It is amazing to note that all of these modern-sounding technologies appeared in the Barsoom stories.Įra 3 is a short but intense era of technological innovation that culminates with interplanetary contact ( Gridley Waves). The games enable the player to get to the Council of Jeddaks (analagous, perhaps, to the way that the ability to shine on television or sports can lead to the halls of power in our own society). In Era Two, the tech tree divides between Air techs ( Aerodrome, etc.), Science techs ( Education, etc.) and Challenges, the latter reflecting how very important 'The Games' were to the Barsoomians. How much more would we know about light than we do now? I've thought that if I wanted to turn this into a Science victory, I would include one more ray - perhaps a temporal Spacetime Ray, which could create the sort of wormhole that John Carter fell into (accidentally activated?) in the first place. To understand the relationship that Barsoomians have to light, imagine if, on our world, early man had discovered optical lenses before discovering fire. This is the order of the Rays that I came up with: That allows me to fill in the blanks myself, so I did. After the player learns the ancient arts of Optics he can learn The Eighth Ray, which, with Commerce will allow the Player to build Airships.Ībout the Rays: While the Burroughs books describe the Rays' effects, he understandably doesn't go into detail about what they are, scientifically. Then the player can research Theoretical Mechanics, which will lead to Hydraulics and allow Defensive Housing to be built.
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It begins with Ancient Secrets, Canals, and Religion, the remnants of times lost. Most of Era One is self-explanatory, tending to promote military and scientific discoveries early, and cultural achievements later.
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To create this, I relied extensively on lists of Barsoomian technology I found online. Just one is my own invention, as I note below. This could get lengthy, so sit back and smoke 'em if ya got 'em.Īll of the Techs in these sample tech trees either appeared in Burroughs' Barsoom stories, or were strongly suggested to exist based on the text. Inasmuch as the chance that I'll ever get around to completing that project anytime in the next few years is growing less and less likely, I submit my humble plans to this thread to use as you wish. It's a very good novel and worth checking out.īlue Monkey nudged me to remind me that I'd promised to publish some of the background work I'd started on my own Barsoom Mod. The later could be a nice Barbarian unit (or AI-only Civilization). Rosny aîné's Les Navigateurs de l'Infini (1925, The Navigators of Infinity) ? It's also a Mars discovery novel, but it's a story a lot less adventurous and a lot more melancholic, whereas three men land on Mars for the first time to discover a dying world, where a peaceful and resigned race are slowly pushed back by a younger animal (quasi-shoggoth) race, the zoomorphs. France must be the last European country where they're still widely used.Ībout Mars fiction, are you familiar with J.-H. at least, I haven't found a retailer carrying them, they aren't always available on Amazon and the official website only accept cheques as payment. The Sci-Fi book collection he founded, Les Rivières Blanches, isn't easily found in Belgium. I'm not that familiar with his works, unfortunately. That's another book for my reading list, then.
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Lofficier is no stranger to such crossover.