SCM2814
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A Rant On Demesne Tech, and Isekai Uplift
🕑 Added 2024-08-12 14:38:02 +0000 UTCSo, a minor note about the tech-levels in this story. I've come to hate how in some stories the isekai protagonist is always the ONLY person who somehow makes technology progress. Magic and technology have somehow remained stagnant for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, then this guy comes along and suddenly they're having a cultural, scientific and industrial revolution as somehow he puts together common knowledge that every wizard—heck, every STUDENT wizard—knows to make railguns, radios, computers, GPS and nuclear bombs. It really pisses me off how some wizards seem more dogmatic than the actual local religious institution about making no scientific progress about their magic and being hidebound by tradition. It boggles my mind how the local religion is often the reason for the stagnation of knowledge and the maintainer of ignorance, never mind how literally EVERY religious institution older than fifty years has ALWAYS been at the cutting edge of science. They had their ups and downs, and some centuries were better than others, but there's a reason a lot of schools had religious backgrounds.
Hence why the tech in this story. If you had, for example, a significant, professional subset of people who could create and control lightning at will (some restrictions apply) of course they'd discover arc welding. Of course they'd have names for magnetism and it would be studied. As soon as you had someone being paid to study something, it is in their best interest to continue to find new things to study to keep justifying the existence of their job and therefore continue to be paid to study, if you want to be totally Tanya von Degurechaff about it.
Now, there are gaps in the technology to be sure, but that's for in-world reasons. Let's take electrical batteries. In my view, there is very little motivation to create them. Need electricity? A Whisperer can provide, and you get a power controller for the bargain. Ah, I hear you say, but what about electroplating? Well, naturally that will either be a Whisperer-led industry or if for some reason you want to INSIST than anyone should be able to do it, a bound tool powered by beads would be safer. There's your battery right there. Sure, someone might have come up with a voltaic pile at some point, but in a world where they've been using controlled electricity for probably WELL before that, the idea of using poisonous acids and metal to make an electric current to do something—badly—that you can do with a bead is... well, it's inefficient tech, especially since it degrades the materials involved for pretty little gain. Given the circumstantial pressures of the setting, people are far less likely to create poisonous substances that can't be easily treated by heat and maybe lightning. You can't just dump that stuff outside of your demesne, after all, because when your demesne grows it will then be back inside your demesne...
This setting is also unlikely to ever develop computers as we know them, because the existence of Mentalists renders that line of research functionally unnecessary. All the things we originally developed computers for—ballistic calculations, crunching huge numbers quickly, code breaking, etc—Mentalists already do, as fast as a computer, while also having human intuition, pattern recognition and being FAR easer to feed the problems to. This unfortunately potentially cuts off a huge chunk of what we use computers for, such as automation, but there's historically been precedent for self-correcting mechanical systems, so those would still exist, they just wouldn't be run by computers as we know them.
Your standard uplift-wank isekai-kun—which Rian is not, because he is not an isekai, that would be wrong and very silly—needs way more than anarchist cookbook knowledge of gunpowder, mayonnaise, thermite, how to fold steel to make a katana, and inventing the kotatsu for them to make a dent in this setting. They need to be, say, an electronic engineer who knows how to make his own parts (transistors, semi-conductors, resistors) by hand to do something that can't be replicated by local magic, like an electronic voice recorder.
(A record(vinyl) disc/record cylinder wouldn't be enough, as those are basically descended from the music box)
In other words, you'd need to be both a specialist in your field AND know how to make the most basic components of your profession to really do the isekai thing in Demesne. Which is not to say an isekai couldn't, say, make a shoulder-fired black-powder rocket, but once the idea is out there, the local alchemists, smiths and metallurgists would be the ones making it better.
And hey, I never said they don't already have shoulder-fired rockets.
There are probably things i haven't considered, and you will all likely point them out so they will come to my attention and I try to work them into the setting, but broadly speaking that's how I look at the setting's tech.
Comments
SCM2814
No? I never said any of those anywhere, April fools or not.
Nik
Doesn’t Rian have someone he’s hoping to find who has landed up on this planet ? Or the person who figured out how to make deep keeled ships ?
Jam
I didn't know that you had read any of the series! There is other sorts of "isekai-kun wank" but the series has a special place in my heart, as it was one of the first "serious" sci-fi/fantasy I ever read. Plus I was able to use some of the history I learned from it to win a high school quiz bowl competition!
Steve Slota
The more you insist Rian is not an Isekai, the more convinced I am that he is.
SCM2814
That's from an April Fools segment.
Nik
Didn’t we know that he has a weapon and skills from some magic infused earth? Am I missing something ?
SCM2814
Yeah, but... well, they have other sorts of isekai-kun wank...
SCM2814
He's not though? I explicitly mention he is not an isekai, because that would be wrong and very silly.
Megaduck
Beneath the Dragoneye Moons is a great story because its set before the fall. The start is explicitly Roman and its the first empire. There are no ancient lost civilizations, old superpowered artifacts, deep dungeons, or any of that. Those are all in the process of being constructed in the story. Beware of Chicken did the accident introduction of Beehives great because the charecter didn't realize the that the beehives he introduced were only invented in 1850-1900. Yes, Steam Engines predate modern beehives.
Justin Case
Posting this is tantamount to admitting Rian is an isekai.
Jam
Thanks for writing this! Not enough people realize how complex the world actually is, relying on thousands of years of human progress and uncountable numbers of people to have the world of today. The book series "Ring of Fire" (also known as the 1632 series) started by Eric Flint also points out how the "OP MCs" wouldn't work in any real traveling to the past. Great series that has over 20+ books written by a cast of authors. It is pointed out several times that the "downtimers" are often far smarter, experienced, and more capable than the "uptimers", so working together is often the best way forward. And sometimes doing basic improvements (spreading the knowledge of waste disposal or speeding up adoption of scientific method) is more important than creating a nuclear reactor.
SCM2814
'If, for example, a modern day chemistry and engineering student was dropped in a preindustrial, 1300’s Europe equivalent era world with limited generational knowledge, then yes, they’d probably push technology forward by a huge amount with even basic things like the Bessemer process and high school level germ theory.' Any setting that has lost generational knowledge is basically post-apocalyptic, though? That same rational applies to zombie apocalypse settings, and other 'After the End' settings like Fallout. 'the oldest empires were Sumerian to early Roman era at best. ' This is a stupidly young world. That's barely bronze age. That's gold age, and Gilgamesh owns all the stuff.
CringeWorthyStudios
TL;DR You’re correct but Demesne is an old and developed world, so in a new or underdeveloped world with no generational education and knowledge this might be different. I think your point is massively helped by the fact that Demesne is already a highly developed and a relatively old world. If, for example, a modern day chemistry and engineering student was dropped in a preindustrial, 1300’s Europe equivalent era world with limited generational knowledge, then yes, they’d probably push technology forward by a huge amount with even basic things like the Bessemer process and high school level germ theory. I agree on the underlying point though. Unless the society an isekai’d person is dropped in is *significantly* underdeveloped, someone would need highly advanced and specialised knowledge to advance technology in any major way. I think a good example of realistic technological advancement from a transmigrated character is Beneath the Dragoneye Moons where the MC only advanced knowledge because even high school level knowledge was more than they already had for her focus on medicine in a world where the oldest empires were Sumerian to early Roman era at best. Another example is The Reincarnation of Alysara, where a heavily limited and isolated society allows the advancement of technology purely because there was no need or inspiration for many of the concepts introduced. Though admittedly it was a bit overdone there too. By comparison, in Diary of the Shadow Queen, when earth joins the greater universe they can introduce exactly fuck-all new technology, and their biggest contribution is chocolate since cocoa doesn’t exist outside earth. Interesting debate point though…
Menthewarp
Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud! 💕
