#fantasy technology

It is utterly wild to me that Amestris doesn't have planes. In our world, the Wright Brothers' first flight was on December 17, 1903. If Amestris et al were direct cognates of Earth, Ed would have been four. Mustang would have been 18-19. Their technology is almost hovering between steampunk and dieselpunk. Other than the automail, the tech in FMA stays mostly in the background. But its really interesting to play Spot The Difference between what they have and what Earth had at that time.

They have mechanical automata for prosthetics - ones that connect directly to the nervous system - but trains still run on coal. They have military tanks and automobiles that are a decade or more advanced to 1910's Earth but they don't planes and the only other flying machine I remember them having is Mustang's hot air balloon in COS. There is full color photography that is easy enough to access that an amateur/hobby photographer could fill his house with photos but books seem to be made on old-style printing presses and hand bound.

And in the more fantastic aspects: At least with FMA'03 there's all those weird cloning tubes in lab 5 and whatever Father was doing in Brotherhood required a goodly amount of piping and wires, which reads as more advanced than where they ought to be. They understand biology and genetics enough to make chimera but, again, they don't have planes. Transportation technology seems to have been entirely dismissed past the car and train.

It's weird!

I'm continuing my posting about the humans in my original fantasy setting, Warclema. Why humans? Because they won a poll where I left out their name and just called them “the tech race”. Well, now it's time to talk about the tech.

Most of the technology seen in Warclema is split between what works in the emulated physics around the EDS that major human settlements are built around and what works in the rest of Warclema. However, some of it takes advantage of the effects of the other set of physics available.

Emulated Physics Technology

Earth Dimensional Ship (EDS): Various large machines made for a one-way interdimensional travel attempt. There were three classes of them, luxury, ark, and common. Luxury class for those who had the power and resources to make one and invite whoever they wanted aboard, often being used by leaders and the wealthy. Ark class was for scientists that would terraform whatever place they ended up at. Common class was basically economy models made with leftover resources and made in places with lower security so that the common man would be too busy fighting over them to interfere with the luxury and ark EDS. The luxury and ark EDS have names while the common EDS have numbers. Many of the EDS that survived became the centers of cities in Warclema.

Solar panels: Warclema's ambient magic seems to be translated into light when it is under emulated physics. This results in a constant stream of light that can be converted into other forms of energy. These are a standard part of the EDS that allows them to make up for energy lost as heat.

Replicators: These machines rearrange the protons, neutrons, and electrons of inputted matter to create various programmed objects. They are primarily used to recycle garbage and waste into food, tools, and materials. They are unable to differentiate neutrons from a native particle of Warclema called a "watron", which has different properties under Warclema's native physics, but that's for a later post to expand on.

Communications Technology: When the EDS arrived at Warclema, communications between the EDS were cut off until they could find a signal that could travel under the effects of Warclema's native physics. The machines that send and receive these signals rely on emulated physics, and attempts to create versions that can operate under Warclema's physics require a large amount of bulk and suffer from deterioration that results in them just not being worth the upkeep.

Cloning Technology: Comes standard on the ark class EDS to help with the introduction of cloned flora and fauna as part of the terraforming.

Advanced Medical Technology: Enough to justify longer lifespans in humans and help them stay competitive with races that have enhanced abilities but can't survive being under the effects of emulated physics.

Advanced Weapons Technology: While their guns can't function when taken out of the areas with emulated physics, they can still be fired from within them. Lasers turn into magic energy upon entering Warclema physics, but bullets and other solid projectiles retain their deadly force between the two sets of physics.

Warclema Physics Technology

Magnet Raft: These platforms make use of the principles that the sky islands of Warclema use to float in the air. They are used for making flying vehicles, hovering platforms, and sometimes as a lightweight roof or for a second floor for a building.

Physics Field Generator: An invention that would show up in later parts of Warclema's timeline and allow humans to force a small area to temporarily work under emulated physics, which allows them to have their technology work in more places.

Medical Tape: An adhesive bandage that has layers of antibiotics and nutrients to help a wound heal after being pressed on. There is a variation that works under both sets of physics, and a special version that makes use of Warclema's magic system by being loaded up with healing magic.

Warclema Master Post

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Well I- spills contents of box labeled "what if crystals were computers" all over the the floor oops, I think it'd be cool to have electrically reactive crystals intricately etched all the way through with information containing runes held in server rack like fashions as a way to store data.

The crystals also whir, so these places are loud.

Thanks for the ask!

Illthdar is societally a bit like an onion - past that first layer, it promises tears for the unprepared. Illthdarians, be they demons or faeries, are people who make double lives normal. There is a twisted underside to Illthdar, one that you only see hints of in the first book.

Physically, subterranean life depends on the culture - some demons and faeries live underground. Orcs, gnomes, dwarves, as well some verities of aossi and elves - just to name a few. How the fae/demons use mana, if they have an element affinity or not basically, determines just how much they invest in generating their own technology. Gnomes and dwarves are remarkably steampunk, though they have taken their innovations in different directions.

My dude, I write more tag than post sometimes, far be it from me to shame you for reading my tags.

And yes, you are correct!  Alleirat isn’t very developed technologically speaking–they have gravity-driven indoor plumbing, but only a basic system, and clockwork (like…clocks for example, I guess), but it would just never occur to them to do something like build an internal combustion engine because they have magic to perform the same job.  Horses (as well as most other fauna) is stronger, more resilient, and longer-lived (also often bigger) due to the high concentration of magic in the world, so short-distance travel is easily accomplished either on foot or on horseback.  For long-distance travel (Alleirat as a continent is maybe a little smaller than Russia?), they have what they call kathen, or ‘gates’ (like a magic door, basically), which are controlled and manipulated by teams of specifically trained magic workers who literally cannot do other types of magic.  Kathen can’t transport large amounts of cargo because the opening can rarely be made larger than maybe a set of double doors, so shipments are often accomplished by sailing ships or overland caravans.

Medically speaking, again, they’re heavily reliant on magic.  A specific kind of magic worker called a flesh worker serves as a universal healer, but that does mean that there are some logistical limitations in comparison to our own medically advanced society.  A flesh worker can repair the damage from a sword wound to the chest or even kill a cancer with a thought, yeah, but the idea of an organ transplant, a limb reattachment, or even a blood transfusion just wouldn’t occur to them.  So a flesh worker (re: the HRT thing) might be able to increase one hormone or decrease another, but it would be a wicked precarious arrangement far less manageable than our medically accomplished version.  Likewise, a flesh worker might be able to perform the equivalent of top surgery (or, if you went to one of the less legal flesh workers, actually alter the bone structure of your face) but…there are a lot of limitations there.  Moreover, they don’t have the equipment to even start to approach some of this stuff–like, a flesh worker does all their healing with their bare hands, they don’t exactly keep sterile needles around for blood transfusion.