I've found lots of places that talk about "alternate history" in the sense of seeing what might happen if some key historical event were different. Is there any forum for discussing what might happen if the change wasn't really an event, but instead a different path of technological development? If, for example, hydroelectric power were developed before fossil fuels were used? And whether that's even possible?
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461 / 50,000
Feb 13, 2008 - 14 31
I dont know that I would necessarily 'classify' them as 'different genres' - they both seem like alternate history to me.
A lot of Sci Fi (say Star Trek) is based on the premise of 'what if a culture had BLAH instead of FOO?' and then working out the details from there.
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4,468 / 50,000
Feb 13, 2008 - 17 06
Hydro-power has been around for thousands of years, if you count using rivers and waterfalls to turn mills and irrigate crops and so on. Coal has been used as fuel for fires since prehistory. The Industrial Revolution is what caused a surge in demand for fossil fuels, and at first they were used in steam engines and improved ironworking. Electricity came later. So I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "hydroelectricity" coming before "fossil fuels."
Alternative technology is pretty much what science fiction is about, at least in part. It's not just one event falling out differently, it can be a whole more complicated alternative history.
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Breeder of Plot Wolverines
50,689 / 50,000
Feb 13, 2008 - 21 51
Hydroelectric power was developed after large-scale use of fossil fuels (industrial revolution, as you said), but I think maybe it didn't have to occur that way, and some alternative sci-fi universe nobody ever started polluting the planet with carbon dioxide because they had cleaner energy. That's just one example of a technological issue. In addition to the "what-if events happened differently" of alternate history, there's the issue of, is it even possible for technology A to be discovered before technology B? For example, steelmaking requires high-temperature fires, so if someone wants a world where methods of making things really hot don't exist yet, s/he can't have steel.
If I wanted to discuss what might have happened if Richard the Lionhearted hadn't died in that siege, it's easy for me to find newsgroups and forums. I haven't found an appropriate forum for the kind of technological alternative histories I'm trying to describe.
4,468 / 50,000
Feb 14, 2008 - 13 17
Both coal and falling water have been used as power sources for thousands of years. They were both in use long before anyone began using electricity. Early industrial machines ran on steam power, which involved using coal fires to boil water. That produced steam, and the steam pressure powered machines.
Using either falling water or burning coal to produce electricity (by making turbines spin, which can generate electricity) was a much later idea. I'm not sure which was thought of first, Wikipedia's article on "Electricity_generation" doesn't specify. But it seems reasonable that if people in your hypothetical world already use turbine generators, and they've gotten as far as coal-powered steam engines, then coal-powered turbine generators are obvious, since all you have to do is put the two together.
My guess is that both water and fossil fuel began to be used in electrical generators at about the same time, when electricity became the power of choice, but fossil fuel probably dominated because hydropower is limited by geography, and they couldn't go damming every handy river just to get power. Rivers are needed for other things, like fishing and shipping... and if you need electricity far from a river, how do you get it? Running wires to carry electricity over long distances is expensive and inefficient. Fossil fuels are more handy because they can be mined and then sent by land to wherever it's convenient to build the generator. Burning coal or oil to produce electricity is inefficient, since you have to waste a lot of coal energy to get a little bit of electrical energy, but people do it anyway because they need electricity more than they need coal. Even now, people use small portable gasoline-powered generators when they need to generate electricity at a specific location.
Now, if someone invented an extremely small and efficient turbine, which didn't create a lot of traffic problems in the river, and an extremely small and efficient type of battery, which could store up electrical power for long-distance transport, then maybe you wouldn't need coal. You could just use the river to charge up the batteries and then send the batteries wherever you needed the electricity. Or else someone would have to invent a very cheap and very efficient kind of wire which could carry lots of electricity over long distances. But you've still got the problem of being dependent on the river: if something goes wrong with the river or the power lines, you're screwed.
Although, I suppose you could use horse-powered generators on a small scale... but it won't work for generating lots of power, because horses are expensive.
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Breeder of Plot Wolverines
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Feb 14, 2008 - 14 10
I always wondered if it would have been possible to develop vaccinations much sooner than the early twentieth century. They always tell us how advanced we'd be now if cultures like the Mayans, the Aztecs, or even the early Egyptians were still around and I have to wonder truly what would be different.
What if Leonardo DaVinci invented the incandescent filament instead of Edison, or what if the airplane had been developed around the time when Ray Bradbury suggests in The Flying Machine. (my favorite story by him)
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Mar 16, 2008 - 00 37
Hero's steam engine caught on in his life time and it triggers an early industrial revolution perhaps? It could also lead to either an even more powerful roman empire, and better communication if you add in steamboats and trains as well. Hephaestus cults would probably be strengthened by this.
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Mar 18, 2008 - 17 49
Actually, it caught on well enough - he just never figured out how to hook it up to a wheel and start doing things with it, as I recall. I think it also might have had something to do with the fact that a lot of his inventions ended up being used to serve the priesthood (automatic temple doors, holy water dispenser, etc), so they couldn't have come into a lot of everyday use even if they had been more widely applied - it would detract from the awe surrounding the priests.
Now, if the Egyptian priesthood had been less powerful, perhaps...
32,310 / 50,000
Abr 7, 2008 - 10 05
Now, if someone invented an extremely small and efficient turbine, which didn't create a lot of traffic problems in the river, and an extremely small and efficient type of battery, which could store up electrical power for long-distance transport, then maybe you wouldn't need coal. You could just use the river to charge up the batteries and then send the batteries wherever you needed the electricity. Or else someone would have to invent a very cheap and very efficient kind of wire which could carry lots of electricity over long distances. But you've still got the problem of being dependent on the river: if something goes wrong with the river or the power lines, you're screwed.
That right there sounds like it could be a good story. Think about what could go wrong and let your imagination run with it.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” -- Albert Einstein
----------“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” -- Albert Einstein