Okay, so here I am at the con, and I need to be getting to bed pretty soon because we have more stuff going on tomorrow, but when I posted the current snippet I noticed that Dilandu is upset with me again.
I'm not going to rehash a whole bunch of things I've already said before. I'll only observe that (1) the starting point for Safehold is very, very different from any "historical" industrial epoch; (2) the current capability of Charis is the result of several years of steadily accelerating growth in basic capability and "the tools to build tools;" (3) Charis has the enormous advantage of a reference source which doesn't make mistakes; (4) there is nothing at all that Charis is doing now that I haven't set the groundwork for an earlier books, including breech-loading artillery, triple expansion steam engines, and face-hardened armor; (5) as far as cartridge making and the drawing machinery is involved, allow me to point out that I have given you several instances of Safeholdian industrial and other uses which have already demanded the creation of that technology, although the mechanization of the drawing techniques is obviously considerably more advanced than anything they previously needed; (6) I have given you the process by which early smokeless powder can be (and is being) developed by Charis; (7) the weapons which will eventually utilize that smokeless powder have been designed to utilize black powder until the smokeless rounds are available in sufficient numbers; (8) whether I have told you about it or not, a source for the nitrates required by the huge upsurge in Charisian powder production is ready to hand — it's called "The Wyvernry," where wyverns have been depositing guano for somewhere around a half million — and it is specifically mentioned in HFQ (although it was not inserted just to keep Dilandu happy, since I didn't know he was going to be complaining at the time I wrote the book); (9) the Delthak Works (in case you hadn't noticed) now employ approximately as many people as the main Krupp Works employed in 1914, and it is only one of (I believe 4) complexes Howsmyn is building in Charis, alone, far less in Chisholm; (10) the total number of King Haarahlds being produced for the Imperial Charisian Navy is, (I believe) 3, so this is hardly a case of Howsmyn building an entire fleet of "armored cruisers;" (11) as far as the Rottweiler-class is concerned, they were essentially completed (as conversions) before the first of the jury-rigged, accelerated casemate ironclads (or their power plants) were on the horizon, and engine production since the original ironclads became available has been earmarked for the far more capable ironclads under construction rather than taking a class already in service (and which is more deadly than any other warship afloat) back out of service long enough to build the engines, install the engines, and re-commission the armored galleons . . . by which time the new ironclads will already be in service.
I could continue. My point, however, is simply that there are no strands of weapons development currently underway in Charis which "just suddenly appeared." One may argue about whether or not they are impossibly compressed; I don't happen to think that they are, given the starting point, the degree to which the Crown has pressed and supported these developments, the input from Owl and Merlin, and the pressurization of a war for survival. Yes, arabic numerals are a relatively recent invention, and, yes, the scientific theory behind a lot of these developments either doesn't exist or has been hijacked by the Holy Writ's religious and miraculous explanations. I'll grant you that. However, given the technology these people already had — as demonstrated by many things I've referenced in the books — they had to be capable of working to close tolerances (although, granted, not to tolerances as close as those the Delthak Works currently need) well before Merlin came along, and they had a thorough grasp of the practical and pragmatic sides of fabrication. What Charis has been producing over the last half-dozen years has been a group of technocrats equipped with arabic numerals, the steady flood of scientific explanations pouring out of the College, and backstopped by Merlin and Owl and (for that matter) Ehdwyrd Howsmyn, once he got access to Owl. I don't believe I've ever suggested that the Scientific Revolution has come full flower to Charis, and it hasn't. It's in the process of coming to flower, and with the enthusiastic support of the Church of Charis (not the opposition it faced historically from the Church or would have faced by the Mainland Church on Safehold), but that hasn't happened yet. The vast majority of what is being produced by Charisian industry is being produced by a labor force which doesn't have to understand the scientific method because of the circumstances in which the needed information can be inserted into the system (on the one hand) and because of the fact that they already understand a perfectly adequate "explanation" for most of the things they are doing.
I'm sorry if some of my readers find this implausible. I will readily concede that as a storyteller I am prepared to compress processes and to assume that coin tosses normally land in the favor of my heroes (although I trust you'll agree that that hasn't always been the case). What I have not done is to assume the sudden, miraculous, unexplained, "just appeared" emergence of technology or techniques for which I haven't established background before they emerge in the books.
