# Tech as Drama: Artificial Gravity

**URL:** https://forum.menagerie.team/t/tech-as-drama-artificial-gravity/166
**Category:** Scum and Villainy
**Tags:** worldbuilding
**Created:** [January 3, 2019, 4:18am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/tech-as-drama-artificial-gravity/166 "2019-01-03T04:18:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 6

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### Author: ![garrett](https://forum.menagerie.team/user_avatar/forum.menagerie.team/garrett/32/3_2.png) [@garrett](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/garrett)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2019, 7:03pm UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/tech-as-drama-artificial-gravity/166/6 "2019-01-03T19:03:06Z")

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I extracted this discussion into its own topic. We also had this earlier thing:

> [@Visual Inspirations](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/visual-inspirations/118/12):
>
> If it exists, it might be unusual, expensive, or political - “reztech” marks you as an Inner System partisan, “rust-tech” is for the provincial Belters or rebels, for example.

Just because a thing is technically possible doesn’t mean it will be everywhere, and the reasons for that can be used to create drama. Some examples for “true” artificial gravity vs. “spin gravity”:

**It’s licensed**. The Hegemony makes people pay for access to certain types of tech (the “reztech” Omnitool stuff [Mike mentioned earlier](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/visual-inspirations/118/11), artificial gravity, etc.) and partially maintains its dominance over space by enforcing laws around licensing.

_Drama comes from_: “You’re not licensed for X” is the Hegemony equivalent of the cops pulling you over for a busted tail-light - it’s an excuse to shut down people they don’t like. Or the health impact of zero-G segregates the population - the rich stay healthy, the sick stay poor.

**It’s fragile**. The shielding, power requirements, or something else needed to make gravity work is cumbersome, and most ships in Procyon or elsewhere just can’t afford the expense.

_Drama comes from_: terrorists, bank robbers, tech thieves, kidnappers, etc. disabling the artificial gravity in some cosmopolitan space outpost to cause chaos among the civilians, forcing the experienced spacers to deal with the crowd on the way to their goal.

**It’s cultural**. Spacers don’t trust the complexity, fragility, or secrecy in the systems needed to produce it, and don’t rely on it because when it breaks down, you can get hurt in serious ways. It’s a point of pride to use spin gravity, or no gravity.

_Drama comes from_: the poor merchant who makes good, converts his freighter to a passenger shuttle, and installs a-gravity, now faces discrimination from his cargo-hauling associates.

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