Radiopunk?

[nineGardens]

So... I was thinking, there's a whole lot of talk of steampunk etc etc... if we imagine that cogs and steam engines etc reach a significantly higher tech level (some how), while "electricty" (as we now know it) remains limited (or at least, kept in glass bottles)


So something I was wondering about is...
what happens in a world without coal etc, in which the principles of electronics and electromagnetism are discovered BEFORE the principles of steam and thermodynamics.
A world where the radio is invented before the train, before the industrial revolution.
You can end up with Electric generators... but don't have the furnaces/coal plants to power them... and indeed producing the damn things would be tricky, labor intensive, and presumably the work of a master craftsman...


So, where do those assumption lead, setting design wise? What happens when you can make an electric power plant... but mass manufacture of wire is difficult.

What would happen if that occurred in an non-fantasy world?
What happens if it occurs in a fantasy setting?


How far up the electronics tech tree can we go while keeping things interesting? Plausible?

What happens in a fantasy world when kingdoms start building computers?

Is there a better name for this than "radiopunk?" (honestly, it feels less like punk and more like... Renascence era sort of thing)

[lunaticfringe]

Crank, dynamoes, batteries? Batteries existed in antiquity, so.

I imagine there wouldn't be a nation wide grid but hydroelectric and windmills would provide electricity in certain areas. For places without a flowing water and low winds people would use manual or animal driven crank power on smaller devices.

Just an idea.

Dynamopunk? Lightningpunk? Coldpunk (since you aren't using steam)?

[Lord Raziere]

hm....it'd be very weird for certain.

the main draw of all this electronic technology on a practical level is its long range communication ability. a power plant with nothing to power is useless. so a radio would be made to keep the kingdom united: a king would likely set it up so that they can broadcast their commandments to all the lords in their kingdom and those radios would all be powered by the lords personal power plants.

of course, if mobile radio is developed, the chief use of that is military: imagine medieval armies being to coordinate and mobilize themselves much better because they have an instant method of communication rather than messengers. which is an advantage in war- the less delays the better. such electronics would be closely guarded by the kingdom that figures them out, for fear of an enemy capturing and figuring them out for their own use.

if they get to computers and TV, I don't imagine much use being gained out of them aside from the entertainment or prestige value from nobles- it'd be nothing but another way to put on a show or entertain guests and thus wouldn't have much purpose without wider common usage. much of the computer's and internet's use comes from the fact that everyone has it, therefore everyone contributes, therefore there is so much information to find, because so much people contribute information into it. when only a few select people have it....the use is limited, especially when the devices would all have be nearby the power plant that they're connected to if you can't mass-produced the wire needed to make it possible.

you might get a "lightning god" religion where all the electronics are maintained by priests and the screens all depict what they think he is doing to make the radio work or something. like they know the principles perfectly fine, but think that a lightning god is somehow allowing it all to happen, and the power plant is the temple they live in. might be the best way to make it more widespread: through the church of the lightning god. people would see it as miracles of the lightning god, and thus see electricity as a way to communicate with the spirit world or something.

[Nifft]

Windmills and watermills have been a thing since before Classical antiquity, so there are some plausible sources for small-scale power generation.

What can you do with the power you generate?

- Alchemy. Apply electricity to a solution of metals to separate some out.

- Light. The riverside academic library allows students to read all night. The lights on the hills make the valley roads safe to travel at night.

- Heat Pumps. Small-scale cooling might be sufficient for the Pharaoh's court, or to preserve meat. In colder seasons or climates, heating is an obvious application.

- Induction Furnaces. They might notice that metal gets hot enough to melt when you run enough ${fantasy_electrons} through it, and even if you just run them near it.

- Bug Zappers. GOD DAMN THE TSETSE FLY.

[Paleomancer]

I like this idea! Reminds me of a thought experiment where a fantasy culture discovered teleportation before the wheel, and what that world might be. Also look at, I think it’s called Solarpunk, for similar worlds where fossil fuels are replaced by other technology. Bear in mind, there are some RL examples of unusual tech mixtures which might give you a window in how to appraoch this.

For example, consider a so-called RL “third-world” country, in which much of the citizenry has minimal access to things like plumbing for, any number of reasons (geography, warfare, poverty, resources...). A lot of life in such locations likely remains much as it was for centuries, such as drawing water from wells, etc. Now add portable technology like cell phone towers, electrical generators, or advanced portable medicine (like vaccines). Now you have a situation where a farmer grows crops or an artisan weaves baskets as their ancestors did, but arranges sales of their goods online, and periodically visits a traveling clinic to get medical attention for their family. This is especially common in areas which suffer from civil instability - power/telephone lines or water pipes are expensive to put in, easily disrupted with minimal effort, difficult to protect and maintain. A cell phone tower can be rebuilt easily, helicopters can transport doctors to patients (or in emergencies, patients to protected hospitals), etc., making it much harder for any side to arbitrarily control everything without having to expend a lot of resources and time.

For your electromagnetic civilization, it is plausible that you’d see a similarly (to us) odd mix of technologies, some by our (assuming RL industrial society) standards primitive, others comparable or advanced. I would anticipate the biggest difference is that most people would be more restricted in their movements (most modern long-range travel depends on fossile fuels, and older involved burning wood, which isn’t any better), at least until electrical tech rivaled the energy power of fossil fuels (which for us has taken a lot of research). Hygeine might actually be better without lots of pollution, and obviously ancient cultures did have sewers and the like. Communication might be superior, and civilizations who found wireless communication systems might have one heck of an advantage over others, especially in maintaining national cohesion. Medical and chemical research could be almost any level provided you have power and social interest/support, although certain forms of material sciences or calorimetry might be underdeveloped (these originated out of gunpowder/fossil fuel research if I remember correctly).

[DuctTapeKatar]

Isn't what you just described look something like the Myst games?

I personally like this idea, though some elements of steampunk could be applied in lesser ways. Steam engines could be applied, but instead of coal, another chemical could be used instead. Maybe something that would let out electricity instead of smoke -- that'd be an interesting effect.

[nineGardens]

Isn't what you just described look something like the Myst games?

I am so much more happy with this idea now.
I love myst.

For example, consider a so-called RL “third-world” country, in which much of the citizenry has minimal access to things like plumbing for, any number of reasons (geography, warfare, poverty, resources...). A lot of life in such locations likely remains much as it was for centuries, such as drawing water from wells, etc. Now add portable technology like cell phone towers, electrical generators, or advanced portable medicine (like vaccines). Now you have a situation where a farmer grows crops or an artisan weaves baskets as their ancestors did, but arranges sales of their goods online, and periodically visits a traveling clinic to get medical attention for their family. This is especially common in areas which suffer from civil instability - power/telephone lines or water pipes are expensive to put in, easily disrupted with minimal effort, difficult to protect and maintain. A cell phone tower can be rebuilt easily, helicopters can transport doctors to patients (or in emergencies, patients to protected hospitals), etc., making it much harder for any side to arbitrarily control everything without having to expend a lot of resources and time.

This... actually provides a really good template... I had never thought of this.

I guess the main difference is that the coms tech, instead of being imported would instead be made by local "Craftsmen", leading to a sort of... electrician caste in society... but as far as what the overall society looks like, this is a good estimate.

- Bug Zappers. GOD DAMN THE TSETSE FLY.

Lol.
I hear that the appropriate response to Tsetse flies is the color blue.

Dynamopunk

Love this name. Is now going to be my working name until I find something even better.

[Nifft]

For example, consider a so-called RL “third-world” country, in which much of the citizenry has minimal access to things like plumbing for, any number of reasons (geography, warfare, poverty, resources...). A lot of life in such locations likely remains much as it was for centuries, such as drawing water from wells, etc. Now add portable technology like cell phone towers, electrical generators, or advanced portable medicine (like vaccines). Now you have a situation where a farmer grows crops or an artisan weaves baskets as their ancestors did, but arranges sales of their goods online, and periodically visits a traveling clinic to get medical attention for their family. This is especially common in areas which suffer from civil instability - power/telephone lines or water pipes are expensive to put in, easily disrupted with minimal effort, difficult to protect and maintain. A cell phone tower can be rebuilt easily, helicopters can transport doctors to patients (or in emergencies, patients to protected hospitals), etc., making it much harder for any side to arbitrarily control everything without having to expend a lot of resources and time.

That's a great analogy for a D&D world which has disruptive fantasy elements like dragons & ogres (instead of IRL warlords & rebels).

The places where it's easy to generate power might also be their radio towers, where people go to report threats or coordinate maneuvers against threats to humanity. This might be exactly why the weakling humans have been able to thrive in the face of physically and magically superior monsters.