What's happening / TLDR: Developer diaries introduce details of Espiocracy - Cold War strategy game in which you play as an intelligence agency. You can catch up with the most important dev diary (The Vision) and find out more on Steam page.
Modern world has been forged in the fire of science and technology. Far from an anonymous historical process, all discoveries and inventions originated from a relentless march of scientists and engineers, people with their own ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. This is the point of view embraced by Espiocracy: humans & human minds. Instead of featuring just a set of technologies, we will be talking about paradigms.
A paradigm is a line of thought, set of beliefs, body of evidence supporting particular conclusion. In this context, it was popularized by Thomas Kuhn to describe perhaps the most significant change of thinking about our place in the world: the Copernican Revolution. 500 years ago, the geocentric paradigm (Earth as the center of the universe) was replaced by the heliocentric paradigm (Earth orbiting the Sun) in a somewhat fierce conflict between the old guard and the revolutionaries. History of science, Kuhn argued, is punctuated by multiple such shifts in thinking - about electricity, the origin of species, or the law of gravity*. Between these events, science proceeds in the ordinary staccato of experiments, publications, and slight corrections within the existing paradigm.
Transcript: Chart with usefulness on the y-axis and time on the x-axis. Paradigms progress from left to right as a sigmoid curve. The old paradigm at some point in time is met by a new paradigm that overlaps the old paradigm in the exponential part of the curve.
Espiocracy adopts modified version of Kuhn's paradigms to model STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) with two cycles: paradigm shifts and paradigm development. Here, paradigms are extended to practical inventions, usually less violent, and less grandiose than stopping the Sun and moving the Earth. The timeline is too short to expect many significant scientific revolutions, which means that most paradigm shifts work gently by weakening and strengthening other paradigms, shaping a unique STEM landscape in the simulated world. You, as an intelligence agency on the bleeding edge of STEM, participate by placing bets on the combination of paradigms and cycles via the plethora of espionage- and state-based tools.
Example Paradigms
Currently, paradigms are divided into six sectors:
- Electronics - from vacuum tubes to AI
- Nuclear Physics - from atom bombs to generation IV reactors
- Rocketry - from V2s to SpaceX-like VTVLs
- Vehicles and Weapons - from jet airplanes to drones
- Medicine and Biology - from vaccines to CRISPR
- Basic Sciences - from information theory to exoplanets
The staple of the Cold War serves as a primary example of a paradigm:
Transcript: Widget with atom bombs represented as a paradigm in the game. The description follows in the next paragraph.
Nuclear bombs (atom bombs, fission weapons) produce energy from enriched uranium or plutonium. This is in contrast to thermonuclear bombs, which use isotopes of hydrogen to spark much larger explosions - a paradigm that will replace atom bombs in the future. At the start of the game in 1946, atom bombs are still in the exponential phase of development, where normal science attempts to industrialize production of these weapons. Relevant actors include American Atomic Energy Commission and a set of other organizations, currently unknown to the player. There are many requirements to start local development, out of which only one is met by player's Czechoslovakia (uranium mine in Jachymov).
Since paradigms are first and foremost about thinking (among professionals), they can get unusual in comparison to the classic set of technologies encountered in strategy games. Some of the shifts change the world by influencing popular behaviors - there are paradigms pertaining to the health effects of cigarettes and the development of seat belts in cars. Others are straight-up damaging and objectively incorrect, following the example of the geocentric paradigm. These include Nobel-winning lobotomy, Mao's campaign to eliminate sparrows, or Lysenkoism. Far from simple conspiracy theories (which are handled by the system of views), these paradigms have powerful actors vouching for them, wider recognition, and oftentimes are enforced by the state.
Paradigm Dynamics
Paradigms are global, the same for the whole world, which reflects interconnected STEM communities of the modern world. It doesn't mean that everyone has an identical technology tree - far from it, since the global set of existing paradigms is only the source of choice for particular countries. (Think of random 'choose one out of three' slots seen in recent 4X strategy games, where randomness is instead largely controlled and can be strategically influenced.)
Existing paradigms are locally mastered by actors in a country. For some paradigms, it's just an autonomous process, where sufficiently strong actors are all you need. Others require funding, special access, materials, political decisions, or intelligence. There are also lavish paradigms that require state-funded Big Science projects.
"Mastering" a paradigm equals convincing people to a particular line of thought, implementing experiments, producing devices, rolling out measures in the population. The process doesn't stop after the paradigm is mastered! This is where Kuhn's normal science kicks in: the paradigm is further developed and optimized in subcycles (atomic bomb case: better yields, safer handling, faster production). There's always a new, better version waiting on the horizon.
Beyond the horizon of normal science, there are new paradigms. Their arrival depends on investments across the world. In the design documents, this system is referred to as a "STEM stock market", because betting on the next paradigm shift is not only a prediction (we'll be rich if we're putting money on the right horse!) but also a direct intervention (this horse will be richer because we're putting money on it!).
Eureka moment, a paradigm shift, happens to a particular actor semi-randomly, where luck favors the prepared. New paradigms initially remain in the pre-shift phase. The country of origin can try to conceal the invention and widen first-mover advantage. At the same time, other countries - their intelligence agencies! - hunt for paradigm shifts, with early acquisition of relevant materials being a boon to the local STEM community. It is usually a competition leading to temporary advantages (with rare exceptions), because shifts are not exclusive, and can be invented by other actors and countries.
When the new paradigm is advanced enough to be widely accepted, the point of paradigm shift arrives. Sometimes it takes a form of flashy event, the final straw of evidence to convince the world:
Transcript: Event window with title "Paradigm Shift: Thermonuclear Weapons" and the following description: "It's a boy," Edward Teller wired proudly after the first successful test of a thermonuclear weapon. The explosion produced a yield of 10 Mt, making it more powerful than all combined nuclear weapons in the world. The sheer destructive force vaporized Pacific island of Elugelab in an instant, leaving behind a 41 km high mushroom cloud. The news of the test came as a shock to the public. A mixture of fear and awe is palpable in the streets. No one knows what to expect next...
Naturally, the country of origin starts with the paradigm already mastered, ready for further progress in development subcycles. At the same time, other paradigms are over time influenced by the paradigm shift itself - they can be made obsolete (nuclear bombs - by thermonuclear bombs), weakened (Lysenkoism - by genetic code), strengthened (computers - by information theory), or enabled as a possible new paradigm (microprocessors - by MOSFET). In addition, some paradigm shifts will be met not only with reactions of relevant actors but also wider world, even to the point of sparking new movements ("ban the bomb!").
Interacting with Science & Technology
The combination of global paradigms, local developments, and actors creates an intricate decision space.
Starting on the lower level, we can:
- Strengthen STEM actors at home
- Weaken foreign competitors ("weaken" in this game equals, i.a., sabotaging a nuclear plant)
- Acquire STEM intelligence
- Move actors, vide Operation Paperclip
- Smuggle in materials, sometimes despite embargoes
- Combat detrimental paradigms
- Promote, exploit, defend selected paradigms
On the higher level, through cooperation with the leader of the country, we can nudge local STEM into chosen direction via fairly realistic:
- Incentives
- Contracts
- DARPA-like institutions
- Big science projects
- International cooperations
Grand strategic, big picture approach to science & technology in Espiocracy suggests at least a few possible strategies:
- Investing in fast development of an existing paradigm and putting it to use while temporary advantage lasts
- Pushing for paradigm shift to make an existing - mastered by others - paradigm obsolete
- Specializing in a set of actors and paradigms (e.g. Japan & microprocessors in the 80s)
- Promoting detrimental paradigms and views in other countries
- Shaping different world to ride the wave of ripple effects (what if the internet arrived earlier or green revolution happened later?)
Final remarks
As always, mechanics and screenshots are work in progress, subject to change, and may even receive a new dev diary down the line.
Don't hesitate to chime in with feedback, there is a lot that Espiocracy can get wrong on science & technology!
In the next dev diary, we will continue the topic by exploring a fascinating product of the Cold War: the space race.
If you're not already wishlisting Espiocracy, consider doing it:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1670650/Espiocracy/
There is also a small community around Espiocracy:
---
* Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" didn't really convince epistemologists at large and remains controversial in metascientific circles. As one of the reviewers noted, "paradigm is a word you seem to have fallen in love with!", and as another reviewer observed, Kuhn used the word "paradigm" in 21 distinct ways. There are many legitimate objections to his treatise, many of which I agree with. Among them, the narrow focus on dogmas in scientific communities seems like the largest culprit, which is somewhat corrected here (STEM actors in Espiocracy are generally not dogmatic). Thankfully, I have not only the freedom of iterating on Kuhn's paradigms but also of inventing an entire virtual world in which they are accurate enough!
---
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it" - Max Planck