What TL does the discovery of gunpowder become inevitable?

[Flyndaran]

I'm wondering how plausible it would be to have a realistic setting without gunpowder.
With al(chemical) experimentation it seems the discovery would be inevitable at some time.

Could one make it to TL5 without it? TL7 etc.?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm wondering how plausible it would be to have a realistic setting without gunpowder.
With al(chemical) experimentation it seems the discovery would be inevitable at some time.

Could one make it to TL5 without it? TL7 etc.?

Isn't gunpowder a critical part of TL4+? If you don't have it you are at an alternate TL; TL2+n (as black powder is really a TL3 invention), I'd think. As far as how high n can be without gunpowder, it seems possible that it's completely arbitrary. With a significantly alternate tech-tree gunpowder would never be more than a curiosity. If TL0+4 biotech allows for gun-plants, as good as muskets, you probably won't make muskets ever.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm wondering how plausible it would be to have a realistic setting without gunpowder.
With al(chemical) experimentation it seems the discovery would be inevitable at some time.

Could one make it to TL5 without it? TL7 etc.?

With hit or miss experimentation nothing is ever inevitable but mid-TL 5 sees the beginnings of real scientific chemistry and many sorts of explosives are probably inevitable then.

[Barghaest]

You could make it to TL12+ without it. You'd have to come up with feasable alternatives for research that was based on gunpowder (like nitro) or exclude it as well, but I would say while it was a critical discovery for our history it wouldn't be entire implausible to suggest an alternate history without it. Lacking gunpowder would mean warfare would remain fairly medieval until it's discovery and you'd wonder why no one tried to find something other than muscle to power ranged weapons.

In a fantasy setting magic could easily replace it and makes it's discovery/research unnecessary. And I wouldn't consider the development of beam weaponry dependent upon first discovering gunpowder. Perhaps gunpowder was neglected because advances in physics made it obsolete....

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm wondering how plausible it would be to have a realistic setting without gunpowder.
With al(chemical) experimentation it seems the discovery would be inevitable at some time.

Could one make it to TL5 without it? TL7 etc.?

I am honestly not sure, there might be a case for saying that it is not a forgone conclusion that anybody will grind sulphur, saltpeter and charcoal together. If one takes that line then any TL might be possible.

However it may well be that the use of gunpowder contributed to the development of other fields, primarly various theoretical (at least at low TL's) sciences but also metalurgy, mechanical and civil engineering. If this is the case then it is not unreasonable to assume that things aren't going to get too much further than TL 4 when the bulk of these contributions would have taken place.

[Barghaest]

Originally Posted by Frost

However it may well be that the use of gunpowder contributed to the development of other fields, primarly various theoretical (at least at low TL's) sciences but also metalurgy, mechanical and civil engineering. If this is the case then it is not unreasonable to assume that things aren't going to get too much further than TL 4 when the bulk of these contributions would have taken place.

I would say gunpowder wasn't so much a necessity for these fields as a discovery that vastly accelerated them. I mean, yes blasting made it possible to build mines/tunnels/etc faster and through denser materials but there were mines before it's invention. It might have hastened discoveries in metallurgy, but metallurgy was progressing along before it (copper, bronze, iron, steel...)

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

With hit or miss experimentation nothing is ever inevitable but mid-TL 5 sees the beginnings of real scientific chemistry and many sorts of explosives are probably inevitable then.

This. If the alternate tech path has competitive alternatives, or the society in question has very large blind spots about applications, it might not be used. But a basic repertoire of fast exothermic chemical reactions are inevitable in anything resembling what we call chemistry. They will know that some things can be made to go boom.

You might, with heavy twisting, manage something like TL6 without good chemistry or the scientific method. Probably not. Higher than that is a "tad" unlikely.

[Barghaest]

Originally Posted by martinl

This. If the alternate tech path has competitive alternatives, or the society in question has very large blind spots about applications, it might not be used. But a basic repertoire of fast exothermic chemical reactions are inevitable in anything resembling what we call chemistry. They will know that some things can be made to go boom.

You might, with heavy twisting, manage something like TL6 without good chemistry or the scientific method. Probably not. Higher than that is a "tad" unlikely.

Yes, but discovery of explosives doesn't necessarily correlate to discovery of gunpowder (maybe the person who did stumble across it blew himself and his notes up). And one of the prime features of gunpowder is its ease of use in firearms. Chemistry can advance without refining explosives to the point where stability/portability makes them useful for propelling mass driving weaponry - just assume the known explosives are either too unstable or too unwieldy to power firearms.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Isn't gunpowder a critical part of TL4+? If you don't have it you are at an alternate TL; .

Only if they develop something we didn't have to compensate. For example if they miss that development, but still develop crossbows, tasers and airguns exactly like ours in mechanics, they haven't diverged. However a lack of gunpowder will probably prevent them from inventing rocketry and dynamite as well as well. But there's no particular reason why we'd absolutely have to have gunpowder before getting, say, the electric light or the computer.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Only if they develop something we didn't have to compensate. For example if they miss that development, but still develop crossbows, tasers and airguns exactly like ours in mechanics, they haven't diverged. However a lack of gunpowder will probably prevent them from inventing rocketry and dynamite as well as well. But there's no particular reason why we'd absolutely have to have gunpowder before getting, say, the electric light or the computer.

If you say "TL4" I hear "gunpowder", unless you specify that there isn't any.