User blog comment:Krayfish/DP Rant Part 1: Civilizations and Species/@comment-2001921-20130301123633

"What we need here is just a better sense of scale."

I think this is particularly important. And not just in terms of population, but also in terms of time.

My suspicion would be that the approach commonly taken in building science-fiction civilisations for the big screen and TV has bled over, as such things often do, and influenced where people place their focus in species design. It's not just top-down; it's top-only, with perhaps passing mention of the species' pastimes and culture. Usually, these passing mentions fail to reflect the diversity that will be present throughout a civilisation; looking at the difference between, say, Canadian and Bulgarian culture is a good benchmark when thinking about how different worlds will have different traditions and cultures.

Cultures diverge exceptionally fast, and even rapid communication with the homeworld and other colonies does little to stem that (see the national identities of old British colonies). Within a hundred years, accents, ideologies, etc all completely separated from each other.

There's also the rash of civilisations many thousands of years old in OGC. I find the way civilisations of this age are being presented is highly unrealistic; Krayfish is using the interesting possibility of cycles of stagnation to explain why the FMASN is only a few hundred years ahead of modern-day humanity while actually being 7000 years old.

I would recommend avoiding unhampered civilisations over 5000 years old; realistic presentations of such societies are likely to be taken as godmodding. Also, whether a civilisation this old will be able to meaningfully interact with a civilisation younger by even a few hundred years is doubtful, and what would be their motivation to do so?