View source for Medieval Stasis/Playing With

{{trope}}
'''Basic Trope''': A society has remained stagnant technologically (and perhaps culturally) for a long time.
* '''Straight''': The Kingdom of Genericland still has the same tech, borders and ruling dynasty as when they were founded a thousand years ago.
* '''Exaggerated''': A man emerges from stasis after twenty million years and can't tell the difference.
* '''Downplayed''': The world still looks and acts like a medieval one, but [[Schizo-Tech]] more advanced than even ''today's'' is present.
* '''Justified''': Another society is manipulating things behind the scenes.
** Alternatively, people are just VERY traditional and that causes history to repeat itself again and again, allowing for no great changes.
*** Or a previous, possibly extinct society had [[And Man Grew Proud]] issues so either the local gods or the society itself try to have it remain on a tech-level where things can't result in random self-extermination.
* '''Inverted''': See [[Lensman Arms Race]].
* '''Subverted''': The stagnant society is a facade for a much more advanced one.
* '''Double Subverted''': Which itself hadn't advanced for centuries.
* '''Parodied''': Genericland has not advanced since the beginning of time itself.
* '''Deconstructed''': Genericland is an insulated bubble kingdom that expels its creative and inventive people and has a massive conspiracy to maintain the [[Status Quo Is God|status quo]], and eventually gets overrun by the world that passed it by.
* '''Reconstructed:''': But then something like a Cataclysmic event happens and reverts it back to the stone age, meaning that Genericland is the only land that does not devolve into chaos.
* '''Zig Zagged''': Another country, one that ''is'' a thousand years ahead, invades and conquers easily. It then turns out that this other country has been at the same a thousand years ahead level for ''two'' thousand years.
** See the entries for [[Clock Punk]] and [[Schizo-Tech]]
* '''Averted''': Genericland does not have any absurd levels of technological stagnation.
* '''Enforced''': The work is a sequel, far separated in time from the original but the creator didn't want to change the feel of the work too much.
* '''Lampshaded''': "Did you notice how we're all still using horses to plow when Advancilvania next door has tractors?"
* '''Invoked''': An especially bright peasant designs a device you mount on your plow that drills holes in the soil for seeds...a "[[wikipedia:Seed drill#History|seed drill]]", if you will. His neighbors give him funny looks, and the local sheriff gives him a clunk on the head for "thinking beyond his station"...
* '''Defied''': ...so he leaves for next-door Advancilvania and builds it there. Assuming [[Planet of Hats|there is an Advancilvania]].
* '''Discussed''': ???
* '''Conversed''': ???
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Back to [[Medieval Stasis]]. You'll notice Brother Gerard did a fine job on [[Schizo-Tech|the illumination of the initial "HTML"]].

{{reflist}}
[[Category:Medieval Stasis]]
[[Category:Playing With]]