Dilandu wrote:isaac_newton wrote:
so in the real world, only innovations came from the US?
no - there are innovators all over.
The real world did not correspond with Safehold artifical model. The real world tech development were neither influenced by any kind of global religion, nor data provided from mysterious all-knowing agents.
P.S. And actually, the one-side hegemony did not led to fast progress. The competition of roughly comparable advesaries led. Neither Roman Empire nor Ancient China were especially innovative; on the other side, both the Anglo-French competition in XIX century, and Cold War between USA and USSR led to the most rapid technological advances in humankind history.
Well China during the Three Kingdoms period did have a burst of innovation.
You are now arguing in favor of RFC's reasoning behind the Thunderer, Dilandu. Furthermore, the ship's design highlights the applied use of technology that can adapted to a larger variety of uses beyond the navy. Anyone who sees and understands the tech will recognize this. They will also recognize productive capacity and national wealth are Charis' essential assets for their dominance. Any nation that would compete with Charis has to increase their wealth and production capacity. Even Desnair recognizes those key elements.
The smart rulers will know that a larger population base can increase their absolute wealth and production capacity to higher levels than Charis using less efficient technology. This further argues that a close or even not so close second in the tech war can still lead to greater absolute military power. The essential determinant is the absolute size of a nation's economy.