Medieval Stasis: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:castle-at-medieval-times.jpg|thumb|400px|[[Ludd Was Right|Who needs progress anyhow?]]...<ref>As required by the image re-use terms: "This photo of Kissimmee is courtesy of Tripadvisor"</ref>]]

 

{{quote|''Oh, god of progress,''

 

So, you have a [[Heroic Fantasy]] with a ''long'' history in order to account for the fact that the [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] has been forgotten. You fast forward about five thousand years and reveal a world... exactly like the one you started in! Same technological level, same form of government, same culture—you wouldn't even need to dress differently to fit in.

There is an Enlightenment idea that the Middle Ages were a "dark age", in which the brilliance of the Romans declined. However, this only really applies to [[The Dark Ages]], prior to the 9th century or so, when stone buildings weren't even that common. Technology ramped up again in [[The High Middle Ages]] which saw the invention of the mechanical clock, the crank, windmills, and three-crop rotation: the medieval world changed considerably. Even the so-called "Dark Ages" were a western European phenomenon- the Eastern Roman Empire, the Arab world, China, India, and many other places were as civilized and innovative as ever. The idea of a medieval decline is a [[The Dung Ages|trope in itself]], which has been around since the Renaissance.

 

 

Then again, it could just be the creator's attempt to avoid [[Totally Radical]] or [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]] by the most readily available means, with no attempt at in-universe justification.

 

May feature in a [[Feudal Future]] — even if the technology is far advanced. Compare [[Modern Stasis]]. A related trope is [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]], which is this trope applied to distances rather than time. Also compare to [[Muggles Do It Better]], where in settings that separate the supernatural and the mundane world, the supernatural is locked in a medieval stasis while the mundane continues to advance. If parts of the world are stuck in Medieval Stasis and others have jetpacks, see [[Schizo-Tech]].

 

* The world of ''[[The Twelve Kingdoms]]'' changes little from year to year, although this might have something to do with the world being run by rigid rules governing the selection of rulers and commerce and travel between the kingdoms. Additionally, many of its leaders are immortal and have been strictly charged by the heavens with achieving and maintaining a happy status quo. The lack of any fossil fuels might also be a cause. However, a number of innovations, such as Buddhism, were introduced by people from Earth [[Trapped in Another World]].

** Rakushun also credits refugees from Earth with introducing paper, print and ceramics (presumably an advanced * type* of ceramics, like porcelain?). They use Chinese characters and social structures. Presumably the gods ran off 12 copies of classical China for reasons of their own. Their technology might be 'stagnating' at the level of late China, no steam (but no coal) or electricity (if that even works), but good mechanisms... the fact that many kingdoms get major disasters every 50 years or so when the king dies won't help.

* In ''[[Scrapped Princess]]'', what at first appears to be a stock [[Medieval European Fantasy]] setting is actually the ruins of a highly advanced society possessing artificial intelligences, computer systems, and flying fortresses, not to mention [[Humongous Mecha]]. Their society was artificially sealed into the Dark Ages by an external force after the collapse of this civilization.

** With stability enforced by genocide of uppity populations.

** A lot of the same countries are still around from four thousand years ago, some of them still ruled by the same family who ruled them back then. Or the family that exiled that family and took over, if the previous family was an ally of our guys (the [[Big Bad]] rules a country previously ruled by Conrad's father's family, loyal human allies of Shinou).

*** {{spoiler|With reference to this, Conrad inserts himself into the middle of a succession dispute in season 3, to distract the new villain who had the last one offed.}}

** On the other hand, the Mazoku, the race occupying Shin Makoku, appear to have bred to be [[Our Elves Are Better|incredibly long-lived]] in the four thousand years since breaking off from the rest of humanity. Apparently concentrating the magic-user genes can have really impressive effects.

 

* ''[[Thieves and Kings]]'' has this without explanation - there have been (many, many) wars, mind, but one character moved from centuries in the past to join the main characters and no-one even comments on her accent.

* Justified in-universe in ''[[The Adventures of Barry Ween]]''. Barry travels through a dimensional wormhole to the world of Ramaat, which is locked in a Medieval Stasis due to "The Drain"; a natural phenomenon that causes all power to dissipate rapidly. Even ordinary fire is not possible. Being that Ramaat is a world with three suns, [[Shown Their Work|this actually makes sense]], as it would keep the world from being cooked by solar radiation.

 

* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', while Ketafa is a thriving quasi-Victorian society with factories, guns, and at least one motorized vehicle, Baravada has completely stagnated, technology-wise (though they are rife with magic), and the inhabitants brush off inventions as “tinkerings.”

* In ''[[Halo Finishing The Fight]],'' magic is justified as the reason why society has remained somewhat stagnant. Why build a dam when you can just have a wizard divert a river for you with a spell?

* In ''[[The Fall of the Fire Empire]]'', this is [[Justified Trope|justified]]. While taking place in an era analogous to ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'', technology has barely advanced from what was around in the original series. It's eventually revealed that the {{spoiler|imprisonment of the Moon and Ocean Spirits unintentionally}} trapped the natural world in social and technological stasis because of the metaphysical disruption to the Balance of all things. The world can only get ''worse'' but not better {{spoiler|until the Spirits are freed}}.

 

* The technology of the [[Predator]]s is never seen to advance, even when their appearances are hundreds of years apart. The [[Expanded Universe]] justifies this by explaining that a long time ago the Predators' society became all about the hunt, and they lost all interest in intellectual pursuits.

** There is a sometimes-canon and sometimes-not explanation that their tech is stolen from an older race that attempted to occupy their planet. They can replicate and adapt it, but lack the understanding of its base principles to improve on it.

** Given their innate connection to the sentient planet and the rest of its ecosystem, they may be more extensions of Pandora then a real "alien race" in any case.

 

* [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s Middle-earth (''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', etc). Generally speaking, over thousands of years, the basic technology appears to be the same - for the most part. However, everything was grander and more magical in the First Age, and the Elves are fading away as of the Third Age. They are in their "autumn, never to be followed by another spring". The ages of the world tend to end with [[Eucatastrophe]], meaning any technological advances were lost to Middle-earth between ages. Either the technology itself was lost to all knowledge or the Elves took it away with them as they left Middle-earth. Still, while technology, armor and weapons in particular, is generally described in the same terms over the ages, there are indications of advances, though they are usually unique to certain cultures and simply don't become widespread as in the modern world.

** The peoples of the First Age had the best tech of all. The Elves built a ship of ''mithril and elven glass'' that could travel through the sky and the Void (outer space). When Morgoth invaded Gondolin, according to one version, his troops rolled across the mountains with "great engines with fire in their bellies" that could flatten defense towers and carried hundreds of orcs inside. Sounds very much like he had access to large APC vehicles. Also the dragons were implied to be biomechanical. However, this is glossed over in later versions. The Elves also invented magical lanterns with an everlasting blue flame which never get mentioned again later. The Dwarves invented chain mail, which later spread to most cultures in Middle-earth.

* In Patricia Kennealy's ''[[The Keltiad]]'', Keltia's futuristic technology, dark ages culture, and even language have been in a stasis for thousands of years. This extends to the time before the Kelts left planet Earth to found their interstellar kingdom.

 

* A very low-key and unnoticeable at first glance version is present on the decidedly-[[Space Western]] border planets of ''[[Firefly]]'', which background material describes as intentional on the part of the Core planets to keep them backward and controlled. There's even intentional technological stasis where the villain of the episode has the money to build a real city, but keeps it at a wild-west level so he can 'play cowboy' and be the one with the best toys.

* An interesting variant appears in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', in which the Goa'uld are shown in ancient Egypt sequences as using the same technology as they do in the regular episodes. In the time that humans went from simple bows to nuclear missiles, the Goa'uld haven't added trigger guards to their guns. This is justified by Goa'uld culture being antithetical to good scientific practice (although Goa'uld scientists like Nirrti and Nerus do exist), and all their technology being stolen anyway, but to be this extreme, they need to be quite the [[Planet of Hats]].

* In the classic ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "Errand of Mercy", the Organians live with medieval technology and have absolutely no interest in help developing from [[The Federation]] or [[Evil Empire|the Klingons]]. [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in that the Organians are actually advanced [[Energy Beings]] who simply have no need for technology anymore and the town was just a front so they could interact with physical beings.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "Up the Long Ladder" The Enterprise rescues a group of [[Space Amish]] who have lived as they have for 200 years, even keeping their Irish accents. In the same episode they come across the other, technological, group from the same original colonists of whom only five survived landing and they have been breeding through advanced cloning for 200 years - but evidently keeping their stasis so as not to develop space travel to go back and get more humans for their genetic pool.

 

* In [[BattleTech]], a series of violent civil wars have destroyed almost all the factories for [[Humongous Mecha|Battlemechs]], and the equipment that goes into them. Battlemechs from 500 years ago are more advanced than the ones being built at the time. [[Cargo Cult|ComStar]] is dedicated to retrieving [[Lost Technology|LosTech]] and preserving/worshiping it.

** This is eventually subverted as the timeline progresses. By the time of the [[Fed Com]] Civil War and Word of Blake Jihad, the Inner Sphere powers have rediscovered and even improved upon Star League technology, or invented entirely new equipment.

* Inverted in ''Pendragon'', which starts off in post-Roman Britain until [[King Arthur]] takes the throne, then each phase of his reign parallels a period in the history of England from the Norman Conquest to the Wars of the Roses with technology to match.

 

* The eponymous town of ''[[Brigadoon]]'', where [[Year Inside, Hour Outside|a day inside is a hundred years outside]].

 

* ''[[Bionicle]]'''s planet of Bara Magna. Following a literal [[Earthshattering Kaboom]], during which the planet Spherus Magna split into three, the society of the desert region-turned-planet found itself in shambles. They created a system in which disputes over resources would be settled with gladiator matches, and when the story continues 100 000 years later, nothing is any different -- even most of the ''people'' are still the same, thanks to their [[We Are as Mayflies|long-ass lifespans]]. Characters who were treated as inexperienced youngsters a hundred millennia ago are still seen as such. Super-powerful beings still continue their war that to the rest of the planet is only a memory. Some people, like Vastus, still feel guilty over what they've done in that war. True, the Iron Tribe died out and at some point the Skrall Tribe moved from the Northern mountains to the desert, but that's pretty much it. Society and technology never moved an inch forward, even though the characters built high-tech implants into themselves and had the war-machines of old to study.

 

* ''Medieval II: [[Total War]]'' - If you continue to play the game well after you pass/fail the requirements needed to beat it, and assuming you and another faction is still playing, you could potentially see Europe celebrating the year 1900 AD, yet have everything look as it did way back 900 years ago.

** Not to mention that, if you play as a country like Scotland, the game never lets you build gunpowder units because Scotland never got them in real life. In other words, other countries get to roll out cannons while you're still stuck with swords.

* ''[[Dark Souls]]'' has at least a 1,000 years with no progress past the [[Medieval European Fantasy]] seen during the [[Action Prologue]].

 

* Parodied in ''[[8-Bit Theater]]'', when Red Mage confronts Thief about the supposed superiority of elves, who have technology on par with the rest of the world despite having a 9000-year headstart. Thief responds with something to the effect of "Er... we like it that way. You inferior beings wouldn't understand." Plus there are ruined ancient civilizations everywhere who had helicopters, flying castles, killer robots, cold fusion reactors, which indicates that progress does occur elsewhere, it just keeps getting knocked back in anachronism every so often. Occasionally because of the elves, but mostly because ''everyone'' is [[Too Dumb to Live]].

* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20090406170925/http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/floyd/floydwelcome.html Floyd]'' by Aaron Williams, at one point "ten thousand years" are mentioned, with an even ''longer'' history prior. This is longer, in the real world, than written history has actually existed (though this may be an [[After the End]] situation as well).

* ''[[Drowtales]]'' plays this trope straight concerning the technology, but there is a slow cultural, social and political evolution during the 1000 years of the moonless age. for example, great clans rise and fall, the faith in Sharess was strong, but is now challenged by demonic worshipping.

 

* Averted in ''[[Tales of MU]]'', which is supposed to be a "medieval fantasy setting, five hundred years later," with [[Magitek]] in place of modern technology. A side story set two hundred years in the past of the main story resembled America's colonial period.

* [[Limyaael's Fantasy Rants|Limyaael]] has written a [http://limyaael.livejournal.com/463451.html rant] specifically on how to keep these kinds of settings plausible.

** See also the [[Stargate]] example above, where the Goa'uld do the same thing.

 

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. In the flashbacks into the lives of three of Aang's previous lives, which seems to span somewhere on the order of three or four-hundred years, literally ''nothing'' seems to have changed. In fact, the Fire Nation Navy ships during the bulk of the series are vertually indistinquishable from the ones composing the small fleet seen during the episode describing the origins of the War. ''One-Hundred years previous''. Considering the fact that the technological level of the show's setting seems to be late-19th to early 20th Century industry with a few Steampunk elements, and that war tends to accelerate technological development, this is especially jarring.

*** This one has an interesting, hidden, corollary: the Kyoshi warriors. They model their outfits and fighting style off of Kyoshi, who was probably alive something like 200 years before the start of the series... which is plausible enough, but makes Kyoshi Island essentially the badass ninja version of Colonial Williamsburg.

** Also in Season 3, Aang tries to blend into the Fire Nation using [[Totally Radical|100-year-old slang and body language,]] failing [[Hilarity Ensues|miserably.]]

* Hilariously/Tragically subverted in ''[[Thundercats 2011|ThunderCats (2011)]]'' While the Thundercats' society has remained in Medieval Stasis at a level around that of the dark ages or [[Lord of the Rings]], the opening has the Lizards suddenly attack with [[Humongous Mecha|Giant Robots,]] [[Stuff Blowing Up|Missiles,]] and laser guns. It's a massive [[Curb Stomp Battle]] for the heroes, and Thundera (the homeland of the Thundercats) is wiped out in less than a day.

 

** This is actually a common misconception. In reality, he banned all missile weapons (including crossbows, but also bows, slings, etc) for wars between Christian nations, but absolutely nobody listened to him.

*** Far from it, by the end of the 15th century, the Longbow was reaching an impasse in terms of power, as it couldn't reliably pierce contemporary armor anymore (seen at Agincourt, for example) and were only ever used en masse in Scandinavia and the British Isles. Artillery, on the other hand, did make people comment on the end of knighthood.

**** Agincourt was an example of how archers could turn the tide of battle against heavily armed cavalry. They simply ran out of arrows before they could finish the job with their longbows (and thus, switched to their swords and we know how the rest of that story played out). Further on, the invention of man portable firearms ended the reign of knights, just as artillery ended the widespread development of castles as fortified positions. The difference is in how technology marched on. Quality archers, not just any old conscript, had to be trained from youth in the use of a longbow to be at their most effective. When the first [[Hand Cannon]] came about, a conscript need only a couple weeks of training to be effective.

** [[Did Not Do the Research|There has been more than one industrial revolution]].

** Besides, you know, not having the reason or ability to use it. Having some toy use it and having giant machines work it are very different concepts.

* The political, social and technological organization of Japan remained practically the same from 1600 to 1853 - while the rest of the world evolved - but this was mostly intentional, due to legally-enforced restrictions. The basic organization of the Japanese society and state experiences little to no evolution throughout the Feudal period, 1185-1868, despite all wars, upheavals and European conversion attempts.

** Considering [[wikipedia:Chinese inventions|how many things]] the Chinese invented, China definitely peaked earlier than Europe, but like Japan its development was very much slowed during the reign of the Qing dynasty. The Emperor/Empress took a [[Ludd Was Right]] approach to almost all European technology or innovation, although an earlier Chinese government did use some Jesuit priests' information on astronomy to fix their lunar calendar, which had fallen out of sync with the actual moon.

* In medieval times, this was a popular perception in reverse. Paintings of great battles or events such as the Crusades would often depict the armies in whatever the latest, most fashionable, and most advanced armor of the present time was; when in reality the warriors fought in little more then chainmail.

** This is also why the popular images of Jesus, the Saints, and many angels look suspiciously like Renaissance-era Italians both physically and in how they are dressed.

* Many peoples were never able to get much beyond "hunting and gathering" up to the modern day. Mostly these have been very isolated communities or tribes (such as jungles) where little trade with other people is possible, there is no single reliable food supply, and every person is constantly working to keep the group of people alive, leaving little time for technological and social advances.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]