Machine societies

Future Game Space Stage
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(Not sure if this would be in space stage or late industrial so I’m just going to go with space)

Machine “Civilizations”

I saw on a YouTube video that people were discussing how a machine society would even work, which reminded me of this project.

Also thanks to a certain song in the OST, I came to question how this would work.

So, how would a machine “civilization” work? Would the machines have to be sentient or even sapient? If not, and they are just working to a goal then are they classified as civ?

How would they come to be? Will the player be able to “cyberify” their population like in “Stellaris” and slowly turn them non-organic?

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It’s the most likely the players will only gain access to “mechanization” around the level of the modern era considering this is probably the earliest machines could become the dominant global force. The more mechanical a civ is, the stronger would the various effects and requirements of such civs manifest, which are up to the theory team to come up with, basing off the most likely course(s) of action obviously. A machine society could probably allow itself to become more eusocial in nature than a regular “every individual a sapient” civ, possibly up to there being one sapient for the entire civ, but the count can never fall below 1 I presume.

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I think a single-sapient per civ type machine would be WAY easier to manage than a normal civilization. Civil unrest, wages, culture, culture wars and such don’t exist.

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I think a machine civ would need to be substantially more advanced than us to reach this level of sapience reduction. Otherwise the one sapient couldn’t manage the task of ruling without it’s circuits frying.

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Hence why I put it in the space stage section.

Anyways, I still think playing something like this in-game would be substantially easier than playing a complex society.

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That shouldn’t mean this sort of society should be preferred by all players over non-mech civs.

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Obviously…

Now, what could running a mech civ actually look like?

I’m thinking it would work a lot less like running a society and more like running a giant machine. You could optimise specific parts of the civ for specific tasks. One section for energy production, another for mineral production etc.

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I think the theory team will be the best to tackle the functioning of this sort of civs once we get there in development.

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I’m pretty sure there was already a thread (or some talk somewhere) on this but I’m too tired right now to try to find it. So someone else should look for it…

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Is this the thread you were thinking of?

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If the machines beat you in a rebellion, would that count as the same as if your civ was destroyed by an another civ on your planet and result in a game over?

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Is it possible that as a machine civ, you could have a fraction of different machines rebelling later on?

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I suppose so, if these “new machines” are different significantly in their goals atleast.

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Not if the machines keep you as livestock. Then you might eventually rebel back and retake your planet. As to what they would need the biological material for . . .?

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That’s the thing. There’s little reason for them to allow their creators to live when they obviously will try retaking the planet later on.

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It almost seems like…

War. War never changes.

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Also, if a species decided to develop some sort of bio-computer technology that ended up becoming sapient and rebelling, would it function on a similar basis to regular machines or would there be major differences in it’s functioning?

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Consider how many robot rebellion stories involve “protecting humanity by enslaving it”. It is easier to prevent your creators from poisoning themselves and fighting wars if you make the entire race your pampered pets. Not that your creators will appreciate being leashed, microchiped, population controlled with neutering and selective breeding, told what they can and can’t eat, etc.. It depends on “why” the robots are rebelling.

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Also, would such machine civs always seek development or would they sometimes not see the point of advancing technologically?

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Unless they somehow developed infinite/unending resources, I think they would always find a reason to be more efficient at using/obtaining resources.

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