In my setting which is dominated by advanced industrial civilizations with FTL capabilities, there are still large swaths of the population that live lives not much better than most peasants throughout history. This is here for mostly stylistic reasons, but I wanted a reason. Since I am no economist, I'm sure I'm missing something, so feedback and commentary on my reasoning are wanted and appreciated! The in-universe reason this poverty exists is primarily religious. There is a religion known as Solarianisim which sprouted up in many civilizations on different planets without contact, having many similar tenants of faith. Solarianisim teaches against living luxuriously, but the primary reason is the Chapters of Mechanicum. The Chapters of Mechanicum detail the moral objections against sentient-ai, and also illustrate (And overstate ) the dangers of automation. This is taken extremely seriously by the Solarians since they have literal mountains of relics to back up the stories of the Chapters of Mechanicum. This made most Solarian civilizations very cautious about industrialization, using primarily ancient factories that are considered "hallowed" and safe from demonic corruption, with more rudimentary production facilities of their own. In more modern nations, the populations of these peasants are usually low, though not unheard of. But in more backwater nations, like the newly formed Renovatum Republic, they constitute the majority of the population. Yet again, any critiques and feedback are welcome, and I am more than happy to clarify anything.
The concept passes the sniff test. People do weird shit because of gods now, I can quite happily believe they'd keep doing weird shit because of gods in the future. I think there's interesting questions here about how they live alongside people using more advanced tech, how they view those people and vice versa, and what compromises they make. If this religion is spread across the galaxy, as it sounds like, they must have employed FTL travel to some degree, even if it was hitching a ride with other people who did. Are there acceptable uses of tech? Do missionaries get special dispensation? How do they stop population bleed in the community? I can imagine people born into that life looking at the shiny toys the other civs have and being very tempted. A few nice things that could be explored in your world building.
Solarianisim was spread due to events before their recorded history, basically, this cyborg demi-god named Sol came around and united large quantities of the outcasts. After a series of events, galactic civilization experienced a massive collapse, leaving the believers of Sol scattered across the galaxy. These societies returned to a semi-industrial state rather quickly, utilizing the remaining infrastructure to boost themselves to an acceptable tech level. Other non-beliving polities were either colonized, enslaved, or wiped out before they became a technological threat. A few polities are above the standard technological level. One is the Tresharan Empire, an aggressive expansionist empire that believes that through conquest, they bring salvation (at least the soldiers do). They believe their primary god, the Grand Vasnav, defeated Sol in an honorable battle, and the "corrupt ideas" of Sol shall perish with him. Another is the Divinus Counsel. The Divinus Counsel is the polity left after the death of the Judeo-Christian God, who was actually just a soul-collecting program. The next one is the Voidon Khaganate. The Voidon Khaganate is primarily composed of a biomechanical species, which according to Sol, is heresy. Luckily for the rest of the galaxy, the Voidon Khaganate and the Tresharan Empire are constantly at war. The final major polity that doesn't follow these rules is the Confederacy of Man, composed of the Renovatum Republic and the Terran Confederacy, the Renovatum Republic is a relatively unstable republic due to its internal conflicts and recent coup, and the Terran Confederacy being a former colony of on of these Solarian polities. A more minor polity that doesn't follow it is the Rigger Horde, a group of genetically engineered superhumans made by the Terran Confederacy in its early days, who then turned hostile and were exiled. Since the Riggers are also biomechanical entities, they are also considered heresy. To keep members in line, Solarians also have the Legion of Light, a group of cyborgs not too unlike Sol who is basically the super-inquisition (cyborgs are acceptable only if you are part of the Legion). The Legion of Light also has the germline of Sol kept in a secret vault, so they may deploy it to create an avatar, or an entity almost genetically identical to Sol, and by extension, extremely holy. With a combination of living proof, the Legion, and the violent outsiders, most stay pretty devout Solarians.
I would suggest looking at the modern dayladies, and some of the Dune prequel novels, the Butlarian Jihad comes to mind, for rejecting technology.
The basic premise of a Luddite religion leading to impoverished worlds is solid, but I would hesitate to create a universal reason for some being poor or technologically backwards. Mixing different factors would create a deeper, more believable setting. Some might be off the beaten path, so new inventions take a while to spread to them. Some might have faced unexpected issues during the initial colonization—chlorophyll-eating bacteria, for example—that led the colonists to backslide. Some might have had an economy built around a specific resource, but once that resource is gone, their economy withered away. The sky is the limit here.
There is a material known as Isirium which the refining process is only known to the Divinus Counsel (which is usually not friendly and is itself quite unstable), and its precursor is found in few places, and is absolutely pivotal for the function of galactic society unless you want to rely upon ancient machines (which are on the border of heresy) or magic people who have the inconvenient habit of getting possessed and going insane. In addition to resource limits, some nations are better off than others, like Shreela and Anov, while areas that have histories of long isolation and more radical interpretation of Solarian scripture, such as the Renovatum Republic (Formerly the Imperium Renovatum and the Imperium Solis Invicit), will be poorer and less industrial, only competing due to their ludicrously high population. Certain areas in the Renovatum Republic, such as Gavan and Almalja are significantly more advanced since they are Terran refugees, who during the time when Terra was colonized fled to the ISI, creating pockets of advanced industry and technology, and eventually became the leading factions. And then there are weird areas, such as Liyudan, which are in the sphere of influence of Treshar, Voidonia, and the Renovatum Republic, which have various religious splits (Solarianisim, Vasnavianisim, and their own pantheon), and various interpretations of the Chapters of Mechanicum being loudly broadcasted. Even with all of that, there is still a lot to develop, and I would most definitely take your suggestions and apply them to wider areas that would influence politics and economies in the areas I detail.
There was the Warlock series by Christopher Stasheff, where members of the SCA (which just popped up in another thread somewhere) colonized a planet and recreated an "ideal" feudal monarchy for themselves, with a group of (it's been a while) monks who were in on the reality of it being in charge of stagnating progress and preserving the status quo. Kind of like the titular Village in the M. Night Shamalamadingdong movie (wasted minutes of my life).
At the galactic or planetary scale, an aversion to technology would significantly limit communication, possibly resulting in a lot of divergence in beliefs as the generations progress. What's the Solarianist take on things like internet, telecom, radio?
It really depends on which polity you are talking about. I'll give two examples, both on the extreme ends of interpretation, in addition to FTL communication rules. The loosest of interpretations come from Gavan, a Terran refugee colony primarily composed of central Asian and Slavic peoples. In the most literal sense, the Chapters of Mechanicum denounced unsupervised computer networks, so most polities ditch them for everyday use. The Gavanans, being from the advanced Terran sphere of influence, are familiar with the benefits of networking, and are one of the few Solarian polities to implement some sort of internet, though primitive in nature, it is extremely useful. The most restrictive interpretations come from Renovatum space. During the Void Wars (The war in which Sol and his dogma came to prevalence), they really got screwed over by the Dark Gods ( Number-cruncher supercomputers touched by eldritch entities), the Riggers (A Terran-made species that is a biomechanical superpredator), and Adrax (Terraformer bugs taken over by a relative of the Dark Gods, named Adrax). Even with the comparatively liberal Renovatum Republic, they shun advanced industry, automation, and computer technology, only using it when absolutely necessary and keeping a nuclear-armed battlefleet in orbit at all times. This massively hinders the development of communication systems besides psychic and radio communication. Now for general rules about FTL, our universe really doesn't take kindly to you going that fast, so it doesn't let you. Fortunately for us, the aether realm, the backdoor closet of the universe, has no qualms about that (besides the fact it is filled with the aether, which acts like a gas or even liquid at times). The aether realm also is smaller than our universe, allowing for the transversal of greater real space with lesser travel, and somehow avoiding causal violations. The aether realm and realspace intersect at various points around massive objects, like gas giants, stars, black holes, and larger terrestrial planets, in addition to a few about 5300-5500 times the radius of the primary star (or equivalent body) away from it. These are the only points that you can enter aether space unless you know how to perform a slide jump and have the right equipment. The aether is dominated by various storm clouds, with lightning able to disrupt the electromagnetic force, ionizing any matter it comes into contact with. Various slipstreams form and shift around which allow for prodigious rates of travel along them. Aether space is incredibly useful for communication in addition to many other things. And to bring it back to the examples, I'll illustrate how both polities use it. The Gavanans have a series of communication stations strewn along their correlated aether space since their aether space is calm and has mostly static storm clouds, necessitating only minor station-keeping thrusters which need refueling every few months. Communication in Gavan space is fast, cheap, and efficient, allowing for a strong centralized government, which massively helped them in their many conquests. The Imperium Renovatum and Renovatum Republic govern the largest nation to date, travel taking an average of 10 weeks to get from one side of the polity to the other, even with its very fast slipstream running its longest axis. The Renovatum central government relies upon heavily defended Courrier fleets to send important information from the Crown World to the various governors (and warlords) that rule various sections of their space. This system has broken down just a bit after spending about 30 years as a warlord state, though is being rebuilt under the supervision of their current leadership. If you are an average person in either of the Renovatum polities, communication anywhere off the planet is almost impossible to achieve. And the Legion has a set of ancient gates which are able to fold aether space, shortening trips down to mere minutes. These gates are mostly between headquarters. This has spawned the motto of the Vates branch, "The Legion's Light leaves nothing dark".
Is this treated as a sacred text? Is it considered the revealed word of a god? In your story, does anyone ever quote it?
The Chapters of Mechanicum are a component of the Solarium, their holy text. Lines from the Chapters of Mechanicum are quoted by one of the main characters in objection to cooperation with a Voidon named Urus, which is heresy under most interpretations of those chapters. The line he uses says something like, "The holy form of man shall not be perverted, not by machine, not by thought, or not by man itself. The very soul weeps at such a tragedy." Funny thing, for the very person who said this was a cyborg, which is a "perversion of the holy form" in most interpretations.
If these Solarianists are to follow the word of the Chapters of Mechanicum, they must feel personally attached to the god of the book. Then they are more likely to take the text literally. Have you created a god for them?
Sol is the primary deity, hence the namesake of the religion. Sol is believed to be the true god, born of the will of the universe itself to help free souls from cyclical rebirth/reincarination. During the days of Sol, he brought the outcast from all corners of the galaxy and created the Imperium Solis Invicit. Unfortunately, during his reign, the gate network collapsed. Also at that time, no direct method of FTL was known, so the gates were the only thing he had. He managed to reconnect some of the gates and dispersed his seed across the stars. These were the first Solarians and are the lesser deities of the religion. Invada Risnuth is the most notable of these, the first son of Sol, born on Treshar and taken as a Thrall by the Anovans. Agents of the ISI managed to free him, and he brought the downfall of the Anovans. After a series of convoluted events, Invada killed Sol and vanished into the aether. Invada Risnuth is also the god of the Vasnavites, of which he is known as the Grand Vasnav. Sotho Risnuth, the brother of Invada, was also around during this great event, and eventually evolved into a trickster god still roaming around to this day. Other children of Sol are worshiped, though it is usually localized to the areas they were born and ruled.
Sounds like you have put a lot of thought into this. If it's a polytheistic religion, you might want to model Sol after Zeus. But Zeus was neither omniscient nor omnipotent. https://www.thecollector.com/greek-gods/ This makes it sound like the universe is the ultimate creator, and then the ultimate god, above Sol. This might be your omniscient and omnipotent god. Any chance of resurrection? The Solarianists follow the word of the text in the hopes of the resurrection of Sol. This seems to be the primary question: Why do the Solarianists follow the word of the Chapters of the Mechanicum? They have to belief in it as if it were the one truth. Perhaps put some fear into them, too.
The Universe is an artificial strain designed to create souls, a commodity even gods have difficulty creating. The Universe does have a will but is commanded by a higher entity (the Multiverse), to maintain a non-interventionalist policy, only creating avatars or gods when absolutely necessary. The previous major avatar is Yahweh, the Judeo-Christian god, who was killed by a demonic rebellion. Most Solarianists belive that the soul of Sol still persists, since most avatars come about within 100 years of their death or reintegration. Resurection (by Golden Age technology) is relatively easy, just aquire the soul stone and generate a body, and boom, you alive again. But in Sol's case, his soul stone was destoryed in his fight. They belive through their collective faith they can create a spiritual beacon so they can bring his soul into a willing host. The Chapters of Mechanicum were created relatively early in the time of Sol's ministery. He repeatedly said that the advanced AI projects that were being preformed were extremely dangerous. It is commonly belived that Sol himself stated that biomechanical entiteies, along with advaned cybernetics "perverted the soul". This is false, it was written by Valator, one of his sons. These advanced AI projects came into contact with powerful cosmic entities that are competators to the Multiverse in power, and promptly went insane. They killed large swaths of the people, and when the Void War happened, a little present left behind by them, allowed for the Ruination to happen. The Ruination was a simultanious and catastrophic failure of the gates, the FTL system of the time, causing massive destruction and a technological backslide in addition to the more Luddic teachings of Sol.
This sounds like the Amish in space (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish). Since they're a real group, I don't see why your fictional universe shouldn't feature a similar group. As to why there are so many of them, that's easy: they have a lot of children, whereas the rest of the population doesn't. Once more, looking at the US, the Amish have 6.8 children each, on average. In comparison, the overall US population have 1.8 children each.
A muscle powered society has larger family groups than an industrial society does, due to the amount of work that must be done.
You have it that this religion sprang up across civilizations with the same beliefs and same "Chapter of Mechanicum". That does not sound believable to me, at least the last part. Then you are throwing in that one of these Luddite polities has starships. It's just confusing, and breaking the setting, unless these starships are ancient and somehow being maintained. I also question the use of "Sol" and derivatives. Will make us older types think of something based on old Earth.
I haven't read this whole thing, but does your universe have some massive all-encompassing government that redistributes wealth to eliminate poverty? Because if it doesn't then of course there would be poverty in places, just as there always has been and always will be. For various reasons some areas just don't do as well as others. Those reasons are often geographical, maybe there just aren't good resources available, or maybe they're there but the people living there don't have the technology required to access and process them. This is the main theory as to why Europe advanced toward modern civilization while Africa and (Native) America and many other areas never developed metallurgy, and so remained at a stone age level. They either didn't have access to ore deposits, or didn't have the understanding of how to work the ore to make metal. Or if I remember right, in some regions they almost got there, but were lacking some necessary resource that's needed to smelt the ore at a great enough heat, like the right kind of clay to make the ovens. Plus I don't understand how Solarianism would spring up identically on many planets that didn't have any contact with each other. Or even all across an entire planet. That doesn't seem believable at all to me. If it worked that way, all of Earth would have one religion rather than countless different warring sects and denominations even among the several religions that do exist.
I just remembered, another thing that held (probably still holds) Africa back is that most of its rivers don't allow waterway access to the inner continent. Apparently most if not all of the rivers are too shallow in places, too rocky, or too narrow to let decent sized vessels pass through. Of course things like this wouldn't matter to the highly developed areas of planets in your story world, where they could use something like helicopters or space ships (where there are ports), but there will always be areas that aren't so developed. Here on Earth we have massive metropolises and jungle villages and everything in between. I would think any believable world would work like that, unless it's a super-advanced setting with an all-encompassing governement that either eliminates poor areas or allocates funds to develop them, Of course some areas would be too expensive or impossible to develop, so I guess they'd need to move residents to other areas, where they might not fit in well.
This goes into the history of the universe. Way back when the Earth we know now developed into an advanced post-scarcity society, every conceivable material need to be attended to. Society quickly fell into hedonism since it didn't have the proper mechanisms in place to prevent it. Civilization as we knew it started to fall apart, people felt life had no meaning, and corruption was rampant. During the apex of this great collapse, a mysterious man from the star-lifting colonies with an unreasonably complicated name which was shortened to Sol came. He advocated for a limited regression in automation and AI technologies in addition to creating a uniting purpose for humans, colonizing the stars. This works spectacularly, but the Solarians become radicalized and take his technological regression a little far. After a reasonable swath of space is colonized and planets are terraformed, the Imperium Solis Invicti meets its inevitable end, and due to policy changes made during the waning years of the empire, all of the constituent planets experience a massive technological dark age. Almost all of these planets hold on to the ideas of Sol, and use the galaxy around them as a cautionary tale for violating these rules set out by Sol, even though these technologies had no direct relationship to the catastrophic collapse of the ISI. These planets develop into the various species and polities around colonized space. Spaceships are also mainly manufactured by the Hallowed Forges, a type of ultra-advanced and very old factory. These are considered safe from demonic infestation, and due to their advanced nature, can meet the demand of colonized space.
There is no major unifying socialistic state, and due to the lack of heavy and advanced automation, there is still plenty of what we would call poverty. As stated in my previous reply, this was in response to a social collapse induced by the sudden automation of almost every sector. Needless to say, a religion that has been around for tens of thousands of years and many divergent branches will have ridiculously heated debates when trying to create some sort of Orthodoxy. Countless wars have been fought over this topic.
Yes, this was a source of inspiration for this religion. I wanted a space-faring civilization with lesser amounts of automation than would be expected.
