The Paper Age

I am happy to hear on Amarr Certified News today that the insurgency in Eredan has been quelled as well! No doubt in a couple of days traffic will flow as usual along the silk road connecting Amarr to Jita.

I had to head out the other way, today, towards the Kingdom, to Neyi IV. There, specialists from LUMEN's library are working on a restoration project for the old books and scrolls in the monastery of the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl, along with the Order's own experts. It is a long project, as the monastery has been in decay for a long period before Baron Redwolfe discovered it. 

Most civilizations discover and use paper at some stage in their development. It usually signals a major transition, a turning point between a primitive and ignorant planet-bound society, and a digital society entering its space age. Paper and printing allow for ideas and knowledge to spread much faster than before, and it spurs discoveries and innovations. The Paper Age, usually lasting only a few centuries, is an inflection point. 

It is not only books that appear then, but also administration paperwork. That is an often undervalued part of the historical record, at least in popular accounts. But the true historian will value what others would find boring lists and ledgers and reports. During the Paper Age, the level of civilization is usually proportional to the amount of paperwork it produces and archives.

The library collaborators working on the restoration projects contacted me because they found a trove of old shipping records from the dawn of our space age, at the very end of our own paper age. These are records from an ancient shipping company called "Red Star Shipping", that we now know was a front for the Sani Sabik.