Fabrial screens.

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

I wonder if learning about Seons(which are basically videophones) will prompt Roshar to try and make a technological equivalent.

[Lego Mistborn]

If Sel(that's where the Dor is, right?) enters the space race, the I think that when the advantage becomes clear, they will definitely try to find a way to compete.

[+viengua]

11 hours ago, Ta'veren Kaladin said:

I considered that when I wrote that post, however, in addition to @Nameless's input, I find that instantaneous messaging is still negligible in all but a few situations when regular fast messaging is an option, especially when fast messaging is more flexible.

I agree for inter-personal communications, however in the design of machines there are a lot of other interesting implications from using conjoined spren instead of radio waves or even wires.

Modern CPUs perform operations faster than the physical wiring on the motherboard can get data to them, which becomes a microarchitectural design consideration when arranging memory subsystems. This might not matter for Rosharan computers though.

I can't recall if you get the same induction problems you have with wiring, or interference problems that you get with radios, but I don't think so? Not having to worry about spectrum availability would be quite a big benefit. IIRC you can't intercept a conjoined fabrial's movements which makes them quite useful as a confidential method of communication.

Depending on the availability of gemstones, fabrial cages, and spren, fabrial communications might be way cheaper too in terms of the infrastructure required. No need for telegraph cables or antennae.

Edited June 8, 2022 by viengua

[cometaryorbit]

14 hours ago, Frustration said:

But they are instantaneous.

It's not so much as lack the capacity as lacking the availibility. There are a number of way to do so, they are just currently restricted to only a small group at the moment.

Right now, when they're operating on one continent, the speed difference vs telegraphs or radio (which is starting to appear on Scadrial as of BoM) is not really noticeable.

Long term spanreeds are super interesting, yes. But if we are talking *current* situation I think that spanreeds are more useful than telegraphs (not needing the hard wire connection) but definitely more limited than modern communications- maybe more analogous to radio.

Large scale transport is iffy without new developments.

Can you scale up Fourth Bridge style tech, with the chulls on the plateau and all, to the scale of say 20th century railroad shipping? I strongly question that if they are limited to draft animal power.

I think they'd need some kind of fabrial engine, which is definitely possible* but not currently available tech on Roshar.

*at the very least, they could run a steam engine on heat fabrials... though I'm not sure they would have the *idea* of a steam engine. It's certainly possible they could, the idea existed in the first century Roman Empire though it wasn't really made practical, but far from guaranteed.

And there's likely a way to go direct from Investiture to kinetic energy using attractors and repellers or something. But again not current tech.

EDIT: so I'm not sure we can really say they're more advanced than Scadrial as of BoM. I think they are roughly comparable in some areas (communications, lighting, and so on) and perhaps ahead in some (fabrial refrigeration might be better?), with long term huge implications from FTL spanreeds.

But as of right now Roshar has a few major holes, IMO, at least materials knowledge/science (they can Soulcast stuff but Scadrial probably has all kinds of alloys the Rosharans would never think to try, and have presumably discovered things like titanium) and most importantly power output. Roshar doesn't have fabrial tech to match the power levels of say locomotive engines, likely not even car engines. Even heat fabrials seem to be like replacing a fireplace.

Edited June 8, 2022 by cometaryorbit

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

Large scale transport is iffy without new developments.

Can you scale up Fourth Bridge style tech, with the chulls on the plateau and all, to the scale of say 20th century railroad shipping? I strongly question that if they are limited to draft animal power.

I think they'd need some kind of fabrial engine, which is definitely possible* but not currently available tech on Roshar.

Actually I have a model for a perpetual motion machine using paired gems you can see here

And while it does require Raysium it is within the capabilities of Roshar as it is now.

[cometaryorbit]

15 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Actually I have a model for a perpetual motion machine using paired gems you can see here

And while it does require Raysium it is within the capabilities of Roshar as it is now.

That might well work, and they could *physically* build it, but I strongly doubt they've got the *intellectual background* to come up with it, in an environment without physics. I doubt they have any equivalent of Newtons laws; do they have the idea of energy as a quantifiable thing, or the concept that, say, heat energy and mechanical energy are different forms of 'the same thing'?

That was kind of my question about the fabrial steam engine idea. They certainly COULD make one, Roshar metallurgy isn't great but it's got to be at least as good as first century Roman, but do they have the conceptual basis to imagine that you can turn a heat fabrial into a source of mechanical energy?

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, cometaryorbit said:

That might well work, and they could *physically* build it, but I strongly doubt they've got the *intellectual background* to come up with it, in an environment without physics. I doubt they have any equivalent of Newtons laws; do they have the idea of energy as a quantifiable thing, or the concept that, say, heat energy and mechanical energy are different forms of 'the same thing'?

That was kind of my question about the fabrial steam engine idea. They certainly COULD make one, Roshar metallurgy isn't great but it's got to be at least as good as first century Roman, but do they have the conceptual basis to imagine that you can turn a heat fabrial into a source of mechanical energy?

Well they have an understanding of wave functions and sound cancelation so I would find it wierd if they didn't understand quantifiable energy.

[cometaryorbit]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

Well they have an understanding of wave functions and sound cancelation so I would find it wierd if they didn't understand quantifiable energy.

Perhaps.

I totally think fabrial engines will come along eventually (likely in the second arc) but the chull setup for the Fourth Bridge is imo pretty good evidence that they aren't currently existing technology, because Navani would have access if anyone would. And if they don't exist, given that they do have heat fabrials and such that could be made into them, imo that suggests serious holes in their understanding of basic physics.

The way they discuss gravity also suggests to me a pre Newtonian understanding, but admittedly that's just inferred from the terms they use.

I need to re-read those parts of Rhythm of War and see how much of the wave function stuff was Navani's prior knowledge (thus presumably available to the Rosharan artifabrian community) vs. Raboniel's.

I think there's also a mention that one of the Shards hinted at the existence of antimatter, or something. So they might have some knowledge from external sources outside of the normal development of science - ie they have some facts isolated from any connecting groundwork of theory/knowledge.

There might also be bits of knowledge persisting from before the Recreance.

[+viengua]

Important to assess the level of technology as "what problems have they solved?" and "how efficiently have they solved them?" (and "how widespread are the solutions?") rather than "do they have this specific invention from IRL Earth history?" or else the answers will end up being less useful IMO. Some inventions we might consider progress markers aren't appropriate/relevant/useful on Roshar. Railways are going to be a challenge when you have frequent highstorms (trains here in the UK shut down for *leaves*). Aircraft can land somewhere safe, or fly above the storm, however. Disinfectant is in common use, but vaccines aren't going to be quite so useful given the relative lack of pathogens. Electricity pylons also probably won't play well with the extremely frequent magical hurricanes.

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

I totally think fabrial engines will come along eventually (likely in the second arc) but the chull setup for the Fourth Bridge is imo pretty good evidence that they aren't currently existing technology, because Navani would have access if anyone would. And if they don't exist, given that they do have heat fabrials and such that could be made into them, imo that suggests serious holes in their understanding of basic physics.

As you mentioned earlier, the steam engine and railway tracks were invented thousands of years before someone put them together and made a steam-powered railway. They probably don't naturally go towards heat as a source of power though, given how stormlight is abundant and free, heat Fabrials are fairly new, and they're in a high oxygen environment. I think they're closer to engines than might be immediately be apparent. Navani theorises about creating Fabrial pumps, which is one of the ways they could start converting stormlight into mechanical energy. That I think would qualify as an engine, and could be a building block for more complex systems. 

Edited June 8, 2022 by viengua

[Frustration]

7 minutes ago, viengua said:

Disinfectant is in common use, but vaccines aren't going to be quite so useful given the relative lack of pathogens.

Actually they have vacination, or at least are working on it.

I agree with you it makes no sense whatsoever for them to have it, but for some reason they do.

[cometaryorbit]

55 minutes ago, viengua said:

Important to assess the level of technology as "what problems have they solved?" and "how efficiently have they solved them?" (and "how widespread are the solutions?") rather than "do they have this specific invention from IRL Earth history?" or else the answers will end up being less useful IMO. Some inventions we might consider progress markers aren't appropriate/relevant/useful on Roshar. Railways are going to be a challenge when you have frequent highstorms (trains here in the UK shut down for *leaves*). Aircraft can land somewhere safe, or fly above the storm, however.

Right, I am thinking about capabilities. What I'm saying they lack relative to Era 2 Scadrial or early 20th century Earth is the ability to move large cargoes quickly (eg by train) / to generate large amounts of energy in a relatively compact space (engines); and less importantly metallurgy and likely materials science more generally.

Their transport may well end up being all air based, but my point is that the chull based power source would be very limiting for scale up, though for a few airships like the Fourth Bridge it works great.

 

55 minutes ago, viengua said:

  I think they're closer to engines than might be immediately be apparent. Navani theorises about creating Fabrial pumps, which is one of the ways they could start converting stormlight into mechanical energy. That I think would qualify as an engine, and could be a building block for more complex systems. 

Oh I think they'll get fabrial motors of some sort soon, I'd expect to see them in the second arc (if the next book really only covers 10 days probably not there). But I think they don't have them as of RoW.

And their power output might still be pretty limited, the heat fabrials and such we've seen aren't *that* much energy.

 

---

A primitive form of vaccination is surprisingly old in RL, actually older than germ theory, so its existence fits the level of medical knowledge Kaladin/Lirin show us. But that's also a bit interesting... I think the ability to see rotspren has helped Roshar figure out antiseptics and such ahead of their general knowledge level. They don't know about germ theory, but they know that substance X keeps rotspren away.

Edited June 8, 2022 by cometaryorbit