Jump 239: Civilization

Jump #239: Civilization
>Ace of Swords, reversed: May suggest new ideas or information with dangerous implications.
Gee, you think?
>Location: 10,000 BC
Looks like we're here for the long haul. Good dice roll though.
>Identity: Advisor
I can only be incarnate for a third of the time I'm here? That's... kind of lame, but I wonder if I can use this function in future jumps? Say, Alpha Centauri? Nah, probably not.
>Drawbacks: Full Table (+400), Raging Barbarians (+200)
I'm okay with having a very large number of civilizations in the world. And the barbarians mean that my people can learn to fight wars without having to actually BE in a constant state of war.
>Methodology: Warfare (1500)
Of course, we're going to have to know how to fight. A martial culture is not necessarily a bad thing.
>Methodology: Science (1400)
Then again, this is a nation that I'm influencing. Which means we are going to science the SHIT out of this world.
>Spirit of the Nation (Free, Advisor)
At least I have something to do while being disembodied-- wait, after this jump I count as being 'present' to anyone loyal to me? Holy shit, this is the best buff EVER, did anyone ever notice that before?
>Muse (1350, Advisor)
Being able to influence people and inspire them is definitely worth going for.
>View of Ages (1200, Advisor)
Being able to take the long view is, in itself, a very important thing. Being able to apply that to the future, equally important.
>Great Man Theory (900, Advisor)
Okay, this is just pure hax. I'll be sure to use this responsibly and not just give someone FTL in a society where it doesn't belong.
>Martial Culture (850, Warfare)
So... basically the society (and in the future, everyone loyal to me) gets the bearing of a professional and gain increased benefits from physical training? Heck yes.
>Authority Equals Asskicking (700, Warfare)
I don't expect to use this often, but when it DOES get used, it should be pretty awesome. I'll have to ensure that there is a clause that the leaders of any organization I'm in are permitted to lead from the front when they feel it necessary, for best results.
>Tabula Rasa (650, Science)
This actually should be a very useful ability. The laws of physics are different from world to world, and I need to not take them for granted. While I have tried to package my tech so that there's a 'generic' techtree that can be followed, this should help that along immensely, as well as not coloring what I think is and is not possible from past jumps.
>The Enlightenment (500, Science)
Not that I didn't already have an understanding of the scientific method, but having it reinforced via perks is not bad. Not to mention being able to spend a few hours to essentially make it possible for others to see it the same way. Handy.
>Tech Tree (200, Science)
'Oh, FTL travel? Well, we'll need to research fusion for sufficient power, advanced astronomy to figure out how to manipulate the fabric of space/time, space travel because you do NOT want to scale this up on a planetary surface...'
>The Oracle (Free, Advisor)
Best answering machine ever.
>The Library of Alexandria (100, Advisor)
I can either use this as a book that contains every book I have (which, I will tell you, is an AWFUL lot) or plonk it down so that my sum total knowledge is available to anyone I want to have read it. Heck yes.
>Brandenburg Gate (Free, Warfare)
More useful as a structure - giving everyone a higher degree of professionalism and pride in their work could go a very long way.
>University of Toronto (Free, Science)
So I can either teach ten thousand students at once, personally, or I can plop it down as a university campus and guarantee that everyone learns their coursework perfectly as long as they have the inclination to try. Heck yes.
>Hubble Telescope (0, Science)
Honestly this is just going into orbit so I can have a satellite view of everything all the time.

So, spending something along the lines of the next twelve thousand years guiding my people to their rightful place should be entertaining, especially because I don't actually have intentions to do much more than guide them with a light hand and intervene only when it's necessary. This is more often than I'd like of course, because it's Civ, barbarians are everywhere, and diplomacy is a bit weird.

After not very long, I decided to take a more direct route with things, by bringing in the city of Kondasse and having it join as the third city. You do remember Kondasse, don't you? A city of a half million dragon-human hybrids? Turns out that over time, they'd basically been neglecting their draconic attributes, considering they've been jumping with me for thousands of years now. Due to magic everyone can fly without needing wings, so they just have the Upgraded Human package that I have on tap. Kondasse is basically the city that is responsible for cranking out Wonders - it gets the ones I paid points for immediately, and every time a new project becomes possible, it gets added as well. As well as all the necessary buildings that a city should have, in addition to the ones it's got from other jumps.

In 9,000 BC, I have three cities. One is 50,000 people. One is 20,000 people. Then there's Kondasse, which was placed adjacent to mountains on a river with a bay, which has 500,000. So it's not a surprise that I'm munchkinning the hell out of everything with that.

One thing that I DID find interesting (and I should have expected this) is that over time, the population mingled, and basically by 7,000 BC everyone in my civilization could use magic in one way or another. While it tended to make peoples' personal lives a little more convenient, technology marched onward rather than stagnating - mostly because I intervened in my role as advisor to make certain it did. I did not push it too hard, but my steadily-growing nation was consistently ahead of the global tech curve, if only by just enough to keep Wonders out of everyone else's hands.

Of course, the overall effects on this over time meant that the rest of the world had sights on trying to surpass us. Aside from the constant onslaught of barbarians, we fought several wars with other civilizations. The renaissance era started at about 500 AD, industrial era in 1000 AD, modern in 1500 AD... I slowed things down deliberately as we'd gotten ahead of everyone else, and it would not do to go too far ahead and have everyone else decide to gang up on us. Even gave away a few techs in order to foster goodwill worldwide.

When we hit the atomic era in 1800 AD, Gandhi started to say that his words were backed by nuclear weapons. And then we invaded him and absorbed his entire civilization because this was expected and normal from him, and I am definitely NOT going to let him stockpile nukes and start flinging them around. A little excessive? Maybe. But I'd planned ahead for precisely such an eventuality. It went better than expected but this was the only time that we ever took this sort of action outright. Most other wars ended in us taking a few cities, giving one or two back when we won, and building those cities up to serve as fortress cities in case an invasion happened again.

The information era started in 2000 AD; honestly I felt it was better to not have everyone get the same addiction for upgrading so quickly that everything ought to be thrown away because something shinier and newer was coming out five years later. When you've got access to the tech tree you can do that sort of thing.

Space victory was achieved in 2299, just for the sake of running out the clock, though the world had declined into warfare between various civs. Which was totally not done by my spies blaming other nations for acts that they did to sabotage the building of their own space bits, or erasing their factories.

Also just for fun, I spent a bit of time as a Planet Spirit and summoned some Planeteers in the nineties, because it was quite frankly hilarious. Turned out to be interesting, they and their successors kept going for a couple hundred years.

Leaving the jump, Kondasse has a fair higher population density and all kinds of buildings that it never had before, which I will admit is pretty damn neat. And despite civilizations fighting each other, the world down there is in pretty good shape while it starts expanding to Alpha Centauri and other star systems.