Trope-a-Day: Omnidisciplinary Scientist / Renaissance Man

Omnidisciplinary Scientist / Renaissance Man: Yep, they have a lot of these.

(Well, maybe not quite omni.)

But consider, first, the incredibly broad-based education we discussed back in Education; then consider the effects of the mindpatchable-knowledge tools also discussed there; and bear in mind the effects of extremely long lifespans, regular changes of career, and a culture that lauds knowledge, exalts the notion of the polymath in its culture-heroes, and firmly believes that education never stops.

People young enough to not have had time to do the learnin’ aside, the modal Imperial-on-the-street has formal qualifications in several fields, informal qualifications in more, and is capable, if needed, of being scarily competent in an arbitrarily large number of others.

(Or, to put it another way, were I to game this out in GURPS, Science! and other exclamation-pointed skills would not be considered cinematic for this universe.)

As a side note: With reference to the way their university system works – well, their academic titles are based on that accumulation of total achievement, but scale up a lot further than ours do. Acquiring just one of their local doctorate-equivalents lets you call yourself Academician. The topmost academic title, Polygnostic, which comes complete with extreme respect, awe, membership in the Polygnostic Conclave and a really nice hat, requires the equivalent of twelve concurrent doctorates in disparate subjects!