Non-weapons of war, weapons of war

PeterZ wrote:
That is so cool! That's my vote for the Navy. With that little device and a mechanical range computer ICN accuracy improves phenomenally. If it is within the capabilities of current Safehold tech, that is.

In 1915 C&R [Construction and Repair, from 1940, the Bureau of Ships] considered the gyro worth its weight.... "particularly where director fire is used", that is, particularly at very long range. Ironically, by the time the Tennessee (BB 43) was delivered, directors had improved to the point, that roll damping was no longer nessessary.

Source: U.S. Battleships - An Illustrated Design History, Norman Friedman, Naval Institute Press 1985, ISBN 0-87021-715-1

1 - Fiat currency
2 - Carbide lamp
3 - Ballpoint pen
4 - Post-it note
5 - Paper fastener
6 - Zip fastener

That's all I can think of right now but it shouldn't be too difficult to find some others if I took the time.

pokermind wrote:King's college's brightest student sent to various parts of the Empire to form Emperor's collages thus providing more and more higher education, and more universities. Perhaps the start of learned journals, perhaps with some seed ideas from an anomalous thinker naked Owl

Poker

Good idea - in fact, I'd take it one step further, and develop Public Schooling.

Currently, the Church is responsible for all primary and secondary school education. This results in children being exposed to religious beliefs when they are young and impressionable.


So, why not start state funded schools?

That way, they can be influenced to support the State rather than the Church.


Then, you can introduce state funded universities.

In addition to the education and research advantages you get, you also start the introduction of students to politics outside of their (conservative, traditional) families - which will result in a faster change in attitudes.

Hi Niethil,

Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite simulated beverage on the forum.

For more ideas try the BBC link on "Ten inventions that owed their success to WW1"; including stainless steel, wrist watches, zippers, Kleenex, sanitary napkins (which went quite a ways to effectively emancipate women and their role in business and the workplace), and blood banks though that's on a separate link, "The world's first blood bank".

Steam cars were successful in England in the 1839's until banned by Parliament, on behalf of their competitors, and Safehold's high roads are better than any in England or elsewhere then, so they could spread more rapidly and widely than some might think, especially areas that would never support a RR, while the RR's carry the heavy freight etc.

Post-its were invented by 3M in 1968, but they weren't successful until the '80's, I've never read anyone else suggesting them so early, but that supposes they can be made without electricity etc.

Others have suggested typewriters, and other period improvements in printing, while steam powered refrigeration also comes to mind.

L

niethil wrote:1 - Fiat currency
2 - Carbide lamp
3 - Ballpoint pen
4 - Post-it note
5 - Paper fastener
6 - Zip fastener

That's all I can think of right now but it shouldn't be too difficult to find some others if I took the time.

lyonheart wrote:.
that supposes they can be made without electricity etc.

Who knows ? There might be a Safeholdian native species which could provide what is needed. Some kind of jellyfish which lives in groups bound by a glue secreted by its body or something. Or mabe a bush with seeds that get disseminated (does that word exist in english ?) thanks to their getting glued to animals.

What's the point of living on another planet if you don't take advantage of it ? We shouldn't assume that Charisians only have access to the same resources as us.

niethil wrote:

lyonheart wrote:.
that supposes they can be made without electricity etc.

Who knows ? There might be a Safeholdian native species which could provide what is needed. Some kind of jellyfish which lives in groups bound by a glue secreted by its body or something. Or mabe a bush with seeds that get disseminated (does that word exist in english ?) thanks to their getting glued to animals.

What's the point of living on another planet if you don't take advantage of it ? We shouldn't assume that Charisians only have access to the same resources as us.

Post-its are a cart before the horse sort of invention. I am not sure paper production has increased sufficiently yet to allow the invention to be adopted. Applying pneumatics to all potential industrial applications until the Proscriptions are withdrawn will take years yet. Post-its fall pretty far down the list of prioritites. Getting some sort of carbon paper forms would come first along with a more flexible printing process like a mimeograph. Even those process are behind much more basic needs like simply producing much more paper of different qualities, shapes and sizes.

Whingnut wrote:Marine chronometer to find the longitude. For greater accuracy in sea transportation. Actually knowing your longitute (latitude is relatively easy) would lower the need for dead reckoning. A chronometer would require less information than celestial navigation (think of all those stars, planets, lunar cycles and their relative location on every night) It's invention would require the application of bimetallic springs. I know that safehold has some textev about watches I just forget where I read it (anyone know where). .

Of note. Failing to wind the chronometer on a ship was a mastable and keelhaulable offense.

Safeholdians have pocket watches and use them to time attacks to the minute. Wouldn't that mean that a marine chronometer would already be feasible?

Kizarvexis wrote:...

Safeholdians have pocket watches and use them to time attacks to the minute. Wouldn't that mean that a marine chronometer would already be feasible?

Pocket watches can be reset daily as all one needs to do is observe local noon. Or groups can synch watches and that works fine for a short period like timing an attack later the same day. Synching watches as a group before drills/attacks was a standard army procedure when I was a kid. An error of a minute a day is unimportant.

Mechanical marine chronometers don't seem to be around much or at least I have not seen them mentioned. We already know (forget which book) that Charisans are so good at dead reckoning on known routes that many captains prefer it to more "modern" methods. This is not at all impossible and in fact was common practice on Earth in the sailing era. For much commerce, it is perfectly acceptable: Just follow the mapped out trades and currents. The military and specialized commerce (e.g., whalers, for one, on Earth) however had more stringent needs which did require chronometers.

Marine chronometers must maintain the noon from a standard point (Greenwich on Earth) over a long period of time without correction. Totally different problem. Errors are cumulative and if uneven, cannot be compensated for. That is, a clock that gains or loses a known number of seconds per day is fine. In fact all did and a record of this was kept with the instrument. But uneven changes due to changing temps, various accelerations, mechanical problems from uneven care, even slightly changing the place of storage, etc. all tend to add up in unknown, uneven ways. After weeks at sea, a cumulative error of plus or minus only 4 minutes works out being somewhere east or west on a line 120 nautical miles long at the equator (a bit under 140 statute miles). An error of a minute a day would be disastrous.

Feasible? maybe. But I haven't read of anyone doing much with them. Of course OWL could build acceptable chronometers any time they were needed. Alternatively, David just may not be mentioning them as they don't concern him or the story line.

Some of the long military voyages would seem to need them, though coastal sailing with only minimal straight blue water crossings of fairly short durations seem the norm on Charis as I read the series and look at the map.

Does safehold have public libraries yet, other than Church libraries?

Unknown.

However, I suspect that what we mean by "public libraries" are rare.

That is, libraries containing both fiction and non-fiction books that are lent out to the general public or to subscribers who pay the owners of the library for the privilege of using the books.

While Safehold has printing presses with moveable type, books are still expensive.

Many of the early non-private libraries were closer to reference libraries than the libraries we grew up with.

That is, the books would have been read in the library not taken home.

IMO there are likely plenty of these types of libraries.

Some would be associated with the Safehold Church (both for education and otherwise)

Others would be associated with professions (funded by professional organizations)

In Charis, there will be libraries associated with non-Church education (pushed by the Crown).

While there will be fictional books available, IMO the majority of books in these libraries will non-fiction books associated with the purpose of the libraries.

phillies wrote:Does safehold have public libraries yet, other than Church libraries?