adding a few areas of tech but not all

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satyesu

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i want to write a fantasy with some areas of 'advanced' technology - neon, electric lights, radio - but not others (cars, guns, really any fossil fuels or gunpowder). i thought maybe having had no ice age/dinosaurs could eliminate large deposits of petrol, but then i thought some applications would be cool - skyscrapers built by cranes? i just really don't want cars for some reason (though if you think that would rock, i'm easily persuadable) and i love writing melee combat. what i'm asking is how i take some areas of tech centuries forward but leave others behind, assuming an ability for development akin to humans'.
 
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MumblingSage

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Perhaps it's best not to explain it.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SchizoTech

See what other works have done it an how it worked out for them. Generally, as a reader, if a world has 'schizo tech' the less the author tries to explain it the better. I'll just buy that the world has an odd technology tree.

I have skyscrapers in a fantasy novel--with no elevators. I'm still trying to figure out how they got there. "A wizard did it" might literally be true--it's just that kind of city.
 

Lhun

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Magic is the obvious solution. There's not even a need to explain then, it's easy to imagine magic being used for building tall buildings without magic being able to power a car.

If you use technology it's harder to make it logical. Of course you can just ignore logical. In that case it's probably better to not bother with any explanation, no explanations are better than wrong ones.

If it's supposed to be internally logical and consistent it's important to keep in mind the difference between technology that just appeard around the same time here on earth in western culture, and technology that really is connected. I.e. for cars you need combustion engines. When you have combustion engines, you can and will use them to power pretty much anything. No cars and steam train. No cars and sailships.
Combustion engines also provide the basic working principle of guns, however if chemistry is pretty much nonexistent, maybe noone figured out how to make powder yet.
This can work very well in a steampunky world, were invention are basically created by inventive (and a bit crazy) individualists, and where the scientific method is unkown. Because with the scientific method, people systematically start to figure out how things work, which makes missing areas of technology a lot less likely.
Electricity is somewhat of a problem, you need some decent knowledge of physics for really starting off electric technology, let alone neon lights. Probably better to go at least half the way with magic.
It's pretty much the same for all really modern technology (20th century and later) A computer for example requires extensive knowledge in so many areas of science that there's not a lot that can be missing. I.e. a world with computers but without radio communication or television or telephones makes no sense. Unless they conciously chose not to use radio waves etc..
 

Dave.C.Robinson

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I think it's more important to make sure you think through all the ramifications of your technology and its effects on society than exactly how that particular combination of technologies came
 

Sarpedon

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FYI the dinosaurs and Ice Age had nothing to do with fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are derived from very ancient plant life that got fossilized. You know, like peat.

Gunpowder doesn't depend on fossil fuels either. its components are charcoal (made from wood), saltpeter (most of which is mined, but can also be derived from urine), and sulfur.

And the first skyscrapers were built in the 1860s, using nothing but steam cranes. The critical inventions required for skyscrapers are; the elevator, the bessemer process, the modern method for making plate glass.

If you don't have fossil fuels, you probably wouldn't have much or an industrial revolution. So where is your electricity for the neon signs going to come from? Or do you mean to have coal, but no oil?
 

Nivarion

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I'm working with something similar in my WIP.

simplist solution is always the best IMO, no one has discovered it yet.

I have external combustion engines, so trains and cranes are powered, but oil has not been found (the world is in a heavy ice age so there is no swamps, which is how humans found their oil) No oil, no internal combustion.

However, the electronics is a bit of a challange. Maybe someone noticed the lightening stuff like Ben franklin did, and worked with it like Eddison, but no one found oil for internal, or saltpeter.

I'm so rambling here.
 

waylander

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Electronics requires some pretty high level metal purification technology and vacuum technology. Hard to see how these would exist without a lot of other significant technology
 

Higgins

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FYI the dinosaurs and Ice Age had nothing to do with fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are derived from very ancient plant life that got fossilized. You know, like peat.

Gunpowder doesn't depend on fossil fuels either. its components are charcoal (made from wood), saltpeter (most of which is mined, but can also be derived from urine), and sulfur.

And the first skyscrapers were built in the 1860s, using nothing but steam cranes. The critical inventions required for skyscrapers are; the elevator, the bessemer process, the modern method for making plate glass.

If you don't have fossil fuels, you probably wouldn't have much or an industrial revolution. So where is your electricity for the neon signs going to come from? Or do you mean to have coal, but no oil?

You can make oil from coal...but if the point is to avoid cars and guns...just have them be unfashionable.
 

Sarpedon

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Yes I know that. But if there was no oil to begin with, how would you know to turn the coal into it? :D all your machines would be built to accept solid fuel coal. It'd take a twisted genius to think of liquifying it.
 

Lhun

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Yes I know that. But if there was no oil to begin with, how would you know to turn the coal into it? :D all your machines would be built to accept solid fuel coal. It'd take a twisted genius to think of liquifying it.
Nah, not really. That's the kind of stuff chemists (and alchemists) tried all day long, just for the fun of it. Besides, alcohol is a somewhat decent fuel for internal combustion and there is no way any human society ever does not know how to produce alcohol. :D
 

Pthom

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There has been oil available to humans since we discovered agriculture. Just not petroleum. Cook a bird over the fire and its grease drips and sputters. Pressed nuts are slippery. Oil, derived from lard or other sources, was in common use as fuel in lamps or for lubrication, long before anyone discovered fossil fuels.

For sure, the discovery of petroleum advanced technology in ways hitherto unforseen. But I don't think it inconceivable that a high technology could arise despite the absense of petroleum.
 

Lhun

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For sure, the discovery of petroleum advanced technology in ways hitherto unforseen. But I don't think it inconceivable that a high technology could arise despite the absense of petroleum.
I think it actually would be very interesting to have a world where there is no liquid fuel available beyond the energy density of fat. (the stuff you get from animals or vegetables is chemically a fat, not an oil)
But on the other hand you could have solid fuel with a much higher energy density. You have to live without internal combustion engines or jet engines and similar technology, but you could have steam engines of unprecedented efficiency. Heck, imagine what steam engines we could build today if we had a reason to. I bet you could get a propeller plane flying with a steam engine. You can reduce the weight of the machinery with high-strength low weight materials, reduce the weight of the water by recooling the steam, and if the fuel has a high enough energy density you don't need a wagonload of that either. Okay, you probably don't get anything as small as a Cessna, but huge waterplanes are a lot cooler anyway.
Electricity generation would be pretty unaffected, we use a lot of coal plants ourselves. Basically you have the perfect steampunk setup.
Except that you need to find a reason why noone can turn the solid fuel into a liquid or gas to use for internal combustion. (there were cars that used wood as fuel!) So, the solid fuel commonly used shouldn't be coal but something else. That's what the fantasy part is for i guess. :D
 

Lhun

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I could see a combustion engine using powdered coal. I just wouldn't want to be anywhere near it!
Heh. Prattchets Leonard of Quirm had one with black powder.
 
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