Techs for a world without explosives

[chef pablo]

check out this sitehttp://www.metalstorm.com/index.php?src=news&category=Latest%20Video%20%26%20Live%20Firings&srctype=lister&page=1&spp=8

 

[Zombie69]

"such that the leading propellant can be reliably ignited"

Sounds like combustion to me. Busted!

 

[TheBladeRoden]

*all that stuff*

That post reminds me of the human weapons for Savage 1, with one line being bows, another being electricity based, another being magnetism based, and the last being chemical based.

 

[chef pablo]

ah ,your right,I must have had this confused with another weapon system,I dont know the name ,what i do know is that the shell is concave ,a lazer is fired into the concave surface ,the lazer bounces around in this concave structure till the air is super heated,the air behind and in the structue gets so hot that the oxygen explodes creating the propultion.As it moves on its tragactory the lazor continues to fallow the shell,bursts of propultion continue,and the furter it goes down range the faster it gets.I think this might be an auro/space progect.if somebody can find it.BTWya gatta admit 1,000,000 rounds per minute is pretty damn impresive.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Went for a long walk, as it was a nice day, and got thinking about your premise...

If you go back to way, way early times, and we are talking no fire here, then that means no pottery, no metal useage of any kind whatsoever, no bread, no form of heating ..apart from the sun (which in this no combustion world, would even that "work"..if not then life would be immaterial anyway)...

The subject is in need of someones thesis to cover it properly, but to cut a long walk's thought short, I believe fire was such a necessary requirement for early man's evolution, that without it civilization wouldn't have got started at all..so "techs for a world without explosives" for all intents and purposes equals zero.

 

[scottcstoness]

Went for a long walk, as it was a nice day, and got thinking about your premise...

If you go back to way, way early times, and we are talking no fire here, then that means no pottery, no metal useage of any kind whatsoever, no bread, no form of heating ..apart from the sun (which in this no combustion world, would even that "work"..if not then life would be immaterial anyway)...

The subject is in need of someones thesis to cover it properly, but to cut a long walk's thought short, I believe fire was such a necessary requirement for early man's evolution, that without it civilization wouldn't have got started at all..so "techs for a world without explosives" for all intents and purposes equals zero.

Assuming that combustion on the planet is outlawed, rather than nuclear reactions in the sun, we've still got light and heat. While there might not be fire, there could still be heat from the sun, animals, chemical sources, etc.

The first worked metal usage, I believe, was copper, which could be found on the surface in sufficiently pure quantities to be worked, and it is ductible enough to be worked without heat, IIRC.

There are chemical stoves available now; presumably they would have been discovered earlier if they were a primary heat source.

The first scientific notes about static electricity were in 600 BC:

http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/more_stuff/E&M_Hist.html

Again, without fire, advances might have been faster (or slower, if indeed no fire means no civilization).

 

[Ballisto]

This idea is physically implausible. For this "no combustion" world to make any sense at an atomic level, you'd have to cap the potential energy allowed in chemical bonds. The consequences of changing the laws of physics in that way would probably prevent life from happening at all.

EDIT: I like the word choice

 

[scottcstoness]

This idea is laughable. For this "no combustion" world to make any sense at an atomic level, you'd have to cap the potential energy allowed in chemical bonds. The consequences of changing the laws of physics in that way would probably prevent life from happening at all.

So is most of the star trek universe. Ditto a number of science fiction premises, and most fantasy premises by definition. Yet there are Middle Earth and Fall from Heaven mods for CIV IV, and CIV 2 Test of Time shipped with a space scenario.

It strikes me as an interesting premise, even if completely physically implausible. This is a brain-storming thread. I admit that a "work out the kinks in the premise" thread would be much more difficult You can always say that God got so mad at Noah that not only did it rain and cause a flood, but it rained so hard that "nothing would ever burn again"

I would suggest that the idea is "physically implausible" rather than "laughable" would be more approriate; I think its a pretty intriguing mod idea...

 

[Bushface]

I read long ago that the fuel/air mixture in a petrol engine "is ignited by a spark and explodes", whereas in a diesel engine it burns. This suggests that there is some level at which rapid combustion becomes an explosion, and I think the OP had this in mind as the limiting condition. It was surely not the intention to prohibit fire, a process inherently available from many substances.
Being of an evil disposition, I think warfare without explosives would lead to the development of a wide range of poisons - at first for spears and arrows, later for more general distribution in air or water. The tech "Medicine" would allow neurotoxins and a range of bacterial and viral infections as unique units. Anybody got a quick cure for a synthesis of anthrax and meningitis ? And I do mean quick.

 

[The Dopelganger]

Okay so I don't chack on my post for a day and this is what it becomes?!! OF COURSE THERE'S FIRE!! Just not in the combustion/propultion area. I've thought long and hard about having vehicles, but decided against it until means of making electric and steam are possible (mabey even hydrogen later! they do exist today in california!) of course, the model and mechanics would be different because of alteraitions in the technologies. Scottcstoness has it on the nose about the post. I didn't want to turn this into a lengthy post about subjects on nuclear fission and going through the process of it, just a large alteration in the technology timeline and the affects there after. Think about it this way though, many technologies we have today and are advancing right now were discovered thousands of years ago! An example would be the minoans invented the first electric battery for crying out loud! So mabey it had just enough for like 4volts, but still, that's amazing. And I don't care if my civilization is off or the voltage of the battery, the point is the important part!! So enough of this arguing over how cars work exactly, I'd prefer if we argued over how would factories have been in the 1920's, or even better, how would the effects of of damascus steel and the early battery have been if all this turn of the century gunpowder stuff had never happened!

 

[The Dopelganger]

Sorry bushface, missed your post, but this exactly what I'm looking for along the lines of posting.
K.I.S.S.
Keep
It
Simple
Stupids

 

[chef pablo]

gunpowder happened much earlier than the turn of the century ,none the less.If you take out gunpowder,than you are still dealing with steel ,maces ,flails,swords,armor.the skills of casting and medal working around this time were getting better,would it be a streach to say that a boiler wouldnt be to far behind.they had water mills and wind mills ,maybee if the interuption of gunpowder hadnt come along they would have looked at steam as a power source as fordges got bigger and hotter.
If steam being the next jump then apply that to weaponry,i think castles would still be the ultimate defence so add steam jets at the base of ramparts, numatic catapults and balistas,pitch sprayed out through numatic pipes,with fire added as it is ejected out of the pipes.
offensivly,adding boilers on wagons to carry out similar weapons of war.
this would lead to steam engines,then electricity,i could see masive sprinkler systerms filled with hard water to make it more conductive set on top of the walls.bare copper lines with 240 vlts strung along the outside top waiting for someone to scale the walls.offensivly i see catapults fleenging water inside the castle to prep it for taiser balistas.
i see some pretty messy stuf if gunpowder hadnt come along.

 

[wiseguy101]

I agree that you might have personalized electric weapons sometime in the future, but I think that people would just be using personal projectile weapons. Think slingshots, but much more advanced. People would also probably incorporate electricity and the bow and arrow somehow as well.

 

[The Dopelganger]

I didn't mean to insult anyone, it's just I don't like so much getting off topic.

Chef Pablo- realy funny post. I most enjoyed the tazzer idea. BTW I live in south east Broken Arrow

Okay, let's start at the time of gunpowder. The knight and castle were at their hight of thier power. An Arms race had developed. Thus, gunpowder came into the picture. But we've swept away gunpowder. So for our scenario, the arms race continues.

 

[Zombie69]

OF COURSE THERE'S FIRE!! Just not in the combustion/propultion area.

There is no such thing as fire "outside of the combustion area". Fire, by definition, is combustion, and nothing more. Burning is synonymous with combusting. Check out combustion in the dictionary, or better yet, in a chemistry book.

It was rightly pointed out later that what you want to disallow is rapid combustion, not combustion per se, and you agreed. Don't fall for the mistake of bringing back combustion into the discussion if that's not the subject you want.

 

[Zombie69]

Okay, let's start at the time of gunpowder. The knight and castle were at their hight of thier power. An Arms race had developed. Thus, gunpowder came into the picture. But we've swept away gunpowder. So for our scenario, the arms race continues.

Crossbows already totally anihilated knights (cutting right through their armour) long before gunpowder, and because of this they were made illegal in many parts of Europe. No need for gunpowder to obsolete knights. All you need is the willingness to use crossbows against them, even though knights don't like it.

 

[binhthuy71]

Not to be too historically picky but it is the English Longbow that is most famous for knocking off Knights (Agincourt, Crecy, and Poitiers).
The crossbow was developed because it took too much practice to become an accomplished longbowman.

 

[Psycadelic_Magi]

There's been some really nit-picky arguments here... When its pretty obvious what the concept is really- man never utilises gunpowder or discovers the internal combustion engine... An argument over the definition of combustion is not needed...

But I think it would be a great idea for the focus to be on airships for travel instead of cars... Y'know, cities like lindblum in FFIX appearing... that'd be cool. And why stop at zeppelins and blimps? Surley if the focus was there then a host of ideas would have come up.

Also for mabe a more futuristic era; although the reason behind the lack of guns is different, try looking to Dune for ideas about alternate technologies... I havent personally read it but i know that since everyone has their own personal deflector sheilds that block objects above a certain speed, guns are rendered obsolete.

Oh and they have ornithopters

 

[Psycadelic_Magi]

Lemme think of some effects of gunpowder...

I know that, after gunpowder started to be in wide use, armies began to use lighter and lighter (and eventually virtually no) armour, since speed was a better protection than the armour that could be punctured easily. So what would happen instead in our scenario?
The trend before gnpwdr was more, and more defensive armour (plate mail), but will the 'uber-crossbows' people are talking about discourage the trend or continue an armour-weapon battle where armour gets heavier and heavier, and the weapons get more and more puncturing?

The poison-warfare concept is a real good idea to break the crossbows thing up, could be real interesting... Need to think of other alternate forms of war though..

(THIS is the sort of thing that should be discussed by the way, instead of the go-nowhere argument most of these people are in)

 

[Zombie69]

Not to be too historically picky but it is the English Longbow that is most famous for knocking off Knights (Agincourt, Crecy, and Poitiers).
The crossbow was developed because it took too much practice to become an accomplished longbowman.

The crossbow was developped millenia before the advent of the longbow, in China. But your point stands as far as Europe is concerned. Longbows, then crossbows, were a good counter to knights in armor.