• Steam - Steam power has been advanced beyond anything capable of steam engines, even today (2002). Steam engines are more powerful and require less fuel to perform the same amount of work. Steam engines have also changed to allow more precise control of force - multiply articulated devices are now possible with a single steam engine driving all joints with strength and precision. Most engines are even self-stoking, making them much easier to run. Steam's disadvantage is that steam engines continue to be fairly large and heavy. This make them unsuitable for some uses (small devices, devices such as airplanes and ornithopters which must be light, etc.) Despite this, they remain the favorite power source for long duration use. For this reason, the main power source of cars, trains, boats, and blimps are almost universally steam engines.
• Clockwork - Clockwork has also advanced significantly, both in terms of developments to the power source and to the complexity of devices. Babbage's difference engine isn't just a fact, it's old news. Most households contain at least some sort of clockwork convenience. In the houses of the wealthy, simple clockwork servants may even perform simple chores. Clockwork guard dogs are capable of spotting intruders and sounding alarms. Clockwork aircraft are are even used for short flights, often to and from zeppelins. Modern ships and blimps contain vast amounts of clockwork for control and guidance. Clockwork does, however, have its disadvantages. While it is light and precise, the energy source is limited. If the energy demands are severe, even the most powerful spring will only be able to provide a few minutes of life to the device. For this reason, clockworks generally are not used over long distances.
• Electricity - Electricity is common in most modern cities, as well as most large vehicles. Electricity is used primarily for lighting, as well as communication in the form of radio or telephone. It is also used in artificial vision systems used by a number of clockwork devices, closing contacts that then influence the turning of cogs. Electric motors exist, but these remain quite weak compared to the same mass of clockwork. For this reason, electricity is seldom used as a power source for mechanical devices.
• Levity - Levity is a recently discovered phenomenon. In 1880 a peculiar crystalline mineral was discovered by undersea explorers off the coast of the Vulcano islands between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Named vulcanite, this material showed the extraordinary property that, when heated above a given temperature, its response to gravity would be inverted: it would be repelled by large masses rather than drawn to it. After decades of research, devices capable to carrying a cargo completely out of the Earth's atmosphere had been designed. While this has opened up a whole new realm to exploration and colonization, levity has proven itself difficult to apply to other problems. This is because the forces exerted by (or more accurately, on) the vulcanite are either entirely up or entirely down. Thus, no fine control of the force is possible. Secondly, vulcanite has shown itself to have highly variable force when being repelled by the center of the earth. For this reason, an prediction of how much a particular piece of vulcanite will lift will have a minor, but nonetheless significant margin of error. Finally, while vulcanite can be reused, the repeated heating and cooling of substance does have a tendency to damage the crystals, reducing its power. For these reasons, there are no floating cities or levity powered planes. Levity appears good only for a one-way trip off the Earth.
• Internal combustion - What's that? Never heard of it. What? Explosions? In the engine?! You'd kill yourself! Impossible.

Vehicles

• Steam Trains - The favorite (and really the only) form of long distance land transportation. There are literally hundreds of thousands of miles of train track in the United States alone connecting virtually every city. Likewise, Europe is a mesh of train tracks leading between ports and towns alike. The colonies are not quite as well connected. The British are the most prolific track builders and their territories tend to be well connected. However, even the British only run track between important locations. To get an even slightly out of the way place in Africa, Asia, or South America one must leave the trains.
• Steam Ships - Steam is the only alternative to sail. Several companies run trans-Atlantic services for passengers and cargo. Likewise, ships are the favorite way of transporting bulk cargo from location to location, although people tend to find them slow and use trains when possible.
• Lighter than Air Ships - Blimps, dirigibles, and zeppelins are relatively common in the skys above major cities. They are also used frequently in the colonies to transport goods or troops to inaccessible locations. Faster than ships, but still slower than trains, airships are best used to traverse difficult terrain. Because of this, certain routes remain faster by airship than train since trains must bend to the wills of mountains and valleys. They are also commonly used in combat situations to carry contingents of troops or as launching platforms for ornithopters and airplanes. Contrary to most popular belief, the airbags, due to compartmentalized internal structures with self-sealing dividers, are quite difficult to deflate.
• Airplanes - Powered by clockwork, airplanes of the time are basically powered gliders. Clockwork springs can provide the pilot with almost 45 minutes of thrust to use for climbing or increasing speed. Since takeoff from a runway would consume a large amount of power, most airplanes are launched from catapults (as with a modern, 2002, aircraft carrier), usually from a high place or from an airship. While such devices are sometimes used for recreation or, very rarely, for travel, the military is the primary utilizer of airplanes, using them as out-riders for ships and airships.
• Ornithopters - These are devices that fly using a flapping motion similar to birds. They are much more power intensive than airplanes (14 minutes is the endurance record for piloted ornithopters), but have the advantage of requiring no launching equipment. Moreover, they can land and launch repeatedly, making them a favorite for bush combat. While some civilians own ornithopters, virtually all belong to some military.
• Steam cars - For powered transportation overland, steam cars and trucks are used. These are expensive to purchase and maintain and hence tend to only belong to governments, businesses, or the well to do. These are basically cars or trucks with a steam engine assembly, usually mounted in the back over the rear wheel although many configurations exist. These vehicles have very limited off-road ability, mostly due to limits in the suspension, and hence are best used on some sort of smooth road.
• Clockwork and steam walkers - Some engineers have produced articulated walking devices for transportation. These generally have 6 or more legs and a force-feedback mechanism to allow them to detect and traverse quite rugged terrain. These devices have been developed in both steam powered and clockwork driven varieties. These tend to be very rare, however, are are unlikely to be seen except in the vary rugged outback of colonial territories.
• Submarines - Underwater devices, these vehicles are unlikely to be used except by the navies of various governments. There are really two varieties:
  • Dual powered - Dual powered submarines are capable to fairly long distance journeys, although no one has announced the ability to travel all the way across oceans in them. They use a clockwork power source when submerged and steam engines when on the surface. The steam engines are also used to rewind the clockwork springs between dives.
  • Clockwork - There are also short-range submarines that rely entirely on clockwork for locomotion. Due to their limited power, these tend to be out-riders dispatched from a main vessel for a particular activity. They tend to be much smaller then dual powered craft, often with a crew of only half a dozen. They also are much faster and more maneuverable.
  With the exception of some special research vessels, most submarines can go no deeper than a few hundred feet before the external pressures of the ocean threaten them with collapse.
• Aether ships - These are self contained devices for plying the aether currents beyond the Earth's atmosphere. These devices often use multiple power sources.
  • For launch, all vehicles hoping to leave the Earth's atmosphere must use a levity drive. Deceptively simple sounding devices, these drives contain a large quantity of vulcanite as well as the means to heat it. In fact, doing this so that the load is lifted evenly and without structural failure is an extremely complicated task. In the 50+ years since vulcanite's discovery, only three nations have been able to successfully place vehicles into space. The levity drive may be part of the aether ship (if that ship is planning to land on another planet) or part of a separate launcher. Technically, levity drives are completely reusable since nothing is expended. In fact, the drives require regular servicing and the vulcanite crystals must be replaced periodically.
  • Once outside the Earth's atmosphere, ships deploy aether sails. These large constructions, usually deployed and controlled using clockwork, catch the aether currents spinning around the sun and propel the craft along them. Unfortunately, unlike normal sails traveling through air, aether sails cannot travel against the prevailing currents. For this reason, careful mapping of the aether currents is vitally important to a safe (meaning - non-one-way) journey. Space and the aether will be discussed more later.
  • Some vehicles use jet propulsion for fast movement. The jets may be steam, rocket propellant, or other substances. However, these are not used for any long-range travel since friction with the aether would require constant expenditure of propellant to maintain speed. Their most common use is as a braking agent for ships that wish to slow down relative to the surrounding aether.
  Ships are self contained. Carbon dioxide is absorbed by rope soaked in caustic potash (resulting an a recognizable "aether-ship smell"). Compressed oxygen carried in tanks replaces used oxygen. For longer trips and on colonies, high-yield greenhouses are used to keep the air fresh.
  Reentry is accomplished using parachutes, and, near touchdown, inflated hydrogen balloons. Normally, craft land in water to cushion the landing. Since aether disperses heat, reentry does not heat up the craft significantly until it is well into the atmosphere, but by that time the parachutes would already have been deployed.

• Cameras - Photographic techniques have been available for decades. At the turn of the century, the Kodak corporation began producing small point-and-shoot cameras that virtually anyone could use and most could afford. Today, most families, even in the lower classes, have family photos and above the lower classes, photo albums are not uncommon. Color film has only just been developed (no pun intended) and is not commonly available. Hence, virtually all photography done is black and white.
  In a related topic, the photo-electric effect has been used to provide input to clockworks since 1890. However, even after decades of refinement, such methods remain crude. Clockworks cannot see color and their resolution tends to be relatively poor. Moreover, the massive complexity needed to determine the contents of an image (is it a person, a tree, a wall...?) require extremely sophisticated processing that most cannot afford. For this reason, even today, the vision of most clockworks is based on movement (like T Rex). While some of the more sophisticated devices can recognize the human form, most would still not register a person who was standing still.
• Voice controlled appliances - For the last few decades, word recognition technology has allowed countless appliances to be activated with simple words. The usual method for this is a small set of pre-recorded words stored in the device and a wax cylinder for recording and processing statements. When a word is spoken, it is recorded on the device's wax cylinder. The wave pattern is then compared against all words know by the device in parallel, looking for a match. If one of the words matches, the action associated with that word is taken. Most devices recognize only a half dozen words, and only the most technologically advanced mechanisms would have more than a couple dozen. Heavy accents, ambient noise, or other things that would distort or interfere with the speaker's voice can cause recognition to fail.
  On a similar front, voice recognition technology has also made great strides. It was discovered that, a person's voice is as individual as one's fingerprint and, at the detail of recording that clockwork is capable of, extremely difficult to impersonate. Some devices, particularly security clockworks, use voice recognition to verify the identity of a person. The person to be verified gives a pass phrase, usually at least 5 seconds long. It is then carefully analyzed against a library containing all recognized voices. The process takes a minute or so and requires an extremely sophisticated clockwork so such voice recognizers are not common. Colds, ambient noise, and other similar factors can result in false negatives. It is, of course, possible to record the speaker's voice and then play the recording back to fool the recognizer. This technique will work, assuming a recorder and playback device of sufficiently high fidelity are used. For this reason, a human guard is usually also present to ensure tricks are not used, and passwords change regularly.

These nations are all in competition with each other. However, with the exception of Japan described below, they all also tend to see themselves as similar. Imagine a half dozen squabbling siblings fighting over an inheritance (in this case, the world). They may all be trying to best each other, but will put aside their differences if it appears a third party could weaken their collective holds. (Japan, not being a western power, is generally considered as a third party. Its location and military prowess, however, have so far prevented the other powers from ganging up on it.

• Britain - Britain has the most extensive colonial holdings, as well as the highly lucrative Indian territories. Due to extensive coal deposits as well as its extensive colonial resources, Britain is one of the major innovators with steam engines. The British navy is widely regarded as the best in the world. British society is highly stratified, but a large middle class buffers the nation against the type of revolutions that occurred in Russia. Britain is also the home of Babbage Inc, the world's leader in computing clockworks.
• Germany - Probably the most industrialized nation in the world, German factories produce a wide range of goods for global markets. Germany is also a strong supporter of the sciences and many of the best minds live and work in the country. Germany has extensive African holdings, but virtually all its Asian holdings were lost to Japan or sold to Russia (and then lost to Japan) before Russia's revolution. Nonetheless, the recognized quality of German goods keeps the country's merchants happy.
• France - France is probably second to Britain is colonial holdings, having territory on every continent. Not as industrialized as either Britain or Germany, France remains an economic force due to its clockworks, which are viewed as some of the most sophisticated and elegant of their day. Britain and France are long time colonial adversaries and, while they seldom interfere militarily with each other, the will usually take actions to make each other's lives difficult.
• The Netherlands - The Dutch have extensive Asian, African, and South American holdings. However, due to its size and location, the Netherlands could not support the level of industrialization that France, Germany, and Britain maintain. As such, it is a consumer of the goods from these other nations.
• Portugal - With few colonies except in Africa, Portugal's power is waning with Spain's. As the Netherlands, Portugal is not heavily industrialized and is a technology consumer.
• Italy - Towards the mid 1800's it looked like Italy was a failing power. With few colonies and fewer resources, it had already been surpassed by its northern neighbors. All this changed in 1880 when vulcanite was discovered. Recognizing the material as a major windfall, the Italian government kept the mineral a secret for as long as possible. By the time the secret came out, the Italians had almost a decade of research behind them. As the controllers of the (at that time) sole source of this material, its sale brought in large amounts of money for the Italian businesses that mined the substance from the ocean floor. It was the Italians who first developed levity drives. Now, they are the primary provider of levity drives for most of the world, making Italy a very rich nation indeed. They have also parlayed this windfall by ensuring that they have some influence in virtually every space venture. They hold shares in every moon colony as well as both the Martian and Venusian outposts. While Italy have done very little to expand its planet-side holdings, it seems intent on extensive holdings off world.
• The United States - The US became a major colonial power when it took Spain's colonies during the Spanish American war. While it has no holdings in Africa, its control of the Philippines and several other islands give it a good amount of influence in the Asian sphere. The United States is well industrialized with both a strong manufacturing sector as well as a large population to consume these goods resulting in a very healthy economy.
• Japan - The only non-western colonial power, Japan is distrusted by the other colonial powers. While the western powers are constantly competing against each other, they do have some "gentleman's agreements" on how their conflicts are to be resolved. Japan is not included in this club and tends to be dealt with using a heavier hand. Only the repeatedly demonstrated prowess of Japan's military and merchant bodies have forced the western nations to view it as a "serious" power.
  In the early 1800's Japan was not significantly more advanced technologically than any other eastern nation ripe for conquest by the western powers. In 1868, however, the Meiji Restoration began, and with it, rapid technological advances. Japan sent numerous scholars to the west to learn from the leading nations of the day. Western dress and customs began to become common among Japanese businessmen, even on Japan itself. At the turn of the century a backlash movement emphasizing traditional Japanese customs and ideology (particularly Shinto and the Cult of the Emperor) began to spread through Japan, although technological progress, now receiving support from purely Japanese innovations, continued unabated. However, despite growing evidence, the western powers did not take Japan seriously until 1920 when Japan became the third nation to develop levity drives.
  Japan has few natural resources for industry and must import most materials from its colonies. Japan only has Asian holdings, mostly in formerly Russian and Chinese territories. However, while Japan's heavy industry is not particularly strong, its clockwork technology is at least the equal of the western powers.

• The Austro-Hungarian Empire - An empire in name only, the nation is relatively poor and technologically weak. It took advantage of the Russian revolution to gain some additional territory at its old adversary's expense, but is otherwise a fairly weak power. There have been voices in the military advocating a policy of expansion, but these plans do not tend to indicate a source of funding or what to do if any of the other, more technologically advanced nations chose to involve themselves as they did when the Empire attacked Italy in 1918.
• Poland - A new nation recently self-liberated from Russia during the confusion of the Russian revolution, this nation is poor, but developing due to close ties with Germany.
• The Soviet Union - Never a strong colonial power, Russia lost virtually all its colonial holdings to other nations (especially the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Japan) during its revolution. Now a communist nation, it has few allies as the monarchies and industrial powers have a passionate dislike for communist ideologies. For the last few years it has been focusing on internal matters. Recently a new leader, Joseph Stalin, has come to the helm. Maybe he can provide the Soviet people with the peace, prosperity, and security they desire...
• The Ottoman Empire - Another nominal Empire, this Muslim nation controls Turkey as well as the coasts of the Arabian Peninsula. The Ottomans actually have a relatively strong clockwork industry, although it isn't as advanced as some western nations. Aside from capitalizing on the Russian revolution to take northern Persia, the nation has been relatively quiet on the world stage.
• Spain - Spain lost its major colonies to the United States during the Spanish-American war. Now, with only a few possessions in Africa and Asia, and little money for conquest, Spain's influence waning rapidly.
• China - Technically a large and independent nation, China's government is completely controlled by foreign powers. Britain probably has the largest influence in the country, but America's "Open Door" policy, to which all western nations tacitly subscribe, mean that all the western powers have equal access to China's markets and resources.
• Siam - Not terribly significant except that it recently repulsed a French attempt to annex it.

• The Luminous Aether - The aether surrounds and supports all the planets around the sun. Some theorize that the entire universe is suspended in a sea of aether while others theorize that the aether is produced by the sun and some as yet undiscovered substance supports the solar system within the universe.
  The aether spins around the sun. The speed at which the aether moves at a given location is in direct relationship to the distance of that location from the sun. The closer to the sun, the faster the aether currents run. It is these currents that push the planets in their orbits for, without these currents, the planets would be slowed by friction with the surrounding aether and fall into the sun. The aether currents are not uniform throughout space, however, planets and moons cause eddies. The aether within the vicinity of the earth simply moves with the earth as it rotates, but as one goes further out, the earth's eddy and the main current mix producing turbulent regions. Sometimes these eddies can be felt vast distances away from their sources, which is why it is important for aether ships to pay attention to their surroundings. Several vessels have been wrecked by entering an eddy that literally tore the craft apart.
  Aether cannot be breathed by humans, so space travelers must bring their own air. The aether exerts a pressure of about .33 atmospheres in the vicinity of the Earth.
  Aether is chemically inert to all know reactions. However, it does have a dispersive effect on radiation. This is why the sun's heat has diminished to habitable levels by the time it reaches the earth, as well as the reason aether ships can reenter the Earth's atmosphere without burning up.
• The Moon - The moon was first colonized in 1909. There are currently four permanent colonies on the moon, all focused on mining. The primary product of these mines is edwardite, a fuel source several times more efficient than coal. These colonies have yet to become profitable, but they are never short of investors due to the huge promise the moon shows.
  The moon's atmosphere is extremely thin and so co-mingled with aether that it cannot be breathed. Gravity is a fraction of that on earth. The seas of the moon are not liquid, of course, but an extremely fine dust. So fine, in fact, that denser objects will sink in these sees just as if they were water (although the dust is denser than water). Steam powered vessels are used to traverse these seas when necessary, although the colonies are completely self sufficient and do virtually no commerce with each other.
• Mars - Mars has only be colonized within the last year. The colony is jointly administered by the western colonial powers (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States). As of yet, the colony is little more than a base camp as well as launch and landing site. Mars's atmosphere is thin but breathable (as if one were at a particularly high altitude on Earth). It is much colder than earth, requiring warm clothing to be worn outdoors at all times. The poles of mars contain ice water which melts somewhat during the summer. This melting feeds a small, plant like life-form during the summer months. These plants are only an inch or so high but are responsible for the "greening" of mars during the summer months. There is a thin, but lush band of vegetation around the planet's equator as well. It is theorized that these plants use deep root systems to tap into subterranean lakes. Unlike Earth vegetation, the coloration of these plants is brownish which is why these forests had not been spotted from Earth. The planet experiences frequent dust storms, particularly in the vicitinity of its large plains (called deserts despite the fact that the whole planet is basically a desert), and these storms can grow both large and quite powerful. Explorations are ongoing.
• Venus - The Germans, with some Italian investment, have the only Venusian colony. This colony is only slightly older than the mars colony. So far, the Germans are the only ones who have show interest. Venus is extremely hot and perpetually shrouded in heavy cloud cover. Nonetheless, its poles, and presumably the rest of it, are covered with large vegetation. It is theorized that these plants compensate for the lack of sunlight using some other, as yet undiscovered, mechanism.
• The Other Planets - No missions to the other planets have yet been attempted. Some parties have suggested mining on the asteroids, as well as scientific expeditions to Jupiter, but these have yet to leave the planning stages. Mercury, meanwhile, is so close to the sun and the aether currents so fast and strong there that it is doubted that current designs for aether ships would be able to survive the journey.

Of course, most of space is unexplored. Even the moon and planets where humans have placed colonies are largely unexplored just a few miles from these small outposts. However, it is unnecessary to travel off the planet to find areas that are largely unknown to the minds of the colonial powers.

The next least charted space is the oceans. Only recently have inventors begun to develop vehicles capable of descending below the relatively shallow coastal regions. The use of helium to make compressed air breathable at even greater depths and pressures has only seen serious practical use in the last couple of years. The undersea stations where vulcanite is mined for use are still only a few hundred feet below the surface, and their surroundings are hardly more explored then those of their extraterrestrial counterparts. The deep sea (previously thought to be no deeper than 300 feet at any point) is proving to be deep indeed. While man's reach has grown long, there are many places that no craft can yet travel to. Even in the shallower waters few detailed explorations have been made. Treasure hunters search the shallow waters for sunken vessels laden with gold, while mineralogists burrow along the sea bottom looking for loads of vulcanite or in attempts to discover new and exotic materials. In the meantime, fantasy authors spin tales about the incredible wonders hidden in the very deepest trenches of the seas.

Finally, vast sections of land remain uncharted, at least by western explorers. Most western explorers made their goals the headwaters of particular rivers, and most of the greatest rivers of the world have been carefully charted all the way to their sources. However, at the same time, these adventurers seldom travel too far from these bodies, except with specific goals in mind. As a result, maps inland of these bodies tend to be rough and limited to what can be seen from a boat. Inner China and Mongolia, central Africa and South America, and, of course, most of the Antarctic continent (although the poles have been achieved) have vast tracts that no westerner has visited. There are countless legends of lost temples, hidden cities, and undiscovered civilizations, both among local populations and western writers. The central United States is becoming fairly well documented, but it still has pockets known only to the Indians. Even in western countries, there are still places that tend only to be visited by the locals and which give rise to legends, both fabulous and sinister, among the day's more fantastic authors. All countries have their hidden places, but Eastern Europe (particularly among the poor serfs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its equally poor neighbors) and the wilds of the Soviet Union seem particularly full of such places (in the minds of western authors, anyway). Still, once in a while a fantastic report by a visiting missionary or vacationing aesthete will give some credibility to these tales.

The Upper Class

Voting in most major nations, those that are democracies, of course, is largely controlled by the upper class. The lower class tends to vote similarly to the upper class for the simple reason that their employers often tell them how to vote. There are many reasons why the lower class does indeed follow that vote:

• employer controls much of the information to the employee
• employees often don't know employer doesn't have access to how they voted
• employees see that best interests of the company are their best interest (keeps the jobs open)

And many more reasons. Thus this means that the middle class is the "swing vote" which only really comes into play when the upper class is divided.

Slavery and Blue Collar Work

Technically, slavery is dead. Virtually all countries have outlawed it, both within their own borders, and in any of their colonies. This was done through a combination of moral, diplomatic (from nations that had already abolished slavery), and technical reasons. For an example of the latter, the invention of the Cotton Gin was the final nail in slavery's coffin in the United States: now that clockworks could perform most tasks, there was little economic incentive for slavery to continue. Pressured by France, Britain, and the northern states, the southern states gradually abolished slavery. (This didn't stop or shorten the American Civil War, however.)

In fact, slavery still exists as a small underground economy in many parts of the world, sometimes secretly, and sometimes with the tacit (read, "purchased") permission of local governors. More commonly, many workers live in conditions under which the distinction between their current state and actual slavery is largely academic. Especially in the colonies, native populations often have virtually no rights and can expect little compensation for long hours under harsh working environments.

Even in the major industrial cities of Europe and America, blue collar workers must be careful not to annoy their superiors for fear of retaliation. A worker who is viewed as a bad influence, for whatever reasons, may be fined, black listed, beaten, or, occasionally, disappear. These are the days when Henry Ford sends inspectors to the homes of employees to ensure they are kept clean, and run in a morally upright manner, and Ford is neither the only nor most invasive example of this practice. Agitators for labor rights are branded as communist and will probably become the center of federal investigations. Pinkertons are often hired to break up strikes and uncover instigators. Efficient entrepreneurs, such as Ford, who wish to cut out the middleman had their own goon squads for such purposes.

Women

There is less a division between genders (in the upper classes), and while women may be expected to stay home and raise children it is less frowned upon when they pursue intellectual endeavors (though of course this is highly variable). (Of course, this does not change the gender based codes of behavior within polite society) There have been several notable women of science at this point. However, there is still the division when it comes to manual labor (and gentlemen will hold the door, carry bags, etc). In the middle classes, women often are shopkeepers along with their husbands (since stores are family run often this doesn't conflict with the stay with kids). In the lower classes, it is expected that a woman give up her job when she is married. However, many women do not inform their employers when they are married in order to keep the second income for the family (which is often approved of by the husband). Again, variations exist.

Native Peoples As mentioned under slavery, most native populations have few rights with regard to their colonial masters. Most of the best land is claimed by colonial plantation owners, often displacing the original inhabitants. In such cases, the natives often have no other source of survival but to work for these same plantations that displaced them. Rebellions are not infrequent but that drastic difference in technology tends to make such events short lived. Many natives end up developing slave mentalities in response to these conditions. The colonizers don't mind this.

Slightly worse off are those people that colonial powers try to "civilize". Examples of these include the American Indians and the Austrailian Aborigenes. These people often live in squalid reservations where they are forbidden to practice their traditions or speak their language. As a result, many of these cultures have been erased.