Anachronistic Settings with Multiple Tech Levels
Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:54 pm
I've been collecting a lot of material for my setting in progress and wanted to get the den to ask me some world building questions in regards to some of the elements I'm choosing to blend together.
This setting will take place in Chicago, that geographically includes elements from the 1880s through the 1920s.
This setting is urban fantasy/horror.
Setting elements are heavily influenced by both Diamond Age and Howl's Moving Castle.
There are quite varied tech levels all operating simultaneously. The availability of these innovations depends equally on an organizations resources and the scale of their operations.
Using GURPS tech-levels as a guideline, let me describe a couple concepts:
transportation.
3 -
4 - Horses and Air sailing ships are the most prevalent methods of travel, used primarily by the segment of the population with the lowest resources or by entities that have large fleets, such as standing armies.
5 - Locomotives exist. While extensive, their capabilities are obviously limited to predefined routes between major cities. Dirigibles exist for luxury aircraft and elite military units. Steamships and early automobiles exist, mostly reserved for specialized military or the wealthy eccentric.
6 - early 20th center Automobiles, Airships, Submarines exist buy are truly limited to the extremely wealthy individuals, ancient cabals or black-ops Luminary units.
communication/data
3 - pony express, letters, semaphores, smoke cignals
4 - difference engines, punch cards
5 - telegraph, lan lines
6 - computer/network, cell phone
I've decided that anachronistically, Tesla was able to commoditize transmitable energy before Edison was able to market his own methods. The internet exists, but there are few users. Network communication protocols are, fundamentally, the transmission of energy between devices using agreed upon handshakes, headers, formats and error handling. I might be able to leverage tech levels to determine the difficulty class of various activities.
Weapons, Medicine and other aspects about the world will fit into formats described above.
This is is like Diamond Age in that there's a economic and social strata that allows for varying types and descriptions of problems and enemies. It also allows me to scope out different types of enemies such that a ancient Chantry of cultists might represent a small group of individuals with advanced resources or rival gangs in Back of the Yards still settling things with cutlasses and the occasional wheel lock pistol. It also allows there to exist both low-tech widely spread existential threats that are also in conflict with other dangers that, while having more resources, simply do not have the reach to dominate their enemies with superior technology.
Is it to early to Request Comments are there societal considerations that I should be considering now?
This setting will take place in Chicago, that geographically includes elements from the 1880s through the 1920s.
This setting is urban fantasy/horror.
Setting elements are heavily influenced by both Diamond Age and Howl's Moving Castle.
There are quite varied tech levels all operating simultaneously. The availability of these innovations depends equally on an organizations resources and the scale of their operations.
Using GURPS tech-levels as a guideline, let me describe a couple concepts:
transportation.
3 -
4 - Horses and Air sailing ships are the most prevalent methods of travel, used primarily by the segment of the population with the lowest resources or by entities that have large fleets, such as standing armies.
5 - Locomotives exist. While extensive, their capabilities are obviously limited to predefined routes between major cities. Dirigibles exist for luxury aircraft and elite military units. Steamships and early automobiles exist, mostly reserved for specialized military or the wealthy eccentric.
6 - early 20th center Automobiles, Airships, Submarines exist buy are truly limited to the extremely wealthy individuals, ancient cabals or black-ops Luminary units.
communication/data
3 - pony express, letters, semaphores, smoke cignals
4 - difference engines, punch cards
5 - telegraph, lan lines
6 - computer/network, cell phone
I've decided that anachronistically, Tesla was able to commoditize transmitable energy before Edison was able to market his own methods. The internet exists, but there are few users. Network communication protocols are, fundamentally, the transmission of energy between devices using agreed upon handshakes, headers, formats and error handling. I might be able to leverage tech levels to determine the difficulty class of various activities.
Weapons, Medicine and other aspects about the world will fit into formats described above.
This is is like Diamond Age in that there's a economic and social strata that allows for varying types and descriptions of problems and enemies. It also allows me to scope out different types of enemies such that a ancient Chantry of cultists might represent a small group of individuals with advanced resources or rival gangs in Back of the Yards still settling things with cutlasses and the occasional wheel lock pistol. It also allows there to exist both low-tech widely spread existential threats that are also in conflict with other dangers that, while having more resources, simply do not have the reach to dominate their enemies with superior technology.
Is it to early to Request Comments are there societal considerations that I should be considering now?