Part Three: The Modern Era: Contemporary Technology and Thought

【Overview of the Era】 After the year 3000 of the Stargate Calendar, prolonged peace gradually brought into ordinary schools, workshops, hospitals, and homes much knowledge that in ancient times had been accessible only to a small number of powerful beings and major engineering projects. Qingqiong, Luojia, A'ermu, Sayong, Misa'tuo, Ruomu, and Qianmeng each developed in accordance with their own environments, while centers of learning such as Weien helped these methods influence one another through translation, publication, and sustained exchange.

The most far-reaching change since Hengguang is that knowledge has become increasingly difficult for any single powerful being to monopolize over the long term. An ordinary materials specialist can correct the design of a high-level practitioner; an ordinary physician may prove more reliable than an apex being when treating a particular disease; and vocational schools and local workshops can transform expensive technologies into everyday implements. Powerful beings still undertake irreplaceable high-risk work, but the scale of modern technology arises from the ability of vast numbers of specialists to continue the work of their predecessors.

[From Specialized Engineering to Everyday Life] Modern colleges became one of the principal venues through which extraordinary knowledge was opened to the public. Cultivation, magic, the divine path, martial arts, shamanism, and psionics continued within their respective systems, while universities and academies subjected them to long-term comparison through curricula, engineering, and medicine; orders, clans, and religious sects also continued to provide a great deal of practical training.