11-10-2016, 08:30 AM | #11 | |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Roads Not Taken
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A pump is used to move fluid against the pressure flow. If you allow a pressure flow to push a pump backwards, you have an engine. Imagine a world where Ctesibius beat Watt to the patent office by about 2 millennia.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
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11-10-2016, 08:53 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Nov 2012
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Re: Roads Not Taken
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11-10-2016, 03:55 PM | #13 | |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Roads Not Taken
Quote:
Imagine a spider mutant that wraps egg cases with super strong guide wire silk rather than the basic whatever they normally use kind. Breed for that, then excessive egg laying, and bam, cash crop.
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Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
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11-10-2016, 04:10 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Roads Not Taken
An interesting possibility might be significantly improved elastic materials, springs, or other types of mechanical battery. People historically did a lot of pretty interesting things with clockwork, but you just can't store enough energy in springs to keep running for any significant duration.
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11-10-2016, 07:51 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Roads Not Taken
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It also has two interesting fuel sources - the Calderans actually use the heat of the volcanoes they live on (Caldera being a series of nearby volcanic islands) to power their massive steamworks, while the rest of the world uses another miracle material, nicknamed burn-slow (its a slow-burning but high-energy fuel), to power their boilers. |
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11-10-2016, 08:13 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: Roads Not Taken
The problem with that is that you're adding energy to a closed system. That's the "reason" for the conservation or energy law.
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11-10-2016, 08:16 PM | #17 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Roads Not Taken
Not if I am using the aforementioned slow burning super fuel. Nor for that matter if I am using let's say an "ether furnace" that "burns" ambient dark matter. And even if I am...so what?
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11-10-2016, 09:03 PM | #18 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Roads Not Taken
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Quote:
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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11-10-2016, 09:06 PM | #19 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Roads Not Taken
Reliable contact fuse grenades edging out the musket.
Hyper accurate parachutes preventing the drop being replaced by the heliocopter(on one occasion in Vietnam a general ordered a drop because he was desperate to get a lot of men in the AO on time even at the risk of scatter; accurate chutes would make that less of a tricky decision). Wire fences in the Middle Ages. Wire springs in hollow bows(like a Kernmantle rope). Allowing Sedentarists to gain an edge over Steppemen much sooner then they did. Medieval Multitool knives.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
11-11-2016, 03:45 AM | #20 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
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Re: Roads Not Taken
Medicine could do a lot. The study of how the body works doesn't really need to be tied to many other TLs.
TL8 with TL3 medicine would be interesting (and would probably involve a very fatalistic world-view). In contrast, TL 6 medicine might fit into TL 2 with a bit of a shove. Likewise, food production and transport (and, therefore, population density) might control the average speed of technological advancement, but it could be tweaked. The classic Roman Potato Scenario falls under this category. Political structures could also be adjusted. One could handwave feudalism into a modernesque setting, if you like. Or put federations and corporations into a very early civilization. |
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divergent technology, technology |
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