Dilandu's little hysteria,

I won't say this is the ONLY response... Or even that it's the RIGHT response.

But I have five words for you Dilandu:

The Proscriptions of Jwo Jeng

Charis (or at least the people in Charis who really matter) already KNOW that the proscriptions are a bunch of junk and that there's no reason why they can't be blown off. Of course we still have to keep the ominous platform in mind, but the proscriptions themselves are meaningless.

Further, in Charis, there's a religious infrastructure that not only accepts innovation but actively encourages it. In the rest of the world - to include Charis' notional allies - there's no such religious infrastructure. To varying degrees, such innovation is still "frowned on" by the Church. In Harchong and Desnair it's probably still a "hanging offense" to work on proscribed things. Perhaps not as draconian in Dohlar, Silkiah, and Siddarmark, but I can't imagine that true innovation would be encouraged there either.

So why did we see so much "innovation" during the war? The Church was confronted by Charis' overwhelming technical superiority and had to do everything in its power to try to compensate. Think of all of Clyntahn's "dispensations"... Dispensations born out of desperation! Now that the burning threat of immediate invasion by those heretical Charisian's is not there, the main driver for the innovation has also gone away.

Just my two cents...

WeberFan wrote:I won't say this is the ONLY response... Or even that it's the RIGHT response.

But I have five words for you Dilandu:

The Proscriptions of Jwo Jeng

Charis (or at least the people in Charis who really matter) already KNOW that the proscriptions are a bunch of junk and that there's no reason why they can't be blown off. Of course we still have to keep the ominous platform in mind, but the proscriptions themselves are meaningless.

Further, in Charis, there's a religious infrastructure that not only accepts innovation but actively encourages it. In the rest of the world - to include Charis' notional allies - there's no such religious infrastructure. To varying degrees, such innovation is still "frowned on" by the Church. In Harchong and Desnair it's probably still a "hanging offense" to work on proscribed things. Perhaps not as draconian in Dohlar, Silkiah, and Siddarmark, but I can't imagine that true innovation would be encouraged there either.

So why did we see so much "innovation" during the war? The Church was confronted by Charis' overwhelming technical superiority and had to do everything in its power to try to compensate. Think of all of Clyntahn's "dispensations"... Dispensations born out of desperation! Now that the burning threat of immediate invasion by those heretical Charisian's is not there, the main driver for the innovation has also gone away.

Just my two cents...

We have text ev of Desnair fully planning on innovating as soon as physically possible and Ducharin for sure tossed out the disfavor of innovation as the Temple Lands are very very rapidly industrializing and spreading railroads. Dohlar is actively doing all it can to encourage innovation and the same in Silka and the United Provinces for sure. So yes it very very much seems the church is officially encouraging innovation as long as it doesn't cross the proscriptions.

Actually I would like to see inner Circle members from lands other than Charissian Empire. Perhaps in the two Harchong break-away Provence’s or Dohlar. I mean, we kinda have that with Thirsk’s grandson, but as he’s the (hidden) prince consort of Charis, he doesn’t count.

People like Klyntahn consider other people to be "pawns".

Merlin still has love and a conscience.
He loves many in the Inner Circle.
So yeah he's gonna be biased, but also knows the end goal requires changes across Safehold and Charis anyway is a much better proponent of that change than say, Desnair.

SilverbladeTE wrote:Merlin still has love and a conscience.
He loves many in the Inner Circle.
So yeah he's gonna be biased, but also knows the end goal requires changes across Safehold and Charis anyway is a much better proponent of that change than say, Desnair.

That's the problem - he is not as objective as he claimed to be in OAR (when he explained to the king, that he is perfectly willing to use Charis for his own goals). I hoped that Nimue - being "back-up" version - would mitigate this somewhat, by presenting the unbiased point of view, but essentially the Nimue immediately adopted the Merlin's stance on things. And, unfortunately, the Owl seems to be "humanizing" too. Instead of being the voice of cold reason, he is basically turning into Another Generic Good Guy. Considering that he isn't a human at all, and wasn't even designed to imitate human - he is military tactical computer, who should NOT be too emotional! - I saw this as pretty much disappointment.

Dilandu
As I've noted on this thread and others, what's needed done is:

Give some tech secrets out free, they simply cannot be easily innovated.
Dynamite and reinforced concrete are absolutely vital to building everything else for technological society, but the odds of anyone else even thinking of nitrating chemicals is unlikely in extreme...so give them that. From that, it's guaranteed they will research "chemistry".
Ferroconcrete makes canals, bridges, blast furnaces etc vastly easier and better

Give some knowledge/science "primers", to help get things like the beginning of Scientific Principle out there.
Howysmnn leaving tech manuals as it seemed in TFT is a help there, but more needs done.
There are brilliant innovators on the main continents, but, the mentality societally is still extremely poor in supporting them. Not easy to undo the Church's "brain hammer"!
So giving some tidbits will help give them the first steps up, such as selling triple expansion steam yachts to monarchs etc

Share standardized units and measures.
Hugely important and an absolutely horrendous pig to design for anyone who doesn't have Owl and Terran history!
Charis could set up (with the Church perhaps?) an International weights and measures organization.

Arrange as someone cleverly suggested, races and other competitions to spur, share innovation.
"Fastest boat, ship, train" etc

Hm?

I'm surprised no one's brought up the Imperial university, or whatever they call it, as a powerful tool in introducing innovative thinking. At this point I believe the Empire has two, in Tellesberg and one in Manchyr(?). The connection between the royal houses of Charis and Dohlar is going to lead, IMHO, to a Dohlaran university within the next 10-15 years. This isn't gonna happen in South Harchong, Desnair, or Siddarmark. I can see them happening in "free" Harchong. Not likely in the Temple Lands until we get rid of the Proscriptions.

We have oil now and increasingly precise manufacturing so can diesels be far behind? Can you have turbines without electricity? Can you have steam turbines without electricity? What happens when someone in Charis/Dohlar discovers germs?!

I would also suggest the Celery-eater has decided to give Merlin and Nimue some time off by elevating Nahrmann and Owl's role(s).

I like the title of this thread

There are two main things that I think lead to a lot of the opening posts issues.

First: time pressure. They don't know when the angels are going to show up and if technology and industrialization has not spread fully enough by the time that happens this whole series will end with a loud BANG and some whimpering. So merlin and co are cheating like crazy because now that this ball is started merlin has no choice but to push it along as fast and as far as possible. That way maybe if some angel comes back and eliminates charis and Co but enough seeds of knowledge are spread out far enough there may still be some chance at victory.

Charis is a tool and one merlin can and will use up if necessary. He said as much to caleb and his father.


The second is affected by the first. Charis has been doing everything it can to disperse the methods everywhere from actively aiding and abetting unknowing spies to make off with huge amounts of information to flat letting harchongese take manufacteries intact leaving all the dies and plans behind. Note this was confusing a lot of the locals who were on site because they could easily destroyed all that stuff but were ordered specifically not to. Most people don't understand why charis is doing what it is doing for leaking this stuff out they are just assuming charis is greedy enough that they don't care what's happening. But in some ways this probably short term does stifle innovation a bit elsewhere because they are so busy devouring all the charisan tech they are getting access too that they have not had time/need to be that innovative. They are drinking from the fire hose of knowledge basically and still working to spool up their basic infrastructure to make this stuff they already now know about to worry much about making newer and fancier stuff.


Also considering the two main points of interest this book are harchong and siddermark both of which either have come apart or are on the verge of it due to the aftermath of the last war most of what is happening there is not that surprising.

Dilandu wrote:, or, "three things from TFT that I really didn't like" (bad, bad me )

...

1) No tech progress outside the Charis. Literally. The book is filled with Charisian-introduced innovations and new tech, but outside the Charis? Nothing. At best, other nations are trying to copy Charisian steam locomotives, of course with unimpressive results.

...

2) Bad guys are idiots. Or immoral. Or immoral idiots. It seems that the supply of capable men, not friendly to Charisians, was completely exhausted during the war.

The majority of bad guys of TFT are incompetent to literally laughable degree. With the exception of raping and plundering, they are completely unable to do anything right. All their planning and scheming are usually aimed toward "what other bad for us solution we could chose?". All their actions against good guys are the constant string of stupid failures.

The blatant demonstration of bad guys stupidity, is when they saw the Charisian airship, they immediately dismiss it as harmless, because "it would be hard to fire rifles from airship". Here, I feel a strong urge to do a facepalm. I mean, really? The bad guys in question are Harchongians, which until very recently was pretty backward country, which military still relied on slings, bows and arrows. Which are ballistic weapons.

...

3) Merlin continues to cheat. ...

The problem is, that there are no vital reasons to do any of this. Charis is not under immediate threat, and have overwhelming tech advantage already over basically all other nations combined. The official justification is "to ensure the competition, to show the example for others", but it doesn't seems convincing - especially considering the utter lack of interest to other nations tech-development.

...

- spreading innovation - means encouraging others to adopt the inquisitive and explorative mindset, to study the world around and think how exactly it would work.

- spreading industrialization - means building factories & railroads by using Charisian-delivered technology. Nothing more.

...

1) Charis has such a commanding lead in technology that it would take all its other competitors time to catch up enough to start producing game changing innovations of their own. Indeed, the whole point of the King Haarahld-class steam ships was to introduce a military technology that was such a huge threat to every other nation that they would have to embrace the innovations in full to build similar ships (or risk allowing Charis to dominate the seas permanently). The Church and its allies during the Jihad had to rationalize the need for innovation as a wartime expedient, all upon the understanding that once the Church had won, all those innovations would be rolled back by an empowered Clyntahn and an unstoppable inquisition. Obviously that didn't happen, but there was always the risk that such a roll back would happen anyways as part of a counter-reformation by the more conservative members of the Vicarite. Charis' continued push to innovate with the CoGA being powerless to stop it, forces them to at least retroactively accept all the innovations to date and at most to continue research and development, if only because Magwair knows that the AOG cannot remain frozen in the past if ever relations with Charis sour to the point of another all-out war.

2) The fundamental problems that had plagued the Church and its more loyal allies are unlikely to be resolved just because the Jihad forced them to innovate. At their core, the societies in Desnair, Harchong, the Temple Lands, the Border States and all the others that were loyal to the CoGA, were all conservative and viewed any innovation with suspicion and fear. And regardless of the necessities of war, that mindset will take decades to overcome. The same cannot be said about Charis where the subtle influence of the Brethren of Saint Zhernau led to the evolution of a society that was much more accepting of new ideas and concepts, and therefore the cultivation of innovators to the point at which Charis is at the moment. Remember that change for the sake of change was always discouraged by the Church and the Church still has some influence despite the damage Clyntahn did. As for the incompetence and immorality of Charis' rivals and enemies, that too is easy to understand. All of the "Bad Guys" want to preserve a social order that keeps them in control and will not risk opening their political shop up for new people of no blood. As such, their available pool of innovators is really small and the sort of innovators they can buy are Charisian rejects like Showail, who can be bought but who aren't as capable as the others, who get to enjoy the fruits of their innovations because of Charisian patent laws and Howsmyn's altruistic business practices. They are figuratively scraping the bottom of the barrel.

3) Merlin's objectives are manifold, but spreading industrialization as rapidly as possible helps in spreading the mindset that led to it as well as bringing about social changes needed to lead to more innovation. For example, Charis doesn't need hoards of slaves or serfs for agriculture at the moment because it has steam-powered machinery that does the work of hundreds of humans in a matter of hours. These machines can now be built in places like Desnair or purchased by South Harchong, which might be expensive initially but which is likely to negate the need for slaves and serfs as a result. Before the American Civil War, this sort of technology was becoming available but the slave holders in the South refused to embrace it because they were more interested in preserving their social hierarchy rather than reducing their labor costs (which weren't negligible). A place like Desnair might try to discourage the use of such machinery but that might run up against economic realities. And if they discourage the use of some types of machinery then they may find their efforts to modernize stymied. As history shows, all innovations tend to be related and necessity is the mother of invention.

There is another factor: Financing new innovations without the pressure-cooker of war.

Most of Safehold is still repaying debt or dealing with economic disruptions of the war - it has only been 15 years. 15 years after 1918 was 1933 (Great Depression)...

Charis has its gold mines and a leadership to continue pushing innovation.

What does the other nations have? Economic collapse, civil-war, prelude to civil-war, economic disruption, political stagnation. Not condusive to innovation.