lines of logic which called Lord Chuck's theory into question. In return, the Universities castigated them as 'backwards villagers trapped in superstition.', and organized travelling road shows at the King's expense to persuade the villagers of their stupidity. The villagers began to grumble about the virtue of tar and feathers, and the Universities responded by pressing the King to make the attendance of the Travelling Shows to be mandatory, and to increase the cost of attendance.
Squeezed by the pocketbook for taxes were heavy, and economic progress had slowed, and taunted as stupid by Learned Men who seemed stupid, the villagers simmered and the ID discontent spread even as Lord Chuck's followers grew more strident.
And the verser arrives...
Well, actually, there are a number of good places for the verser to arrive. He could arrive before the asteroid hits, and be part of the frantic preparations to save something of modern learning. He would also be well to arrive in the days when the Great Cities arise. And for comedic effect, and revolution he could arive in the days which later became called the Age of Illogic, and the University Riots (which were more like war than riots) and the Peasants' Revolts which led to the ...
1. If successful, the Age of Capitalist Republics and Freedom of Thought.
2. If unsuccessful, into the Dagger Wars as social trust declines, and the trade routes are shredded, and disorder spreads on the wings of riot, famine, and assasination of 'friends' as a means of changing policy. This leads to a slowly declining, and fraught with shadowy terror world as the political system crumbles. Eventually someone develops and unleashes a Death Virus, and things go from Bad to Really Horrible to Total Collapse very quickly. A millenia later, mankind has another chance to climb up from the apocalypse of lies.
