Speed of Technological Development

A bit of history to elaborate on my position. In 1635 entered a period of isolation cutting itself off from most contact with the western world and entering a 200 year long period of seclusion called the Sakoku Period. Some information got in via the Dutch, however, and was known as Rangaku, but in many areas Japan's technological development stalled. Then (in simple terms) the US opened Japan in 1853 and Japan began to industrialize.

A few Japanese guys built Japan's first steam engine right after Japan was opened. Basically this was a proof-of-concept to the Japanese. The knowledge was present in Japan, but there were people who did not want to make one as they thought it would be crossing a line in the Sakoku period. In 1855 the Unkōmaru was built in Satsuma domain: Japan's first japanese built steamship. In 1863 Satsuma shipbuilders built the Chiyodagata, the first Japanese built steam powered warship she was a gunship, displacing 140 tons and less than 30 meters long.

Among the biggest priorities of the Japanese government during the Meiji restoration was the strengthening of their nation's military and industrial base. Factory style manufacturing was well established in east asia for centuries and Japan's population per square KM was high, as was it's urban population (Tokyo had a population of over a million). The Japanese government created universities, sent students abroad, brought in engineers and scientists from Europe to teach at said universities and pushed education hard. They also bankrolled industrial development, setting up factories and shipyards and railways. As such during the Meiji period Japan rapidly industrialized. As an island nations one of its top priorities was building a decent navy. Despite this, they were still dependent on British shipyards to build their heaviest warships until 1910 when they launched the Satsuma, the first Japanese built battleship.

That brings us to Safehold. Even with Merlin's big book of cheat sheets and the church of charis giving it's official OK to steam engine technology, going from "let's see if our boys can put a working steam engine together" to "ironclad warships" in a year's time seems remarkably fast.

Zor

I think there are a couple of things that might account for it. First consider Howsmyn's constant effort to improve his steel and increase his production. Pressure to increase cannon and rifle production was a driving force behind that. That predated steam by several years, really starting in earnest with that first meeting at Helen Is. shortly after Merlin offered his services to Haarahld in OAR.

Secondly, consider the qualty of Howsmym's people and the constant drive to improve the quality of machine work, constantly working for tighter tolerances, etc. If you look at it this way a good deal of the ground work had already been done before the subject of steam even came up.

Then, remember that Howsmyn's people did not have to fumble around with experimenting and blind alleys to come up with a workable design because that came courtesy of Owl. Instead the first steam engines are proof of concept rather than experimentation.

Rrmember also that this is a pressurized situation as Charis struggles to stay ahead of the game, understanding that this is a war for survival which means that you find a few gears you didn't know you had.

I think that when all of this is put together, the pace for the arrival of steam makes sense.

Don

Consider this : in 1914 German chemical firms supplied about 80% of colorant markets worldwide (is 'colorant' the correct word in English ? - that's the name of the class of chemicals in French anyway). Yet its opponents managed to build their own industry fast enough to sustain a world war for four years.

Imperatorzor--Charis started off with a considerably higher tech base than Japan. It also already had the largest merchant marine in the world, unlike Japan, and the most advanced navy and industry, before Merlin ever showed up. Japan had to create an industry from scratch--Charis merely has to improve the existing industry.

Yeah, Charisian (and Safeholdian in general to a somewhat lesser degree) "base"/pre-Merlin tech is higher than pre-industrial on Earth in a lot of fields.

Their primitive ships and very primitive guns aren't typical of the general technical competence level.

And actually, now that I think of it, Safehold got to cannons and matchlock muskets in less than a century after the invention of gunpowder. It took significantly longer on Earth - IIRC guns proper are something like 300 years after gunpowder (fire-lances came earlier).

I wonder if this is related to another 'hidden' brotherhood...

n7axw wrote:Then, remember that Howsmyn's people did not have to fumble around with experimenting and blind alleys to come up with a workable design because that came courtesy of Owl. Instead the first steam engines are proof of concept rather than experimentation.

So was the case for the Japanese when they built their first steam engines and steamship. They saw western "black ships" off their coasts chugging along and how they performed in the Opium Wars and had bought some books on how they work, but relented on building one due to fears of crossing the line until the gates of japan were opened. The Japanese did not have to muck about with atmospheric engines and similar intermediate states.

cralkhi wrote:And actually, now that I think of it, Safehold got to cannons and matchlock muskets in less than a century after the invention of gunpowder. It took significantly longer on Earth - IIRC guns proper are something like 300 years after gunpowder (fire-lances came earlier).

I wonder if this is related to another 'hidden' brotherhood...

If you want to go with guns in the sense of the Lock, Stock and Barrel design, its more to the effect of 500 from the first Song Dynasty experiments with bamboo tubes filled with gunpowder and pebbles to proper matchlock muskets.

Zor

Well of course Mr. Weber is accelerating the tech development at an unnatural pace. Keep repeating to yourself "Its a story, not a history book." As an author, our illustrious scribe needs to keep a certain pace to the books to hold our (the readers) interest. Things like the strategic situation, pacing of character and story development and how much time he has real world to get to certain plot points before the book goes to the publishers dictate when the mechanical and chemical developments have to occur. If the Safehold developments took place at anything close to real world time line delays, Charis would probably have been overrun and burning by now. Or if not that, then it would be ferrying the last ragtag survivors of Siddarmark into Charis to help bolster the Charisian manpower situation. The sword of Schueler would have rolled over them and Charis wouldn't have gotten there in time. Instead of bringing in supplies the Charisian fleet would have been busy evacuating as many people as it could get out while Charisian troops fought a desperate rearguard action with their first bolt action rifles. And Mr. Weber would have had to sketch out 20 more books to work through the recovery and return to the mainland. Instead he picked up the pace of the technology and the foothold in the mainland is secured and the storyline shortened to something reasonable. After all the real point is to write a captivating story that keeps us reading. That requires that the action proceed, the good guys progress, and the technology must march along. If it dragged at the real world pace it would bore us to tears. Fudging the tech and industrialization rate in order to keep a good story going is a good compromise, all things considered, or at least I think so.

Larry

Larry wrote:Well of course Mr. Weber is accelerating the tech development at an unnatural pace. Keep repeating to yourself "Its a story, not a history book." As an author, our illustrious scribe needs to keep a certain pace to the books to hold our (the readers) interest. Things like the strategic situation, pacing of character and story development and how much time he has real world to get to certain plot points before the book goes to the publishers dictate when the mechanical and chemical developments have to occur. If the Safehold developments took place at anything close to real world time line delays, Charis would probably have been overrun and burning by now. Or if not that, then it would be ferrying the last ragtag survivors of Siddarmark into Charis to help bolster the Charisian manpower situation. The sword of Schueler would have rolled over them and Charis wouldn't have gotten there in time. Instead of bringing in supplies the Charisian fleet would have been busy evacuating as many people as it could get out while Charisian troops fought a desperate rearguard action with their first bolt action rifles. And Mr. Weber would have had to sketch out 20 more books to work through the recovery and return to the mainland. Instead he picked up the pace of the technology and the foothold in the mainland is secured and the storyline shortened to something reasonable. After all the real point is to write a captivating story that keeps us reading. That requires that the action proceed, the good guys progress, and the technology must march along. If it dragged at the real world pace it would bore us to tears. Fudging the tech and industrialization rate in order to keep a good story going is a good compromise, all things considered, or at least I think so.

Larry

Wonderful post, Larry. I'll remember it. Certain others need to remember that it's a story not a history book and that as much as we enjoy our speculating, what we are really doing is indulging our whimsy..

Don

cralkhi wrote:And actually, now that I think of it, Safehold got to cannons and matchlock muskets in less than a century after the invention of gunpowder. It took significantly longer on Earth - IIRC guns proper are something like 300 years after gunpowder (fire-lances came earlier).

I wonder if this is related to another 'hidden' brotherhood...

Not necessarily. Again, Safehold's tech base doesn't correspond to anything of a particular time or place on Earth. They had metallurgy and industrial techniques that would have been appropriate - in some ways - to 19th century Europe when they got gunpowder. Given that, being able to get a whole lot of use of gunpowder in a short period of time isn't hard to believe: the only problems they needed to solve were gunpowder-specific.