One thing that I might see developing is steam-based ballistic weapons: steam engines designed to build up great pressure, and then release suddenly and directionally in order to propel projectiles.
Such constructs would, I imagine, be quite large, so they would likely favour large-scale action (where it's worth bringing such a clunky object) or defensive action (where one might have the things already installed).
For sieges, perhaps steam-powered battering rams might weaken the effectiveness of fortifications.
My Games & Writing
The They who said it
Feudalism breaks down in an industrialized society, because suddenly you don't need large amounts of land to be extremely economically productive. Military technology would probably get stuck at the pike and trebuchet for a while, but fortifications probably wouldn't adapt into star forts because those were invented specifically to repel bombards, cannons, and firearms. However, as soon as ammonium nitrate fertilizer comes about, explosives will exist. It's not hard to make that explode.
They call me.... Prophet
>Has someone ever thought how warfare would evolve in a world where the Industrial Revolution (as in, widespread use of steam engines) happens before firearms become usable?
I don't really see how this could happen. Developing straight, narrow cylinders which could withstand high pressure was critical for both cannon making and steam engines. Smaller, more efficient designs led to better and better steam engines and simultaneously firearms.
Steam engines and gunpowder both existed for millenia before their major impact and the sort of stuff that made either work made them both work. The only way you wouldn't have this is if you somehow don't have gunpowder.
The Best Worst Psychonaut
Probably an overly-broad question, but: are there any good examples out there of spacefaring civilizations with non-capitalist economies (that aren't portrayed as Dirty Commies or somesuch)? I'm looking for some good points of reference.
Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Nov 9th 2022 at 2:57:31 PM
"If you think like a child, you will do a child's work."
Lost in Space
The Best Worst Psychonaut
Huh, hadn't thought of them. I don't exactly know how their economy works, besides the fact that replicator technology has basically abolished scarcity.
I'm trying to think of models that would work for a smaller, more 'regional' power where scarcity is still in effect, but I wanted to avoid a full-on planned economy. I did have this one idea that their species evolved in dangerous, resource-limited conditions, which encouraged them to develop an extremely communal society, in which resources are systematically 'divvied out' to families by elected allocators, based on each family's need (even luxuries, if they had a convincing enough reason), which meant that they never saw a widespread adoption of money. I thought there might be something I'm overlooking with that idea, though (plus it does seem halfway approaching a planned economy, albeit a decentralized one... if that's not an oxymoron :V).
Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Nov 9th 2022 at 6:34:42 PM
"If you think like a child, you will do a child's work."
I don't really see how this could happen. Developing straight, narrow cylinders which could withstand high pressure was critical for both cannon making and steam engines. Smaller, more efficient designs led to better and better steam engines and simultaneously firearms.
There are plenty of ways:
- The world might be short of necessary raw materials (sulfur, mainly) for the development of gunpowder.note
- An usecase for steam engines developed a millennium or more earlier.
- More fantastically, the laws of physics might be slightly different and not allow for the stable existence of nitrates.
The existence of tubes alone is only a necessary condition for the development of either, by no means is it the sufficient condition - you'd still need someone to have the idea, someone to have the usecase, someone to have the requisite raw materials etc.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
The They who said it
A lack of stable nitrates would probably mean mass starvation once phosphate reserves run out, and cap the population extremely low. Saltpeter is not uncommon and used for a lot of things.
A reason gunpowder might not happen or become relevant that doesn't require a lack of sulfur (which is a fairly common element) could be a climate where charcoal and coal production is difficult or rationed and alchemists and scientists have difficulty getting their hands on either to experiment with, and if they can, they're being privately commissioned, and specifically told to improve how long it takes to burn them, leading to them ignoring the earliest forms of gunpowder as making it burn faster rather than slower as they want. Plenty of important things were ignored for centuries because people saw them as not particularly useful for what they were looking for and pointless rather than fun.
Perhaps a world with a lot of tundra, savannah, steppe, and other grassland and relatively little forest, as well as a historically small tree population leading to little coal formation. This would have other consequences too of course, the industrial revolution might end up being be oil or solar powered because of lack of coal. Or the climate could be almost universally cold (perhaps it's an ice age) and coal and charcoal could be largely controlled by the various crowns in the pre-industrial world, preventing much study of their properties beyond burning to provide heat.
(I read your scenario as no explosives before the industrial revolution, rather than no gunpowder specifically. Many explosives can be turned into weapon propellant, but many require industrial equipment to make in any appreciable quantity.)
Edited by Florien on Nov 10th 2022 at 1:06:20 AM
The scenario I envisage is simply that explosives can't be used in warfare before the industrial revolution. Why is not really that important.
(Although you'd struggle to have an industrial revolution w/o coal, though)
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
They call me.... Prophet
TBH if the precise reason doesn't matter, do you need a precise answer?
>An usecase for steam engines developed a millennium or more earlier.
Cause this is the easiest to deal with: somehow, for whatever reason, the conditions of an industrial relution came but in a relatively stable environment where the arms race for gunpowder led to a, say, lag of 100 years between the two.
TBH yes. Being interested in the consequences of a thing in no way implies that the causes of said thing are important.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Like reflections in the glass!
So. I want to talk about Instant Stars, just add Tungsten!
Specifically I want to ask about what are the benefits and drawbacks of taking a Gas Giant, and encasing it in a metal shell (Tungsten mainly) to turn it into a star.
Lost in Space
Do you have any science to cite on that? I may not be up to date on the most current astrophysics papers but it's the first time I'm hearing of this trick.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Like reflections in the glass!
I watched some old Issac Arthur videos this morning, the specific one was "Summer for Jupiter
" IIRC. That was where the idea came to my head.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 25th 2022 at 8:50:32 AM
The They who said it
Assuming it works (which it doesn't sound like it would, but maybe it would, let's pretend it does)... That would take a lot of tungsten.
Probably more than could feasibly ever be obtained by any civilization that couldn't just go find a perfectly serviceable red dwarf or something for far less effort. It's probably easier to physically move a star than to find that much tungsten. Tungsten is extremely rare, being an element past iron, which means it only forms as a decay product of even heavier elements, in supernovas, or in neutron star collisions.
There are no clear benefits, stars are volatile things, tend to have much stronger effects when you get closer, and gas giants are smaller than nearly all stars, so any places in their habitable zone would be close enough to be hit by any given flare they might send out, and they'll send out a lot of them, making it difficult to maintain a thick atmosphere.
There are many clear drawbacks, most notably needing to find that much tungsten, which is a very useful element for other things and you're throwing it at a gas giant instead of using it for literally anything else. If you have access to that much tungsten, you probably also have the tools to go out to a red dwarf and just set up whatever you need a star for there, or move the red dwarf to where you want a new star using solar engines. Also, if the gas giant is already in a solar system, you now have a second star, which could cause problems for continued habitability.
I suppose that—aside from material costs noted above—it might be useful if you had some reason for wanting to be rid of the gas giant. You could then attach a solar engine as mentioned by Florien above and so use the former gas giant as a fuel source by which to drive it out of the system.
(Although I would expect those attempting this to first seek non-titanic methods of dealing with whatever problem might be solved by so expelling an entire giant planet.)
My Games & Writing
I think the astrophysical theory in question is this one - radiation reflected from the inside of a Dyson sphere inwards can affect the evolution of a star, especially very hot Dyson spheres (I presume the hotness is the reason we are discussing tungsten) around small stars
Two things, though. Firstly, since we are talking about objects in empty space, carbon is a better building material; it's lighter, stronger and more common than tungsten and melts at a higher temperature. Secondly, as noted in the paper deliberately heating the star causes it (and its core) to expand and cool through changes in the adiabatic equilibrium, thus making a gas giant even less likely to start nuclear fusion.
Now, if you just want to ignite hydrogen fusion in a brown dwarf, you need to add metalsnote to it. Metals make the brown dwarf's matter more opaque, slowing down the outward energy transport and causing its core to heat. If the brown dwarf is massive enough, the core might become hot enough for nuclear fusion to start.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
The They who said it
Brown dwarfs are terrible not-really stars that are only occasionally warm though, so any civilization that's messing around with dyson spheres probably wouldn't use them for anything more than gas reservoirs.
They don't stay warm for very long either, in cosmic terms. They tend to stop fusing after only a few tens of millions of years. And of course, warm is relative, the warmest are rarely above 2000 Celsius. They're so not-warm that the unit system you use matters.
Performative hatred of brown dwarfs aside, tungsten melts at a much higher temperature than carbon, as far as I'm aware. Tungsten is best known for being extremely hard to melt. Carbon sublimates or melts at a high temperature, yes, but not as high as tungsten. (Best I can find says that carbon is around 4000 and Tungsten is around 6000, though what temperature something melts at probably isn't particularly relevant when you're dealing with actual stars and not brown dwarfs, if just because the conditions on stars are hostile to solid objects.)
Lost in Space
The impossibility of building a tungsten sphere around a gas giant aside, I'm still not clear on how doing so is supposed to ignite hydrogen fusion. Gas giants are not strongly exothermic, certainly not enough for retained or reflected heat to cause a sufficient disruption to their gravitational balance.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
6000 kelvin is the boiling point of tungsten, not its melting point which is quite a bit lower.
Gas giants and brown dwarfs shrink under their own gravity until degeneracy pressure stops the collapse. While they are shrinking, they are releasing energy. See Jupiter, contracting at a rate of 1mm/year citation. If you can trap said energy in the core (by raising the planet's metallicity, as said above) you can heat it until nuclear fusion commences ... but that works only on very heavy brown dwarfs. And only if the dwarf is still contracting at that point.
Lost in Space
And the idea that Jupiter is a "failed star" is just wrong. It has only a tiny fraction of the mass that would be needed to make even a brown dwarf.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
They call me.... Prophet
Star formation and Planet formation are two *very* distinct processes. It's not just the lack of mass, but also the fact that it's formed from the leftovers of star formation. It's entirely the wrong category of object. It formed in the wrong place entirely for it to even qualify.
So yea, Jupiter being a failed star is equally as true as the Earth being a failed star or the Sun being a failed planet.
Dylexic wrighter
I would like to add a Multi-Armed and Dangerous race to my Fantasy Litrpg but I probably shouldn't call them Vishnu. Does anybody have suggestions?
They call me.... Prophet
Asura seems to be a pretty standard name for multi-armed beings
So, the industrial revolution had massive impacts on military logistics, increasing the number of troops who can be supported in various regions. However, without gunpowder or other explosives, the older fortifications retain significant ability to dissuade/delay enemies.
Naval combat becomes significantly different, but I'm uncertain on actual effects.
I think in Europe itself, you probably end up with a far more fragmented political environment as local lords can more effectively stand off their masters/rivals. But industrialization basically requires significant trade, so perhaps you see large, multi-national trading houses/families, which have to deal with the local nobles to ensure the safety of their rail lines and ensure their rights to trade?
I think the largest historical effect is that European colonialism becomes massively more difficult. Railroads basically solve most logistical problems where you can get them properly set up, but steam ships across an ocean are going to be harder to move the people and material needed. Now, disease will still have major effects, as will horses (and steel) in places without them, but basically no chance they'd be able to move in enough troops to effect something like the Opium War on the other side of the world. My guess is that without the incredible disparity in military power, you see China and various Indian states ending up as major powers.
Especially if China industrializes right, it can probably solve the logistical problems which force it to accept the Steppe as a natural border and resolve its steppe nomad problems, which then frees it to act elsewhere.
So, industrialization and the railroad act as a massive force multiplier, allowing more troops to be massed (especially in defense, as you're already got internal rail lines built). While cutting out gunpowder radically shrinks offensive power. I think you've got a recipe for stalemates here?
On the more specific, heavy armor probably doesn't go away, unlike in reality, as good plate can stand up to crossbows. Instead, you probably see it spreading to more and more people as the state/populace gets richer.
Cavalry isn't likely to be going anywhere either.
You probably see a massive increase in need for siege specialists, maybe with a rise in status for them, maybe not.