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Old 12-27-2015, 04:15 AM   #51
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Technological development without fire.

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
"more advanced" is not "divergent"
It's not realistic or logical to be non-divergent with that extreme of TL differences in technologies, in my opinion.
One; of course. Two; unusual but sure. Three or more; not really. Eight? No freaking way.
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Old 12-27-2015, 04:31 AM   #52
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Default Re: Technological development without fire.

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
It's not realistic or logical to be non-divergent with that extreme of TL differences in technologies, in my opinion.
One; of course. Two; unusual but sure. Three or more; not really. Eight? No freaking way.
I would argue for one exception to that. Magic as a replacement to technology.

Granted this may be more of a disagreement about terminology. TL 2+8 (magic) being a setting where technology never developed as there was no need as you could do it all with a spell or fourteen.

Geothermal springs with the right impurities can also have a temperature higher than boiling point. Which could be useful.

One thing I have thought about regarding tech levels is how much is knowledge and how much is infrastructure?

Is the hall mark of TL 8 the computer or the Internet? So to speak.
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Old 12-27-2015, 08:28 AM   #53
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Default Re: Technological development without fire.

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Roundup, the trademarked insecticide.
Herbicide (just to get my pedantry for the day out of the way).

It binds to an enzyme, "ESPS synthase", in an amino acid synthesis pathway that's important for growth in plants (contributing to 25-33% of their mass), but absent in animals, fish, and insects. It wouldn't make a good insecticide. That pathway exists in fungi and bacteria, so glyphosate has been investigated as a possible anti-microbial agent.

"Roundup Ready" crops have additional genes for making ESPS synthase inserted, so they make more enzyme and thus better withstand the effects of a given amount of glyphosate. Also, these genes are from a bacterium that makes a slightly different version of the enzyme, so glyphosate binds less well to it in the first place.

I didn't see any references to the direct application of fire during the process of copying genes from the bacterium to crop plant cells :)
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Old 12-27-2015, 08:43 AM   #54
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Default Re: Technological development without fire.

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I would argue for one exception to that. Magic as a replacement to technology.

Granted this may be more of a disagreement about terminology. TL 2+8 (magic) being a setting where technology never developed as there was no need as you could do it all with a spell or fourteen.
I think a second may be societies that have experienced technological regression for various reasons.

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Originally Posted by (E) View Post
Geothermal springs with the right impurities can also have a temperature higher than boiling point. Which could be useful.
True, but be careful not to select an alternative to fire that stretches suspension of disbelief more than "they just use their magic instead". If elves are supposed to be sufficiently advanced in spell work, the "smart fire" concept probably works best: through their art they can make fire that only burns/heats what it is supposed to and will not work on anything else. The more exotic and technically natural options like lava and the springs might be useful for "rule of cool" but might be best reserved for if the Elves expect non-magical guests that still have use of fire. The lava suggestion seemed pretty dangerous given the earlier reasoning for avoiding fire and also seems to bend credulity "Wait, they'll magic up magma to use for cooking instead of just using a spell to do the cooking?"

This is your baby, but if you keep the idea that they aren't going to use fire but that they are willing to magically modify themselves, just do that. Reduced Consumption 2 (Cast-Iron Stomach, -50%) [2] with either Immunity to Disease or some level of Resistance, and perhaps the same for Poison (either Immunity or Resistance) so that they just don't need to cook their foods. If mana levels fluctuate in your setting to the point where no mana is common enough to justify it you might also make it Magical (worth whatever percentage is appropriate to the campaign level). If "No Mana" areas are a "thing" then it could be interesting when suddenly a Wood Elf used to eating everything raw is forced to cook, to starve or to suffer the way a human wood eating everything raw.
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Old 12-27-2015, 11:39 AM   #55
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Default Re: Technological development without fire.

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
It's not realistic or logical to be non-divergent with that extreme of TL differences in technologies, in my opinion.
One; of course. Two; unusual but sure. Three or more; not really. Eight? No freaking way.
But that takes us back do "You have to give them things that wouldn't really work". It wouldn't really work to give people who know nothing but selective breeding a degree of capability with it that matches TL 8 biology. You have to fudge.
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Old 12-27-2015, 01:44 PM   #56
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Default Re: Technological development without fire.

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But that takes us back do "You have to give them things that wouldn't really work". It wouldn't really work to give people who know nothing but selective breeding a degree of capability with it that matches TL 8 biology. You have to fudge.
Some of that high biology TL fudging overlaps with having "super" breeds of animals in fantasy world's. Giant eagles, intelligent horses, bizarre hybrids and walking trees.

Regarding cooking food without fire there are a few real world examples. In Samoa lemon juice is used to chemically cook fish. Pinapple also contains an enzyme that breaks down animal protein.

Thinking about saving fire for the guests. Playing up the appearance of primative more. Stone work, fibrework and Resins for building and tool construction. Some parrelels to carbon fibre and fibre glass products.

Knowledge of Selective breeding and observation enough to pick up dominant and recessive gene traits is quite a big thing when the people doing the breeding are unaging and have a few thousand year head start.

I hope to get a plausible elven society that is advanced enough to support royalty, semi professional or professional soldiers and a society where there is enough stratification and specialisation to have "character class level templates" (kind of)

Example a wood elven scout while not necessarily a character template does have several features that are obvious. High outdoor skills, primitive of a sort. And a distinctive equipment set.
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Old 12-27-2015, 02:43 PM   #57
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Default Re: Technological development without fire.

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Regarding cooking food without fire there are a few real world examples. In Samoa lemon juice is used to chemically cook fish. Pinapple also contains an enzyme that breaks down animal protein.
Also in South America, there is a dish called ceviche I believe, fish in lemon or lime juice.
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Old 12-27-2015, 02:57 PM   #58
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Default Re: Technological development without fire.

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
But that takes us back do "You have to give them things that wouldn't really work". It wouldn't really work to give people who know nothing but selective breeding a degree of capability with it that matches TL 8 biology. You have to fudge.
Define 'a degree of capability'- with nothing more than selective breeding you CAN develop pretty much all of the advanced bio-tech of late TL-8 (with the limited exception of the true cross-genetic strains we have); but it would take a strong understanding of genetics and inheritance, some sort of racial patience, and thousands of years to get there.

It wouldn’t BE TL8 genetics -the produced species would be more hearty from not having been part of a 'forced evolution' program that normally involves purposely causing genetic damage, but would also be critically slow to develop: They might have 'roundup ready' crops, but if the weeds started getting resistance they'd have no way to change to something else. They might have plenty of penicillin from selectively breeding moulds that make it more accessible, but basically no way to produce macrobid), but it would have similar end results with the process itself having some upsides and downsides.
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Old 12-27-2015, 03:04 PM   #59
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Default Re: Technological development without fire.

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Originally Posted by Ransom View Post
What I had in mind was more that they would settle on volcanic sites, using earth magic to locate/access/create them. They wouldn't be magically summoning magma after the initial settlement of a site.
Thank you for clarifying, but it still has much the same issues, doesn't it? Not like I've ever lived near such a site myself but creating them for convenience means greatly altering the landscape and without magic being used more or less the whole time, still has the risk of damaging the surrounding environment... doesn't it?

Now, doing this to create guest quarters because a "responsible" Wood elf is near by to deal with it if the silly primitive humans that fancy themselves advanced just because they are less capable at living at one with nature might need it? That has some potential. I think I'd still rather that the Wood Elves:

1) Just had fire anyway, but used it minimally (like for their own cooking, not anything remotely industrial)

2) Had adapted themselves to living without fire in the first place

but that isn't for any compelling, game reason and just personal preference.
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Old 12-27-2015, 03:19 PM   #60
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Default Re: Technological development without fire.

Regarding the speed of development. In modern selective breeding the speed of change is quite high. Admittedly there are lots of techniques that rely on modern equipment. Magic may replace them or not, personal world building decision there. Personally I would say not.

Anyway back to the speed of change. Chickens being the most extreme example have 800% more meat in their breast fillet than 40 years ago. The rate of change for their growth rate is 1 day faster for every year of breeding.

The genetics of the last Rams I bought for my farm are measured against the 1987 standard and cover some 50 or so characteristics and are financially weighted. In 28 years the improvement is 187% and thus is in an 800 dollar ram not an 8000 dollar one.
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