Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr. Strangemonkey" data-source="post: 1901961" data-attributes="member: 6533">As a total side note:  Though I completely agree with your main point here.  Gunpowder ain't a question of incentives and neither, I suspect, is the steam engine.The issue is that they're both only really useful when you combine with less sexy technologies.China didn't have the firing tube, Greece did.  You need the two technologies together to create a gun.  The only reason the gunpowder travelled and the firing tube didn't is that you need Greek fire for a firing tube to be useful, and noone is going to succesfully put Greek fire on a camel and travel across Asia without getting fried.In terms of steam power: I honestly don't know it as well, but I do know that the two industries it came out of and was used for: Brandy manufacturing and deep shaft mining were things the Greeks didn't do.  I would also suspect that without the various powertrain developments that came from late-medieval exploitation of the windmill and waterwheel there wouldn't have been much the British could have done with it either.And certainly, if you don't have a big ole steppe you can cross fairly easily and the mediterranean which you can cross really easily you're going to get a lot fewer hook-ups between sexy tech and unsexy tech.</blockquote>