Of course there would be espionage! As far as technology development, the characters would probably struggle a bit. This is partially because technology in Echo is actually past technology in the real world at the time. Some invention that are created are either impossible in the real world, or not common in the real world. For example, Denmark might have people using jet packs to get to work. However, some countries have technologies going back all the way to the stone age. In addition, the spread of technology can vary, depending on the the invention and market.

I know that there are some holes and gaps in the system that I'm going to address in the OOC post, which will provide more details. I promise that the OOC will be up in three or four hours, I'll try and put a link in here for all of you.