Hero of Alexandria points Rome towards the Space Age

[Sinaz]

Hello, Alternate History folks. I just registered for pretty much this one thread. Call it research or open-source brain-storming.

I am working on a project which will require an alternate history frame work.

I need to get from Point A:
Hero of Alexandria pursues his Aeolipile into practical application as a viable steam engine, first deployed, let's say, 62ishAD.

...to Point B:
in, let's say, 269ishAD, Rome puts its first milestone on the center of the Moon's face with a historic marble marker engraved with an arrow pointing straight up to Earth, and an inscription: "Omnes viae Romam ducunt"... all roads lead to Rome (I hope :P )

...to Point C:
The dark ages befall the remnants of the Roman Interplanetary Empire circa 1200AD... in which a few dozen deep space colonies lay mostly isolated as the monolithic hyperspace gates built by the Romans fall into decay.

Just imagine a picture of ancient Rome with the vapor-trail plume of a rocket arcing away from it in the third century AD, and then let your imagination run with it.

I'll be chiming in with my own ideas and comments as we go. Thanks for the input!

[Caesar]

I like the idea, but you have technology advancing too quickly, for instance, at the very minimum you should probably have spaceflight take place a millenium after the POD (and this is probably optimistic). And personally, I'd probably reconsider the whole hyperspace gates.

[Hobelhouse]

The problem with advancing tech that fast is there's really not enough of a population base to support it.

[Sinaz]

Originally Posted by Hobelhouse

The problem with advancing tech that fast is there's really not enough of a population base to support it.

My simple timetable was based on the Apollo 11 mission's offset from the beginning of the industrial revolution. Rome had some great thinkers... let's just say that all the necessary theoretical knowledge came about via rapid advances in observational technology.

And, though I anticipated that people would rather declare why such a time table is impossible, my project is Science Fiction.

And the "hyper-space gates" are just my futuristic analogy to the Roman aqueducts.

[DominusNovus]

Originally Posted by Sinaz

My simple timetable was based on the Apollo 11 mission's offset from the beginning of the industrial revolution. Rome had some great thinkers... let's just say that all the necessary theoretical knowledge came about via rapid advances in observational technology.

And, though I anticipated that people would rather declare why such a time table is impossible, my project is Science Fiction.

And the "hyper-space gates" are just my futuristic analogy to the Roman aqueducts.

Well, we generally have some concern for plausibility. The general concept itself, Heron starting an industrial revolution, is not entirely accepted to be a plausible scenario as it is.

That said, there's plenty of leeway. Myself, I once wrote a barebones timeline where Roman technology caught up to ours comparative to our different calendars (frex, our tech of the 20th century AD by the 20th century AUC).

Romans on the moon in the 3rd century is not likely by any stretch.

[Anaxagoras]

The problem with "technology evolving faster" TLs is not just that people didn't discover stuff, but that intellectual paradigms didn't exist to exploit them. Hero, it should be noted, DID develop a steam engine. The problem was that nobody saw it as anything other than an interesting toy.

The modern concept of using science as a means for society to progress comes from the Enlightenment of the 17th-18th Centuries. The ancients didn't even have the concept of progress- to them, the way things were was the way they always had been and the way they always would be. The possibility that it might be otherwise never really occured to them.

So you need much deeper and more complicated PODs for something like this to work.

[Sinaz]

Originally Posted by Anaxagoras

The problem with "technology evolving faster" TLs is not just that people didn't discover stuff, but that intellectual paradigms didn't exist to exploit them. Hero, it should be noted, DID develop a steam engine. The problem was that nobody saw it as anything other than an interesting toy.

Isn't this kind of one of the many roots of this exercise... that a paradigm to exploit a steam engine would have existed... that someone had just put it to practical use and yelled EUREKA?

The modern concept of using science as a means for society to progress comes from the Enlightenment of the 17th-18th Centuries. The ancients didn't even have the concept of progress- to them, the way things were was the way they always had been and the way they always would be. The possibility that it might be otherwise never really occured to them.

I'm no historian, but are you suggesting that the Romans had no concept of invention and progress? That they accidentally created things like sewers and aqueducts and siege engines and forgot how and why this occurred?

The Romans were capable of manufacturing metal plumming, advanced war engines, chariots, sailing ships... if someone were to generate the mass-production technologies afforded to them by the steam-engine, then I see no reason that technology could not progress at a similar pace to our own. Only 250 years ago we were sailing about in wind-powered ships, casting muskets and ammunition by hand, and attaching horses to wheeled carts... not entirely different than the Romans, only with a much broader scope of the world around us. So in my TL, that scope of the world will have to develop along side the technology.

So you need much deeper and more complicated PODs for something like this to work.

How much more complicated? I would think that artistic license would give most people the freedom to exercise their imagination. This whole thing is a hypothetical.

Ideas that follow my initial guidelines and push the necessary boundaries of it would be more productive then spending brain power typing up a bunch of reasons why an exercise in imagination is futile.

Just have fun with it. At least try to help me.

[DominusNovus]

Originally Posted by Sinaz

I'm no historian, but are you suggesting that the Romans had no concept of invention and progress? That they accidentally created things like sewers and aqueducts and siege engines and forgot how and why this occurred?

No, just that it wasn't taken for granted that tomorrow would be better than yesterday. We have faith that, all other things equal, things will progress. Back in ancient times, things weren't that cut and dry. Technological progress over the pass few centuries (even this last millennium) has been staggering compared to prior progress. When technology is not advancing much over the years, and is easily lost to dark ages and barbarian incursions, its not so easy to have such an assumption. Thats what he's saying.

But sewers, aqueducts, and (to a lesser extent), siege engines both predate the Romans by a fair degree.

Originally Posted by Sinaz

The Romans were capable of manufacturing metal plumming, advanced war engines, chariots, sailing ships... if someone were to generate the mass-production technologies afforded to them by the steam-engine, then I see no reason that technology could not progress at a similar pace to our own. Only 250 years ago we were sailing about in wind-powered ships, casting muskets and ammunition by hand, and attaching horses to wheeled carts... not entirely different than the Romans, only with a much broader scope of the world around us. So in my TL, that scope of the world will have to develop along side the technology.

Steam power doesn't afford mass production automatically. Water power is much better suited to the function in most respects. And the Romans have several instances of water mills, very large ones even. Yet they didn't do anything with it.

Next, mass production requires mass resources, mass capital, and mass demand. You can provide the last one easiest, and its still pretty hard. But compared to the Romans, the people of 1750 had several technological edges (though the Romans did have an edge in civil engineering, perhaps). Paper, printing, gunpowder (huge, absolutely huge), more advanced metallurgy, more advanced shipbuilding techniques, which lead into much higher populations and quicker communications. Coupled with more extensive theoretical knowledge, this provides a much more suitable environment for technological progress.

Originally Posted by Sinaz

How much more complicated? I would think that artistic license would give most people the freedom to exercise their imagination. This whole thing is a hypothetical.

Ideas that follow my initial guidelines and push the necessary boundaries of it would be more productive then spending brain power typing up a bunch of reasons why an exercise in imagination is futile.

Just have fun with it. At least try to help me.

We're not being nearly as cynical as you're implying, and we are trying to help you, it just happens to be by providing constructive criticism.


You want much faster technological progress in Rome?

a) invent, acquire paper. The Chinese might have had it at the time.
b) printing. With paper, this will provide much easier dissemination of knowledge.
c) gunpowder. This will both further rocketry (kinda crucial to your space exploration plans) as well as fuel improvements in metallurgy (for cannons and such), which is necessary for industrialization.

Have all this, by some weird, unlikely, implausible, twist of fate all be discovered around the same time as Heron lived, and you might have something.

But, there's still the issue with the Aeliopile not being a true engine. Heron would have to develop a piston system, and crankshaft for rotary motion, to create something actually useful, as far as steam technology is concerned.

[Anaxagoras]

Originally Posted by Sinaz

I'm no historian, but are you suggesting that the Romans had no concept of invention and progress? That they accidentally created things like sewers and aqueducts and siege engines and forgot how and why this occurred?

They didn't have the concept of progress in the same way that we think of progress today. They didn't think, for example, that they would have flying chariots one day. And the Romans didn't invent any of the things you mention- they had been around for millennia and the Romans adopted and refined them.

In early modern times, Europeans went through the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment before they really had a social zeitgeist saying, "The future can be better than the past." It's so engrained in us today that it's difficult for us to imagine that anyone else doesn't also think the way we do. But the ancient Greeks and Romans, for all their genius, didn't think that way.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Anaxagoras

The modern concept of using science as a means for society to progress comes from the Enlightenment of the 17th-18th Centuries. The ancients didn't even have the concept of progress- to them, the way things were was the way they always had been and the way they always would be. The possibility that it might be otherwise never really occured to them.

This isn't entirely true; there were poems written in praise of water wheels when they were first developed, frex. And certainly Archimedes saw no problem with inventing labor saving machines.

[Dutchie]

Don't confuse engineering progress with scientific progress. They're different modes of thought. The first exploits what has worked, the second looks for what might work, and why.

Incidentally, there is a school of thought that says that a monotheistic belief system is needed to promote a scientific mind - with many gods acting capriciously, there's no reason to the world; with one god, there's rules and designs to nature that can be discovered and exploited.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Dutchie

Don't confuse engineering progress with scientific progress. They're different modes of thought. The first exploits what has worked, the second looks for what might work, and why.

Okay, so now it's a question of scientific progress and a belief that you can discover things?



Incidentally, there is a school of thought that says that a monotheistic belief system is needed to promote a scientific mind - with many gods acting capriciously, there's no reason to the world; with one god, there's rules and designs to nature that can be discovered and exploited.[/QUOTE]


Neat theory, but where's the evidence for it?

I mean, how is belief in a god who can cause a flood better than believing in several gods who cause a flood?

[Smaug]

Not to be a downer, but IMO, Rome was never truly innovative.

Rome brings to mind the advertising logo of BASF, We didn't invent alot of the things you use, we made them better. Don't quote me on that

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Smaug

Not to be a downer, but IMO, Rome was never truly innovative.

I dunno. Look at the way they ran their mines in Spain; or how quickly glassmaking spread.

Plus, it's not like the Roman Emprie consisted of only Romans.

[M79]

For better Roman technology there must be a market to sustain its products. Rome did not have much of a middle class and slave labor can be used for very little money. You might get the development of railroads with a steam engine, but unless there are practical applications in ancient Rome you need a paradigm shift or a darn good reason to get a true indutrial revolution off the ground.

[Shimbo]

Just a thought. If instead of accidentally burning the library at Alexandria, Caesar was amazed by it and stole it and took it back to Rome as plunder it might help speed up progress. It could be the basis of some kind of prototype university that might trigger some advances and kick start technological progress.

BTW I've noticed that more people tend to point out the faults in a timeline than chip in with more ideas. I guess that's just human nature and of course it is useful to have your ideas tested, so don’t take it to heart.

At first glance, your idea of space going Romans does seem fantastical, for the reasons people have mentioned. Things that are fantastical tend to go in the Alien Space Bats section of the discussion, where people take a more open minded, even frivolous, view of them.

[Alayta]

Originally Posted by DominusNovus

You want much faster technological progress in Rome?

a) invent, acquire paper. The Chinese might have had it at the time.
b) printing. With paper, this will provide much easier dissemination of knowledge.
c) gunpowder. This will both further rocketry (kinda crucial to your space exploration plans) as well as fuel improvements in metallurgy (for cannons and such), which is necessary for industrialization.

Good points. But they are only valid with more free people. Dissemination of knowledge is only possible with people wiht the right and time to learn.
A new social order is absolutly nessecary to get to the moon.
So, rome must sort of be destroyed in order to achieve what you want.

[rewster]

Originally Posted by DominusNovus

You want much faster technological progress in Rome?

a) invent, acquire paper. The Chinese might have had it at the time.
b) printing. With paper, this will provide much easier dissemination of knowledge.
c) gunpowder. This will both further rocketry (kinda crucial to your space exploration plans) as well as fuel improvements in metallurgy (for cannons and such), which is necessary for industrialization.

Have all this, by some weird, unlikely, implausible, twist of fate all be discovered around the same time as Heron lived, and you might have something.

Well, paper certainly existed before this timeline would have begun. Printing and gunpowder (at least early theoretical/experimental forms) existed by 220 AD, which is prior to Point B, though only by 49 years, which means in less than 5 decades the Romans must both acquire these technologies from China and develop them into a society technically aware and capable enough to launch something into space.
Now that is clearly not possible, so either the Romans will have to have developed printing and gunpowder on their own and gotten ahold of paper rather quickly all within a few decades or so after Point A, or Point B needs to be moved out a bit further.

But, there's still the issue with the Aeliopile not being a true engine. Heron would have to develop a piston system, and crankshaft for rotary motion, to create something actually useful, as far as steam technology is concerned.

Given what he did come up with (windmills, mechanical theatres, vending machines) I think this is probably the most plausible part of the scenario. One would just need a PoD which causes Hero to concentrate more on the aelopile than on things like mechanical theatres and temple gimmicks. Perhaps if he had gotten into reenacting naval battles in miniature, rather than automating plays?

[ninebucks]

The big problem here is metal. Forging a metal that could survive the forces and pressures of space travel is not possible untill the very modern era. And, unfortunately, it is almost impossible to come up with a POD that would speed up metallurgical development - because, simply put, metallurgy, in OTL, developed as quickly as it could, because metallurgy is always useful. Regardless of how your civilisation is doing, you still need to have a decent sword.

[Analytical Engine]

Edison say - "Nessecity it the mother of invention".

Since there was no demand for such things, there was no need to invent/develop them