Post Apocalyptic Feudalism

I'm working on a setting set years after a major event that has left humanity to pick up its pieces and try to rebuild, the story in question focuses on a singular robot who carries a advanced Sword and Shield as he wanders the Earth attempting to piece together who he was and why he woke up in a dingy bunker.

The problem I'm having is finding a good reason to justify why several settlements he enters have gone Feudalism and why the people go along with it. Aesthetically it's to fit with the Knight like design the robot himself has, but lore wise I'm having some difficulty figuring out why.

Anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

Feudalism at it's core is basically the "peasantry" agreeing to let themselves be ruled by the local military-aristocracy in return for protection by said military-aristocracy. In a post apocalyptic setting the breakdown of the established order would probably make "protection in return for leadership" a viable option depending on how bad it gets.

Certain areas would have more abundant resources thus meaning that certain political systems would work better.

While Feudalism would fit with areas where Resources are harder to gain and thus need more protection.

Okay that makes sense.

Sounds like the OP's question was about the aesthetics of technology, though, if I understood it correctly?

My advice is "Don't bother thinking about it too deeply unless you want to write sociological science fiction."

People design things to look the way they want them to look. They're susceptible to fads, trends, and bad taste. The Star Trek Expanded Universe novels do this all the time to justify why the Enterprise from the original series is touted as very advanced but doesn't have so much as a touchscreen without manual switches and whatnot.

The Doylist explanation is "The original Star Trek was made in the mid-late sixties and this was the best they could do, no one seriously expected Star Trek would still be a thing in 2018."

The Watsonian explanations are "it's so advanced that the ship's crew is confident about handling their tech without all those fancy holographic interfaces" or "the technology proved unreliable and was not integrated into the Constitution-class or other starships again until it was perfected in the late 24th century with the development of the Galaxy-class starship." Or whatever. Maybe digital technology was "lost" in World War III and a young interstellar Earth had to redevelop that stuff based on old records.

Just because our current idea of a "futuristic" aesthetic is probably for most people somewhere between Cyberpunk, Everything Is An I Pod In The Future, and Crystal Spires and Togas doesn't mean that technological or cultural regression won't leave a Schizo Tech-ish aesthetic in place (arguably most parts of the world look like that now unless you're a one-percenter). That aesthetic theoretically could be written to resemble any aesthetic you wish- Atom Punk, Raygun Gothic, Diesel Punk, Steampunk, Clock Punk... maybe there are invisible EMP-emitting "mines" buried underground from an ancient war that routinely send out pulses that disable electronics, and you're left with horses pulling Priuses through the solar farms that line the devastated ruins of Interstate I-95. If you're going for a "feel," not necessarily realism, there's a million ways you can justify robots that carry swords and shields and have armor that resembles what feudal knights wore. Hell, chainmail IS a decent flexible covering for an armature with sensitive components. Are there better materials your robot could use? Sure. But maybe all they had available was chainmail.

As for the economics of feudalism: I think this makes sense if you're trying to subvert the idealistic notion that "post-scarcity" societies would make it obsolete overnight for rich, powerful individuals to horde wealth and wield power over others, which is something I like to do in my writing (EG some technology and behaviors exist for no other reason than "the culture invented this in furtherance of its own value system). For example, my stories involve futuristic societies that can and do build drones that can put out fires or fight in orbital combat.

But the drones work alongside firefighting humans and military pilots of crewed combat spacecraft because firefighters, cops, etc have politically powerful/influential unions, and the military pilots have the aristocracy.

It would involve some very decadent and narcissistic personalities at the top, and that might even come from a Darwinian process or some kind of eugenics program. Or possibly a combination of inbreeding bluebloods, Cybernetics Eat Your Soul, etc. They might enjoy keeping the "peasants" in an archaic and oppressed state, or it may be part of a bigger plan (EG a more ignorant, more easily manipulated disposable workforce that works for shiny novelties out of desparation rather than the old, liquidated disposable workforce that knew about the wage system or the exchange value of money and demanded more than indentured servitude before their, erm, liquidation).

A robot whose outer chassis resembled a feudal knight is an aesthetic you can justify in many ways depending on the tone and degree of realism you're going for. Maybe it was built by a mad scientist/aristocrat who wanted a symbol his people could fear. Or maybe it's actually an homage to Darth Vader, in-universe!

I think you might be reading into something else. Society and the world ended and in the aftermath people have formed settlements, some of which operate under feudalism, it's not a commentary or anything, I'm not the kind of guy to pull that off believably or very well.

And I can't say too much about HOW the world ended because that spoils a lot of the plot I have in mind.

This was merely just to find out what would be a believable/somewhat real reason for Feudalism making a return after society as we know it was wiped out. I like balancing the unreal (Sapient Robots that carry High Frequency Swords and Energy Shields) with the real.

You didn't give much context, it's hard not to try and read into what's there.

If I'm understanding you correctly, then, you're saying "some settlements" are feudal ("have gone into feudalism") and maybe others have other kinds of social systems or technology, but I think I'm confused by the terms you're using. Someone with more knowledge on this could correct me but my understanding of feudalism is it's a social system wider than one or a few "settlements." On a small scale, just one lord who's not part of an aristocracy but runs their "settlement" (the term and its context imply a small area like a village or a county-size, not a nation-state) the same way a feudal aristocrat would, by doling out the land for the peasants to farm, then collecting tribute or taxes, I'm not really sure if that's considered feudalism. That's more like the ruler of an ancient city-state, I would think. They might have some kind of religious authority as the rulers of ancient city-states have, but "feudalism" might not be the word you're thinking of? I'm trying to get a better idea, more context, of what you're going for.

"Feudalism" invokes a more widespread military-aristocracy (noble knights, who raise armies of peasants), and they are under a monarch who has certain authority over them. Although how much authority depends on what historical examples might make good analogies to the kind of setting you are going for. At least that's my understanding of feudalism. SO are these "feudal" settlements connected by "lords" or something equivalent who are part of a military-aristocracy that includes knights and peasant armies? That social system came about because of particular historical circumstances. If they're just isolated settlements in need of a hero, a knight-robot would definitely fit with the image of an isolated, rustic village that intentionally contrasts with the high-tech in your setting. But I'm still not clear if that's what you're going for when you say "feudalism," and one or a few rustic, isolated village isn't necessarily "feudalism," if it's not firmly established that they answer to an aristocrat who controls a militaristic force that can threaten the village if the villagers don't pay their tribute.

Fuedalism as in inspired by old methods of government, of a king or a lord ruling over land with a army, where what they say is law. Settlements are spread out around resources and the political systems that govern these bastions of safety for people vary, some will be connected into larger areas with a sort of King/Lord ruling over everything, others will be more democratic, and a few will be run by Lord Humungus, it varies from place to place.

The robot itself is somewhat knightly in its aesthetic, though that is a unintentional consequence.

Part of it is to create interesting and varied lands to tell this story in.

That situation sounds more like a straight up monarchy or autocracy than feudalism. Feudalism is a basically a vassal system, local lords get authority over the land from a king in exchange for military forces or goods, and then so on and so on down.

Monarchy that was it! My brain kept thinking, "Fuedalism."

But that makes more sense, so would a Monarchy make sense in certain situations?

It makes sense in most of them. Monarchist government was the most common kind (depending upon how you define "King" exactly), back in the day when you couldn't count the votes of people who lived more than a day's hike away from the seat of the government.

So say a settlement has access to resources and a military to control it, but due to the ease of access the settlement has become a monarchy with a king in charge.

Would that be a believable event for a post apocalyptic world?

Unless you’re going for massive realism that’s perfectly serviceable.

That's good, I prefer believability over total realism, especially since the setting has man portable energy shields, energy weapons, and sapient robots.

It’s well within the realm of believability.

As I mentioned in another thread a super-advanced civilization reverting to a preindustrial state does stretch the limits of credulity a bit, but not enough to be properly questioned by and large in apocalyptic fiction.

On a broader note the implications of things like energy shields alone are frankly insane, but that’s not really worth exploring most of the time.

Energy shields are one of those things that would be essentially civilization-changing but is basically never explored.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jun 27th 2018 at 7:51:48 AM

I wouldn't say preindustrial, the Settlement military will be using guns and such, just that resources aren't so easily gained and transported anymore thus Monarchy reigns for certain settlements making certain manufacture hard.

Still, that is fantastic.

If weapons and the resources to build them are that tightly controlled we’re probably talking small-batch production, rather than industrial output. I’d imagine a country like that would have essentially glorified cottage industry at best, and it would probably be centered around a select few products. No mass production of consumer goods, for example.

Early fire arms production was sort of like that. You had a limited number of craftsman skilled enough to make and assemble the mechanisms and you had to have enough of them plus resources all in one go to make them in enough quantity to produce them in any real numbers. A lot of the early private fire arms industry in the US before they even rebelled and kicked off the revolution was reliant on cottage industry to manufacture fire arms.

Mass production was achieved in Europe by eventually training enough people to tackle it en masse but even then the rate of production was slow and had a distinct lack of standardization. Until you start getting manufacturing standards with any reliability via methods like Patterning you wind up with more limited production.

So the easy way to limit it is to make it like Archon described limited production as a cottage industry. Your talking at most about a dozen people capable of the job.

This would work as settlements need everyone dedicated to specific jobs and not everyone can be put onto gun production. This also means that certain weapons would count as lost technology in specific areas because nobody has the technical ability to make them, such as plasma weapons.

Perhaps it would be of interest to recall the appearance of Feudalism in mediaeval Europe.

The late Roman Empire saw the disappearance of the notion of a public entity, Politeía, or Res publica, the empire being identified with the person of the emperor.
As the Roman Empire of Occident was being replaced with the new “barbarian” kingdoms, these were the private domains of their kings, estates rather then states.

Despite valiant efforts at resuscitating the Western Empire with Charlemagne, it proved too difficult to manage and soon enough power was devolved to local feudal nobility with its own sovereign power over its estates.

Now, there are those calling for a return to such state of affairs, like that economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and there are still what amounts to private states, like some of those Petro-Monarchies, you know the kind.

Similar power structures existed at the same time elsewhere in the world, where it was about the amalgamation of property with sovereignty.

A reason to justify such feudal domains would be easy, a small mise-en-scène:

Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on Jul 6th 2018 at 9:47:09 AM

Another way to justify feudalism would be the maintenance of Fortifications. For example in a world overrun by Zombies a group of former soldiers could fortify say a hotel or something like that and demand anyone who joins prove themselves useful and swear allegiance. This community might be run with a particular ideology. An ideology the leader wishes to see continued after his or her death. And who better to continue that ideology, that mission, than a human you can make yourself and raise to believe what you believe. This is probably why some of the newer Silicon Valley Billionaires, Musk and Bezos, don't seem all that eager to give away all their money to charity. They believe their companies have missions and if they leave the scene those missions will quickly be forgotten and the whole endeavor will be turned into a playground for hedge funds.

Plus dynasties provides stability for hangers on. This video explains this better than I could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig_qpNfXHIU

Edited by JackOLantern1337 on Jul 18th 2018 at 9:01:44 AM