On Fri, 11 Sep 1998, "Chan Wei Lik" <weimin@pl.jaring.my> wrote:

From: owner-ffml@ffml.fanfic.com [mailto:owner-ffml@ffml.fanfic.com]On
Behalf Of Brendan

	Hmm, will Ranma from the origional figure out a way of quantum
jumping through Martial arts Ki manipulation?

Not likely. I don't believe ki power is THAT capable, even in the
Ranmaverse. Won't need to anyway. He's been picking up things from the
Jumper Ranma. Since he had last been there for 7 hours, I won't be surprised
if original Ranma had a sudden urge to build a Jump device and try it out-
even if he doesn't know what it does.

after all the one flaw in the assumption of accelerated

technological progress in a world with a strong authoritarian government is
the fact that every technological advance has been resisted by some group
in society and if that group has the power to order the technology and
everyone who understands it destroyed...<<

Toltalirian goverments are more interested in preserving their own power
than any form of advancement. In fact most view tech advancements as a
threat to their power and will seek to curb it at all costs. The only
exception to this is when they have an opponent that is visibly more
advanced than they are. They will then seek to acquire such technology but
try to supress its threat to their power. Take for example China and Cuba's
react to the Internet.

	And in QD world, most of the democratic beleifs we take for granted 
are a result of the american and french revolutions and the american 
revolution failed which in turn would have changed the form the french 
revolution took dramaticlly.  If people from the QD world sudenly absorbed a 
lot of ideas which were diametrically opponed to an authorian government from 
the machine, the government would be VERY negative toward the technology.
	Of course if the empires in QD were in a constant state of hot and 
cold war, technology would be encouraged for the purpose of creating better 
weapons in the hopes of gaining an advantage over the others.  Of course all 
scientists and engineers would be carefully monitored and any experimentation 
without military application would be frowned on.