Questions tagged [industrial-age]
For worlds set the near the Industrial Revolution. This tag is often used to propose social, political, and economic changes set at that time.
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civil and industrial applications of large amount of linear force?
What are some civilian or industrial applications of a large amount of linear force. I.e. if a magical symbol was inscribed on a piece of paper the next physical object that touches the symbol would ...
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How would a Magic-Fueled Industrial Revolution shape social classes in cities?
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The setting is an Earth-like fantasy world where growth-accelerating devices, mana-fueled factory machines, and fast-flying barges have been created. These three inventions increased food ...
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Would an industrial level society be able to visually identify orbital debris from a destroyed mega structure?
My world is a very distant post apocalyptic society on earth after the destruction of some orbital mega structure around the planet - like an orbital ring or something. The current civilization(s) on ...
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Storm-Powered Industrial Revolution Complications/Limitations
Poseidon and Zeus are not very happy. An alien planet hosts a very stormy and volatile hydrosphere. It's of a similar temperature to Earth, except larger, with a bit more gravity, and tidal heating ...
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Why have non-magic technology when there is already a magic solution?
In my world, magic and technology have a weird relationship. While they do combine and help advance growing civilizations, they can also inhibit each other. For example, if there are healing spells, ...
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Is it possible for a country to develop the equivalent of a Second Industrial Revolution while under a war of attrition?
I'm developing a setting that has majoritarily experienced a First Industrial Revolution after a period of peace, preceded by a period of warfare sort of equivalent to the Napoleonic wars.
Now I am ...
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Extrapolating a culture from its use of armored fighting vehicles? [closed]
Ok, rewriting this one, so some of the answers and comments are from a simpler version:
Let's say, in an alternate timeline, or on another world, we discover the equivalent of mechanized warfare -- ...
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How to limit the usefulness of an anti-gravity mineral to airship construction in steampunk?
Airships are awesome, but making them realistic while retaining the awesome factor is hard due to how relatively little weight they can realistically carry.
I was thinking about ways to mitigate that ...
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An industrial revolution without overt, visible pollution/alternatives to coal?
BACKGROUND
Fantasy setting, highly rural/pastoral. Social landscape is significantly more egalitarian (but far from idyllic) with no serfdom tying a peasant class to the land. Magic exists, but ...
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What industrial exoplanet machine would serve as the best escape vehicle from a remote secure stronghold?
My world has 18th century society norms with steampunk tech. I have added a scene from the story to the end of this question, just fill in the blank. Some characters become impressed into service with ...
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There's no space to construct a runway. Are early planes still useful and promising technology?
My setting exists on a huge vertical cliff with no top or bottom, and currently nearing the end of an steampunk-y industrial revolution, putting its tech level somewhere in the range of 1860s to 1910s....
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What are most hydrogen-dense materials that a pre-electric civilization could produce? [closed]
Context
My world has an 'unobtanium' strategic resource that is an alternate form of hydrogen. When atoms of this hydrogen is embedded in a rotor, they generate a field force that pushes against the ...
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How far can you get with a pre-industrial production system?
Pre-industrial production system: means of production where the vast majority of goods are made by skilled craftsmen specialized in that field (I.E. Carpenters, blacksmiths, millers, weavers, and ...
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How to counter bulletproof plate armor with 19th Century technology? [closed]
I'm writing a timeline where the Russian Empire figured out how to make magical armor. By fully immersing plate armor in holy water, that plate armor is now fully bulletproof. No projectile will ...
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Would telephones necessarily appear ~50 years after the industrial revolution?
My world is about 60 years out from the start of mainstream industry (that's vague: roughly late 19th/early20th century, earth frame) . For my convenience, I gave the world the gadgets I need them to ...
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Could I have a 19th Century American Society Develop Solar Power from Blueprints?
My inspiration was this: Could solar power be utilized and substitute coal in the 19th century?
My world is this: Rail Transportation with Races Described Below - Specifically, Seating
My people are 2,...
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Would feudalism work in a post-industrial society?
In my world, World War 3 happens and most countries are devastated. Nuclear weapons are used and there is widespread anarchy in many places. Some countries are untouched but many countries completely ...
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What does a post-industrial world look like if there was no oil or gas, only coal?
What might the world look like if easily accessible oil and gas wasn’t available and coal was the only option?
I’m trying to understand was a post-apocalyptic industrial society might look like (I’m ...
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How to start an industrial revolution without capitalism [closed]
In my fantasy world, the countries eventually industrialize. However, some of it is not capitalistic, but rather mercantilist, and the governments are absolute monarchs. Fortunately, the feudal system ...
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How can civlization industrialize amidst a zombie outbreak?
In my world, there is a zombie pandemic that happens. The zombies are fast, but can be defeated by a large army. My world a little before the outbreak was close to having an Industrial Revolution. ...
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Aluminum in a renaissance era civilization
While trying to figure out how a civilization with 16-17th century technology could make airships I started to wonder how the wide availability of aluminum would affect a civilization. In our timeline ...
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How to start an industrial revolution without textiles
My world does not have stagnant technology, and of course there is going to be an industrial revolution. In the real industrial revolution, it began with the need for textiles, which led to the ...
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In this alternate history, what great 19th century mind would most likely create the first nuclear powered engine?
I’m bringing nuclear power to the 19th century and need to know who had the tools and connections to become the 19th century “Father of nuclear power.”
Background: The Real World
Raw, unenriched ...
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How to convince clan leaders and Party Cadres to give up their power?
Related to this question: After the main character united the seven clan into a Soviet-esque nation, education is introduced and critical, rational, and independent thinking is introduced to these ...
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Are the railroad and the telegraph inseparable inventions?
In my world, I'm trying to come up with reasons why trains are the fastest method of communication, and that brings into question:
Are the railroad and the telegraph inseparable? They both came into ...
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How would this sort of limited teleportation affect strategies and tactics used to defend against a tactic like pincer movements?
How would this sort of limited teleportation affect strategies and tactics used to defend against a tactic like pincer movements?
In my world, teleportation circles are not only possible, but ...
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Did young people REALLY drink alcohol in the 1800s? [closed]
In my studying of the setting for my story, a fantasy world analogous to 1800 - 1850, I've found a number of interesting things - one of these is that people in the past did a lot of really odd things....
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Could you build a depth charge in the early 1800s?
My novel taking place in an early 1800s setting (circa 1800 - 1850) has a human versus merfolk war. It started with disputes over fishing resources, but now has escalated, for the merfolk, to a fight ...
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Is my story's treatment of tuberculosis realistic?
A side character, a sister of my main character, has been stricken with an unidentifiable disease in an early 19th century circa 1800 - 1850 setting. She's had the disease for a few years. Country ...
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Substitutes for lead-acid batteries
I'm writing about a setting which will be developing an industrial civilization on a planet similar to Earth in relevant ways, except that certain heavy metals such as lead, are much rarer. (Other ...
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What would an Industrial Revolution that never exploited fossil fuels look like? [closed]
Clarification: Oil, coal and natural gas still exist but have never been exploited. And the Industrial Revolution is capitalized to emphasize on the massive episode in human history spanning from ...
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How to prevent the evolution of human flight?
The more I look at it, the more my world seems to resemble the world of Avatar the Last Airbender, but instead of benders I have casters which are capable of unique talents (combat magic, enhancements,...
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How does a group of terrorists that can turn lead into uranium cause the most damage in an industrial revolution society?
I have a group of time wizards (who only use time magic) who are attacking a country that just underwent a massive magical industrial revolution. These wizards are terrorists and they have a spell ...
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Just How Powerful Could a Mechanical Computer Be?
We've all heard about the 1822 Babbage Difference Engine and other mechanical computer ideas of the 19th century. Sadly, Babbage's computer and printer ideas were never implemented in our world†, and ...
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Pike and Shot with trains?
I would like to preface this by saying that English is not my first language so I ask that you excuse any grammatical errors.
So could a setting conceivably have pike and shot military tactics, but ...
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What could prevent my world from progressing past the early industrial age?
Now, my world is old. Very old. And, unfortunately, the story locked me in a paradox. Namely, the colonization of the lush caves featured in another of my questions, which also have a name now (Harat ...
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How can I mass produce steel without coal?
So, Suppose for a moment that there is a society on the verge of an industrial revolution.
They live on a super-continent. The continent has a circumference of around 40,000 kilometers (If I recall ...
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How would electronics develop without petroleum/plastic? Particularly computers?
I'm working on the setting of a society that went directly from coal-powered industrial revolution into "clean" sources of electricity without having a "diesel age" in-between. The ...
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Given early 1800's level technology, is it feasible to extract salt and fresh water from the ocean?
Suppose the setting is a small coastal island with only three towns in it. (I imagine it's roughly the size of the Isle of Man, perhaps a little bit bigger.) Technology level is roughly around the ...
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How can a large concentration of mana lead to magical "dead zones"?
Ley Lines are straight alignments crisscrossing the planet from east to west. These lines contain sources of magical power called mana, and coalesce at various locations around the world. This allows ...
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How can the economy of scale be prevented from disrupting the balance of power in a magic system?
Witches are broken down into three classes. Class A have a limited supply of Mana, and must work in tandem with other witches to combine their power in order to pull off many spells. However, their ...
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How would human civilisation develop with little iron?
Imagine a planet that's identical in pretty much every aspect (including Homo Sapiens) to our own current Earth, with only a single exception - the continental crust has, for whatever reason, much ...
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How can an industry within an intergalactic empire operate without Stargates?
Long, long, ago in a galaxy far, far, away, there existed an empire which spanned many solar systems. The majority of these planets are inhabitable to some extent, and we're populated by humans during ...
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A Medieval Industrial Revolution
Dwarves were a key component to the defeat of the Dark Lord, being the main source of ores and high quality weapons, having entered their own Industrial Revolution in the aftermath. The question I ...
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How can I prevent an industrial revolution from destroying a magitech society?
Testosterone and estrogen are two important chemicals for the Drow in regards to magic. Estrogen allows one to be conductors of magic, while testosterone allows one to be conduits for it. Because of ...
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Woodpunk World- 'Super Wood' developed in the mid-late 19th century?
So, here's the premise- in this alternate 'woodpunk' historical timeline, primarily focused upon Japan, someone stumbles across this development far earlier on, in the mid to late 19th century (as ...
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Would fantasy dwarves be able to invent and/or manufacture the radio?
In my fantasy setting there are dwarves, inspired by the "stereotypes" and traits presented in Dwarf Fortress, and thus, partially inspired by the LotR lore.
It has the implications that dwarves use ...
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Cultural reasons to prevent the industrial revolution
In a world similar to Earth, how can I realistically prevent the industrial revolution from occurring as an event?
I need it to be held off for at least 200 years.
It has to be a ...
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Keeping the dodos out of the field
About 100 people settled in a tropical area near a seashore five years ago. They've been feeding themselves by hunting and fishing, but now they're also trying to grow crops, including hemp and corn. ...
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19th century-like transportation without horses?
So, let’s say, hypothetically A NUCLEAR WAR KICKS OFF DUE TO PROLONGED INTERNATIONAL TENSION, AND TURNS THE EARTH INTO A BLEAK, HOSTILE WASTELAND. Now, let’s flash forward 197 years, to 2259. By now, ...
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