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Author: zarpaulus

Jun 22nd 2012 at 1:00:47 PM

Mined from the MedievalStasis page:

[[AC: Film]]
* The technology of the Franchise/{{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.
** An easier explanation is that the only Predators we see are hunters who explicitly show "sportsmanlike" behavior, including killing only armed opponents and sparing, for example, pregnant women. It follows that the crazy-superior tech they are using is what they consider fair. Their tech may be better, but what is "fair" to use on the humans hasn't changed in hundreds of years. Much the same way some humans often still use bows to hunt deer rather than carpet-bombing them from the stratosphere.
*** Hinted in the current comics to be this, as it's about a clan of Predators who don't follow the hunter's code of honor.

[[AC: Literature]]
* Such a stasis is also arguably the main theme and plot point of another Yulia Latynina novel: ''Inhuman'', which is set in the dystopian interstellar Empire of Humans where, according to one of the characters, no technological advances were made for the last several centuries. [[spoiler: The, uh, antagonists (both sides involved are villains by most measures), effectively an alien conspiracy masquerading as a government conspiracy, want to remedy this.]]
* The Lizards in HarryTurtledove's ''{{Worldwar}}'' novels have been technologically stagnant for nearly 50,000 years, as have been the other alien species they conquered and subjugated in that time. Their leaders are quite surprised when, in the mere 800 years between their first reconnaissance flights over Earth in the 12th century and the arrival of their invasion fleet in 1942, that the human race has gone from horseback to radar.
** It's also stated in the books that their slow technological development is at least in part on purpose. When something new is invented or discovered, it is introduced into their society over the course of decades or centuries, so they can study it's impact on society.
** In the final book, one hundred years later the Lizards are only just beginning to consider what the difference in advancement might mean to their future when the first earth FTL ship arrives in orbit of their Homeworld. The Lizards didn't think FTL was possible and haven't thought about it, or even considered it, in their 50,000 year history. 
* An important plot point in Dan Simmons ''{{Hyperion}}'' Cantos is the fact that the Hegemony of Man is culturally and technologically stagnant, albeit with AI-given toys, while the Ouster "barbarians" have continued to progress. 
* In LarryNiven's ''[[KnownSpace Kzinti]]'' histories. The Kzin aren't terribly intelligent to begin with, and gained the great majority of their technology by rising up against their Jotok masters and offing most of them, and in a universe without FTL technology, it takes a LONG time for things to propagate over several hundred light-years of empire. Imperial standardization as well as simple physics kept the Kzin at a very, very, painfully minuscule level of advancement. The Kzin even have a priestlike caste called the Conservers Of The Ancient Past, whose job is to prevent unneeded change.
** Though after the first couple wars with humanity they become much more motivated to advance, even acquiring hyperdrive shortly after Earth does.
* Somewhat subtle in OrsonScottCard's ''Ender'' books. ''EndersGame'' is set Twenty Minutes into the Future, and the next book, which takes place 3,000 years later, is also Twenty Minutes into the Future, more or less. Not only have technology, politics and linguistics seen few apparent changes, but also social, cultural, and religious attitudes, which can seem rather incongruous, given the amount of change in all those fields during a comparable span of Earth history.
** Most colonies were settled by ships moving at near-lightspeed, thus the passengers were effectively in Suspended Animation for centuries since leaving Earth.  
* The faster-than-light engine does that to societies in HarryTurtledove's ''The Road Not Taken''. One of those (stuck in Napoleonic times, technologically) attacks 20th century Earth. It was a short invasion.

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