A Few Thoughts
"Any sufficienly advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
---Alan Kellogg
My first thought on reading the precis was, "Keith Baker is a fan of mine. Cool."
(Keith, I could use a new iMac, contact me via email so we can work out the details.
)
The Athenians of Pericles' time had railroads. They were getting so much silver ore out of their mines they needed a faster way to transport it to the smelter. So they put carts on wooden rails. Later they advanced to hand wrought iron rails. A small scale operation that grew into its final form over the course of centuries.
On the subject of why they don't use magic for tons of modern stuff. I recall a Bill Cosby bit (back from when he did stand-up) titled, "The Chicken Heart That Ate New York City". A parody of and salute to the horror shows on the radio of Bill's childhood. At the end, with the chicken heart headed his way, Bill smears Jello on the living room floor and sets the sofa on fire, just as mom and dad come home from a night out.
To keep this 'relatively' short, dad ends up sprawled on the floor with a broken arm. It comes out (after a bit of questioning) that there's a giant chicken heart on the radio coming. To which dad asks, "Then why don't you turn it off?"
[click]... ...'I never thought of that.
Folks, you're 21st century moderns (I least I think you are.), you have background and knowledge someone from a 16th century fantasy world wouldn't. Folks from such a world aint gonna think of the same sorts of things you would. People, when I was the age a number of you are, Darpa Net was a military secret and long distance phone calls were priced at
dollars a minute. Much of what you take as background lore is still unexplored territory to me.
Unless magic is strictly limited, and in a way that cannot be overcome by advances in knowledge and learning, it will change a world in ways that cannot be predicted. Figure out how to make
Levitate permanent and variable in strength through a set of controls, and you've got frieght lifts, elevators, transport pallets and what not. (Yes, they were using elevators back in the 16th century to lift heavy loads to the top of construction projects. A labor shortage, thanks to the Black death and other diseases.) A levitating cart would still be as hard to move as a the wheeled version (inertia, you know) but at least you wouldn't have to worry about the dang wheels or lifting the load into the cart in the first place.
(Onto the pallet, yes, but that's a shorter trip.
)
I end this with a comment to Emiricol.
It has trains. Good. I like trains. Trains are cool. Moved by ley lines or Iron Golems, fine by me. Dwarfs as Scottish engineers, elves as card sharks, and orcs as marauding injuns, I can get into that. I could get into a stone giant choo-choo with an apatosaurus catcher, and a cloud giant conductor. You don't like trains. Suffer.
Who said you have to like it? You've made your comment, now get on with your life. You don't need to comment on every comment made to refute yours. People disagree with you, get over it.
I expect you'll respond to this. Feel free. I don't expect it to be cogent, well reasoned, much less coherent. All I expect it will do is confirm my opinion of you. So I shall ignore it as being one of Emiricol's empty whines. The day you post a constructive,
informed complaint on these boards is a day I shall be most pleasantly surprised. So kvetch and niggle over inconsequential details. I've seen it before, and from professionals; you would have to work at it to achieve the status of rank amateur.
Fellow Poster: What is the defining feature of the Pyramid Newsgroups?
Me: Ceaseless nitpicking over inconsequential details to the point the original poster is about ready to tear his hair out.
