It’s more of a matter of me not liking the idea of the Elysians conquering another continent. They’re enough of a space-filling empire “just” with North America.
Elysium..., a Roman America TL
- Thread starter Paladín Wulfen
- Start date
There is nothing to stop Elysians from swallow up entire American continents, even when contact re-establish they gonna focus on populate the continents first, which gonna take decades, if not centuries.
But once the territory is fully settled, this ginormous empire/republic will be literally unstoppable, OTL is already a US wank, now imagine current US with territory of North+Central+South America, while rest of world is at 17th-18th century tech level.
Last edited:
Hello,
There is not much left for the Elysians to achieve in becoming virtually unstoppable as a world power. The last chapter is dated 1410 AD so it is a matter of a few decades before contact is re-established with the Old World, intentional or not. It appears only transportation is the final link in Elysium becoming a modern state. For that to happen the Elysians need to translate...
to...
dp.la
www.historytoday.com
www.carkeys.co.uk
It is true that there are now electric motors(!), but are they advanced enough to drive a boat or a wagon with sufficient power and endurance?
If the pictures provided in the chapters give any idea about the state of the Elysian military, then it is a matter of how fast the European powers could catch up to the Elysians (not enough time really before the Europeans are swiftly defeated). And with a dedicated military research and development institute, the Elysians will have several surprises beyond what is currently fielded.
There is not much left for the Elysians to achieve in becoming virtually unstoppable as a world power. The last chapter is dated 1410 AD so it is a matter of a few decades before contact is re-established with the Old World, intentional or not. It appears only transportation is the final link in Elysium becoming a modern state. For that to happen the Elysians need to translate...
to...
A print depicting Robert Fulton’s steamboat, the *Clermont*, which had its first successful journey in 1807. | DPLA
The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.
dp.la
George Stephenson's First Steam Locomotive | History Today
www.historytoday.com
Why does nobody make a steam powered car? - Car Keys
They're environmentally friendly, relatively cheap to run and apparently even quite fun to drive. So why is it that nobody makes a steam-powered car any more?
www.carkeys.co.uk
It is true that there are now electric motors(!), but are they advanced enough to drive a boat or a wagon with sufficient power and endurance?
If the pictures provided in the chapters give any idea about the state of the Elysian military, then it is a matter of how fast the European powers could catch up to the Elysians (not enough time really before the Europeans are swiftly defeated). And with a dedicated military research and development institute, the Elysians will have several surprises beyond what is currently fielded.
Chapter 38 Caesar Gaius Claudius Varro 2163 AUC / 1410 AD - 2226 AUC / 1473 AD
While the new provinces were "cleansed" of the remnants of the Aztecs with the support of the allied tribes of the Elyseans who got friendly treatment from Elysium, the native people were taught the Roman religion and Latin. Elysian officials worked to maintain cultural aspects that did not violate Elysian laws, and a syncretic religion developed in a process similar to that effected during the conquest of Hispania, Greece, and Gaul. Most Elysians undertook to learn the major languages and wrote grammars so SE could learn the languages and establish effective administration.
At first, religious conversion seemed to happen quickly. The priests soon discovered that most of the natives had simply adopted "the conquering gods," as the Roman pantheon called them, as another of their many gods. Although they often considered Jupiter, Juno, Minerva or Mars to be important deities because they were the gods of the victorious conquerors, they did not see the need to abandon their old beliefs, which was allowed but certain restrictions were applied that included human sacrifices, which that only occurred in times of dire need: the most recent known example was during the Second Punic War after the Roman defeat at Cannae.
Although the Elysian colonization of Mexico after the war was little more than the subjugation of the natives, with the establishment of small settlements, all other military conquests involved the gradual founding of a Elysean city in each new conquered region and the almost total enslavement of the tribal populations. All with the thought of a blank canvas, thus expanding the current borders over their conquered territories. To the south, their approach was especially harsh, with entire areas completely enslaved and merciless against any settlement revealing heinous acts such as cannibalism.
The 14th Century became the Century of the Galleon, the ship itself had already become almost symbolic of the Empire's naval power, in both foreign and domestic circles. More than 90% of trade was done with Ampluvis (Carracks) or Armatura (Galleon); all public transport was done with Amplavi and the entire Classis had about 125 Armaturas in its arsenal, through the Varrus Naval Reforms between 1420 and 1430 AD. These were only added to the Navy, and so other ship designs remained in use, though to a slightly less significant degree. Furthermore, in 1440, Varrus commissioned the construction of the Imperial Flagship, the Elysium Invictus, a gargantuan 150 m length (length) and 50 m beam (width) ship with four decks and a total of 140 guns with 35 in every deck.
Another novel reform was the System of Ministries that was perhaps one of his most significant simplifications of government affairs. Varro created a set of transparliamentary bodies that administer government functions on behalf of Caesar. Almost all ministries are headed by a praeministrum appointed by the emperor apart from various numbers of minor officials and magistrates who would work for the ministers to perform their assigned administrative functions.
Several of the other Ministries founded included: Ministry of Electricity, for the maintenance of standards on electrical equipment and subsequent transportation of electricity; Ministries of Higher and Lower Education, leading organizations of the new educational system, divided into Higher (Universalis | OTL: University) and Lower (Grammaticus | OTL: High Schools) and Ministry of Technology, government advisory council on recent technology and possible implications for the Empire.
The two aforementioned ministries of education were created as part of the Emperor's Educational Reform. The problem that was solved here was that the Empire did not have a formal public education system and, in fact, almost all children who lived outside the cities did not receive any education, except what they learned from their family or private individuals. Furthermore, even many people in the city could not afford education for themselves or their children, and many of the trades and knowledge that people acquired were obtained through apprenticeship methods or again from their families. In total, only about 25% of the population could attest to having attended a school of any kind.
For this reason, the Emperor financed the construction of 28 Grammatici in Augusta Elysium, facilities that provided education from 3 to 16 years old. All costs of these schools, once completed, were borne by the government, allowing anyone with Imperial citizenship to send their children there for free. The same year, he held a dinner with some of the directors of various academies throughout the Empire and managed to convince many of them to go into the business of creating their own private Grammatici, thus helping to expand the private educational system. Then, over the course of the next 20 years, Varro worked to create thousands of public schools in every major city, and many smaller towns, throughout the Empire. Though he was never able to take the time to visit all of them due to the extent of his empire.
The Universalis were another of the marked features of the reforms. Before him, facilities known as Academies, such as the Academy of Architecture and the Military Academy, were places of higher education dedicated to the study of a particular subject. Varro had the idea that a single facility could provide joint education for several, even dozens of these subjects, giving its students a kind of universal education. Beginning construction just outside the capital, in an area his predecessor had cleared entirely, Magnus ordered the construction of the Grammaticus Universalis, the first universal school. With the extensive use of slave labor, the main part of the University was completed in five years and the first students began to arrive. The Universalis Augusta houses 8 different academies, each providing a comprehensive education on a particular subject, for example "Philosophy" or "Law and Politics".
The following year, the Emperor and the two ministries of education finished the Nova Doctrina Populare, the New System of Civic Education, formally organizing the independent educational systems into an imperial standard. All schools, both public and private, and of course all academies were forced to follow this new system or be closed down. In short, the new order of things was that the children of the empire were to receive a general education from the ages of 3 to 14, after which their assigned Grammaticus would give them a specialized education in at least 4 subjects, up to a maximum of 10. After two years of this, a Diploma Grammaticum would be given to the child, showing that he had passed all his lower schooling. The child can then go into specialized education for whatever they are going to do later in life.
His patronage for his education did not stop at building schools and reforms, he was also a well-known patron of scientists working at various points, even paying for it from his family's private treasury. Surprisingly, not only did all these expenses not put the state in debt, but his reorganization of the Empire actually resulted in a net profit at the end of his rule.
One of his favorite scientists to patronize was the now famous Decimus Falso Volta, a scientist who worked at the Electrical Academy of Cheienne. To the surprise and great delight of the scientific community, Volta came out with his two Magna Opi, first his Theory of Electricity Generation by Magnetic Induction and then his Theory of Electromagnetism in November of that same year. These two detailed diaries finally provided an acceptable and verifiable explanation of the action of the newly invented motors and generators. Furthermore, Volta reasoned, generators weren't very useful at producing direct current, the kind used by batteries, and instead provided much better power by making alternating current. In his tests with one of the three DC generators running on the academia, and other tests with a makeshift AC generator, found that there was less power loss over distances with AC, and that it also had many more applications than the older DC.
Volta was also quite erudite, and soon after released his Tabula Typica de Elementarum, an educational table that organized the elements known at the time into rows and columns. Started out purely out of interest, Volta gradually realized that he was onto something and within a year he applied for a grant to further investigate what he was in the process of discovering. Though this violated the Academy's "ONE grant per person" policy, the Emperor personally intervened, allowing Volta to finish the table for him. Not only did this periodic table classify all elements into groups with similar properties and periods that followed each group once, it also left holes in his table where he predicted later undiscovered elements would fit. Furthermore, he disproved the nature of water and limestone as distinct elements, and later, he showed that air was composed of at least three different substances, one for breathing, one for plants, and one that did neither. but that somehow made up more than half of its composition.
Regardless, with the theories of electromagnetism established, Volta set out to build the first alternating current generator. Although it took him another three years after developing his theories, he finally built the first prototype of him. The device doubled the power output of DC generators that were in use before, completely eliminating any potential competition from the water.
Since Volta managed to patent his new invention of the AC Generator, he was now on his way to a life of great fortunes, since until his death he had exclusive rights to the use of the technology. However, in a somewhat paranoid move, he forbade allowing other scientists to use the device in research, giving himself the exclusive right to advance the technology, and if someone else did, he had to relinquish the rights. This reflected his astute business style, something many have criticized him for. The problem here was that although he had the generator and the theory, large-scale application was impossible with the device he had.
After another three years of work, Volta created the first waterwheel AC generator on the river that runs past his village. Using the electrical power that he was generating from the waterwheel, Volta turned on a large ceiling fan in the main hall of his villa that cooled the room noticeably on hot days. That same year, Volta was declared by Varro to be president of the newly created Societas Imperialis de Scientiae (Imperial Society of Sciences), an organization founded by Volta's bequest that administered and discussed all scientific matters in the Empire.
The SIS was controlled by the Concilium Scientium, a board of the Imperium's most respected scientists, who were selected for their position by the current board members each day of Saturnalia. Usually, people applied for the position and members accepted or put them on hold, but on rare occasions the Society itself sucked out potential candidates. The supplier (President) was, of course, selected by the imperial government, usually the Emperor or the Minister of Technology and then, if he was accepted by the board, kept the position. Any other scientist could attend S.I.S meetings, reserving a place at any of its meetings, although, as usual, the board could decline a reservation. In any case, the entire goal of the Imperial Society was to stimulate scientific discussion and keep the Empire on the right path to advancement, much like the OTL The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.
Volta was now the most influential member of the Elysium scientific community, both in rank and in terms of respect. Using his many contacts, he was able to convince four Senators to have one of his Waterwheel Generators built on their Villa properties, for a very high price of course. One of the biggest things which Volta had going for him was the cost of electricity at the time. Only huge guilds could afford it as batteries had been the only source. As a single generator was projected to be able to provide power for decades, Volta could put practically any price he desired on his product, which he did. Each of the units he sold, not including the waterwheel and wiring, cost around 90,000 Dn, or ten times more than most Elyseans citizens made in a year.
Over the next 12 years, Volta had another 100 generators built at the villas of more of his friends in the Senate and he had been using many of the funds he was gaining in this to further his research into electricity. For instance he developed a small electrical device which he theorized would be able to act as a kind of "gate" for the electricity. Consisting of two metal plates with a removable insulator between them, the device shocked Volta when he found out its actual use. Instead of stopping and releasing the electricity when the insulator was removed, it allowed the current to pass unhindered. Confused, he tried it with DC current instead, and whilst this did stop the current, it did not act as a gate as he expected. Over the next two years he discovered that the Condensatrum (Capacitor) responded to what he termed "electrical potential" differences, and could be made to store and later release a charge depending on these factors, acting kind of like a battery.
Inventions like the capacitor though were only a distraction, albeit a persistent one, from his primary work on the generator. By 1470 AD the technology had been greatly improved, and in the next year he had a deal with the resort town of Argen (OTL: Aspen) to build his largest generator yet to heat some of the Thermae (Public Baths) which were so popular there. This time he tried out a Windmill design for his generator, something which required far larger magnets than he would have liked, bringing the generator cost up to about 30,000 Dn. That same year, at the insistence of a close friend in the Imperial Society, Volta created his own guild, Eletrika Generalis so that his family could continue to reap the benefits of his inventions even after he had died. Ironically, it was because of this action that his family would ultimately lose access to a lot of that money. However, the guild did allow him to pay his own people to build the devices and the wheels or mills for him, so it did have its advantages at the time.
GE built 14 Waterwheel generators near Civis Cheienne providing almost 30,000 W of power to the the city. The next year 3 were built to supplement the Windmill in Argen and then in one of the largest deals of his career, the Praetor of Dina commissioned for 30 generators to be built outside Civis Dine in 1472. In general, the power provided by the generators was used by printing houses, electroplating industries and the all popular public bathing houses. The problem at the time though was that a lot of power was still being lost in bringing the electricity from the generators up to the cities. Even with large amounts of electrical insulation, energy was being lost as heat in the wire and nothing it seemed could be done to stop this.
Further construction projects stopped for the next two years whilst Volta worked on solving the problem. Right off the bat, he reasoned that the heating originated from the "movement of electrical fluid" in the wires and that since he had earlier discovered that the power generated was a product of the electrical current and the electrical potential, all he needed to do was lower the current whilst simultaneously increasing the voltage. Although the solution eluded him for all of 1474, mid-way through the next year he realized that it might lie in the number of wire loops used in the generators. After trying several combinations of wire in different places, he finally tried to loop wires around a metal ring and then pass the current onto a more looped wire on the opposite end. He realized that this was perfectly in line with his theory of electromagnetic induction. Volta had invented the first transformer.
Almost immediately Volta offered a "deal" on these new transformers, promising that they will significantly improve the amount of power that they'll have access to. Although the Governor in particular was skeptical of the scientist's intentions, everyone agreed that the pay-off was worth it and so the devices were installed at every power generator over the course of the next year. The next year GE built their second windmill generator, along with 6 waterwheel generators, this time north of the city of Colonia Canina Apache. Over the course of the next 5 years, Volta became the third richest man in the Empire, after the emperor and the head of the Printing House Guild. More than 900 waterwheel generators and 40 windmill generators were built for the most important cities of the Empire, providing huge boons to the local economies.
Unfortunately, Volta was researching a new gas which he had discovered along with "empowering airs" when splitting water with electricity, a substance which he dubbed for the time being Aquas Materias Vegetas, what later scientists call "Protium". Anyway, he had a very large glass container filled with the gas which was accidentally knocked over by a slave of his bringing him some water to drink. The resulting explosion knocked him off his feet and gave him serious injuries, but worst of all, set his villa on fire. In only moments the burning building collapsed around him and he died in the rubble.
As was stated in his will, his body was buried in the Academia Imperia Scientiae which was completed by Volta's own request, and served not only as the seat of the Societas Imperialis de Scientiae but also as a Universalis dedicated to the natural sciences. It was decided that he was to be buried in the main courtyard and a statue was to be built on top to honor his achievements. Known as the Throne of Volta, the statue shows the man himself seated on a marble and silver throne and holding a clear glass ball in his right hand to represent clarity gained through science.
This was not to say that all was well and good following his death, as the government of Elysium was able to influence matters so that they "inherited" the entirety of Volta's estate, in particular the guild he had founded. His four children were given only about 20% of his wealth (every children receive a 5%), which despite making up more than 120 million Denarii, was nothing compared to the wealth being generated, so to speak, by his company. Through the deals he had made with his customers, 30% of the money received from selling the electricity had to come back to General Electric. The government now had full use of his patents, and therefore his inventions and was already preparing itself to expand this new industry even before Volta's body had made it into the ground.
The next emperor was especially delighted by what the government was now capable of and ensured that within only a year the now government owned General Electric was building its generators again, with a new stipulation that the newly created Ministry of Energy had full management duties over all GE power generators and that 50% of all income garnered by them went to the Imperial Government. From that point up until the end of next Emperor' reign, more than 600 waterwheel generators and 900 windmill generators were constructed and power was now being provided to over 80 cities.
The two Ministries within the jurisdiction of electrical generation were also working on the issue of long-distance power generation in order to bring the generators away from urban areas. Years later it was decided that wires were allowed to only extend along a roadway, and that when doing so must run through the small concrete walls on the edges of the roads. Though this necessitated rebuilding these walls to be open-able, it was agreed that it was the best option to not only maintain the security of the power grid, but to also stay to the interests of conservative who would have objected to great big wires "getting in their way" so to speak. Also, in order to prevent the problem of arcing between wires, all lines on one side of the road provided power in one direction, whilst those on the other side brought it in the opposite direction and the concrete and wide space between them prevented an electrical field from forming.
At first, religious conversion seemed to happen quickly. The priests soon discovered that most of the natives had simply adopted "the conquering gods," as the Roman pantheon called them, as another of their many gods. Although they often considered Jupiter, Juno, Minerva or Mars to be important deities because they were the gods of the victorious conquerors, they did not see the need to abandon their old beliefs, which was allowed but certain restrictions were applied that included human sacrifices, which that only occurred in times of dire need: the most recent known example was during the Second Punic War after the Roman defeat at Cannae.
Although the Elysian colonization of Mexico after the war was little more than the subjugation of the natives, with the establishment of small settlements, all other military conquests involved the gradual founding of a Elysean city in each new conquered region and the almost total enslavement of the tribal populations. All with the thought of a blank canvas, thus expanding the current borders over their conquered territories. To the south, their approach was especially harsh, with entire areas completely enslaved and merciless against any settlement revealing heinous acts such as cannibalism.
The 14th Century became the Century of the Galleon, the ship itself had already become almost symbolic of the Empire's naval power, in both foreign and domestic circles. More than 90% of trade was done with Ampluvis (Carracks) or Armatura (Galleon); all public transport was done with Amplavi and the entire Classis had about 125 Armaturas in its arsenal, through the Varrus Naval Reforms between 1420 and 1430 AD. These were only added to the Navy, and so other ship designs remained in use, though to a slightly less significant degree. Furthermore, in 1440, Varrus commissioned the construction of the Imperial Flagship, the Elysium Invictus, a gargantuan 150 m length (length) and 50 m beam (width) ship with four decks and a total of 140 guns with 35 in every deck.
Another novel reform was the System of Ministries that was perhaps one of his most significant simplifications of government affairs. Varro created a set of transparliamentary bodies that administer government functions on behalf of Caesar. Almost all ministries are headed by a praeministrum appointed by the emperor apart from various numbers of minor officials and magistrates who would work for the ministers to perform their assigned administrative functions.
Several of the other Ministries founded included: Ministry of Electricity, for the maintenance of standards on electrical equipment and subsequent transportation of electricity; Ministries of Higher and Lower Education, leading organizations of the new educational system, divided into Higher (Universalis | OTL: University) and Lower (Grammaticus | OTL: High Schools) and Ministry of Technology, government advisory council on recent technology and possible implications for the Empire.
The two aforementioned ministries of education were created as part of the Emperor's Educational Reform. The problem that was solved here was that the Empire did not have a formal public education system and, in fact, almost all children who lived outside the cities did not receive any education, except what they learned from their family or private individuals. Furthermore, even many people in the city could not afford education for themselves or their children, and many of the trades and knowledge that people acquired were obtained through apprenticeship methods or again from their families. In total, only about 25% of the population could attest to having attended a school of any kind.
For this reason, the Emperor financed the construction of 28 Grammatici in Augusta Elysium, facilities that provided education from 3 to 16 years old. All costs of these schools, once completed, were borne by the government, allowing anyone with Imperial citizenship to send their children there for free. The same year, he held a dinner with some of the directors of various academies throughout the Empire and managed to convince many of them to go into the business of creating their own private Grammatici, thus helping to expand the private educational system. Then, over the course of the next 20 years, Varro worked to create thousands of public schools in every major city, and many smaller towns, throughout the Empire. Though he was never able to take the time to visit all of them due to the extent of his empire.
The Universalis were another of the marked features of the reforms. Before him, facilities known as Academies, such as the Academy of Architecture and the Military Academy, were places of higher education dedicated to the study of a particular subject. Varro had the idea that a single facility could provide joint education for several, even dozens of these subjects, giving its students a kind of universal education. Beginning construction just outside the capital, in an area his predecessor had cleared entirely, Magnus ordered the construction of the Grammaticus Universalis, the first universal school. With the extensive use of slave labor, the main part of the University was completed in five years and the first students began to arrive. The Universalis Augusta houses 8 different academies, each providing a comprehensive education on a particular subject, for example "Philosophy" or "Law and Politics".
The following year, the Emperor and the two ministries of education finished the Nova Doctrina Populare, the New System of Civic Education, formally organizing the independent educational systems into an imperial standard. All schools, both public and private, and of course all academies were forced to follow this new system or be closed down. In short, the new order of things was that the children of the empire were to receive a general education from the ages of 3 to 14, after which their assigned Grammaticus would give them a specialized education in at least 4 subjects, up to a maximum of 10. After two years of this, a Diploma Grammaticum would be given to the child, showing that he had passed all his lower schooling. The child can then go into specialized education for whatever they are going to do later in life.
His patronage for his education did not stop at building schools and reforms, he was also a well-known patron of scientists working at various points, even paying for it from his family's private treasury. Surprisingly, not only did all these expenses not put the state in debt, but his reorganization of the Empire actually resulted in a net profit at the end of his rule.
One of his favorite scientists to patronize was the now famous Decimus Falso Volta, a scientist who worked at the Electrical Academy of Cheienne. To the surprise and great delight of the scientific community, Volta came out with his two Magna Opi, first his Theory of Electricity Generation by Magnetic Induction and then his Theory of Electromagnetism in November of that same year. These two detailed diaries finally provided an acceptable and verifiable explanation of the action of the newly invented motors and generators. Furthermore, Volta reasoned, generators weren't very useful at producing direct current, the kind used by batteries, and instead provided much better power by making alternating current. In his tests with one of the three DC generators running on the academia, and other tests with a makeshift AC generator, found that there was less power loss over distances with AC, and that it also had many more applications than the older DC.
Volta was also quite erudite, and soon after released his Tabula Typica de Elementarum, an educational table that organized the elements known at the time into rows and columns. Started out purely out of interest, Volta gradually realized that he was onto something and within a year he applied for a grant to further investigate what he was in the process of discovering. Though this violated the Academy's "ONE grant per person" policy, the Emperor personally intervened, allowing Volta to finish the table for him. Not only did this periodic table classify all elements into groups with similar properties and periods that followed each group once, it also left holes in his table where he predicted later undiscovered elements would fit. Furthermore, he disproved the nature of water and limestone as distinct elements, and later, he showed that air was composed of at least three different substances, one for breathing, one for plants, and one that did neither. but that somehow made up more than half of its composition.
Regardless, with the theories of electromagnetism established, Volta set out to build the first alternating current generator. Although it took him another three years after developing his theories, he finally built the first prototype of him. The device doubled the power output of DC generators that were in use before, completely eliminating any potential competition from the water.
Since Volta managed to patent his new invention of the AC Generator, he was now on his way to a life of great fortunes, since until his death he had exclusive rights to the use of the technology. However, in a somewhat paranoid move, he forbade allowing other scientists to use the device in research, giving himself the exclusive right to advance the technology, and if someone else did, he had to relinquish the rights. This reflected his astute business style, something many have criticized him for. The problem here was that although he had the generator and the theory, large-scale application was impossible with the device he had.
After another three years of work, Volta created the first waterwheel AC generator on the river that runs past his village. Using the electrical power that he was generating from the waterwheel, Volta turned on a large ceiling fan in the main hall of his villa that cooled the room noticeably on hot days. That same year, Volta was declared by Varro to be president of the newly created Societas Imperialis de Scientiae (Imperial Society of Sciences), an organization founded by Volta's bequest that administered and discussed all scientific matters in the Empire.
The SIS was controlled by the Concilium Scientium, a board of the Imperium's most respected scientists, who were selected for their position by the current board members each day of Saturnalia. Usually, people applied for the position and members accepted or put them on hold, but on rare occasions the Society itself sucked out potential candidates. The supplier (President) was, of course, selected by the imperial government, usually the Emperor or the Minister of Technology and then, if he was accepted by the board, kept the position. Any other scientist could attend S.I.S meetings, reserving a place at any of its meetings, although, as usual, the board could decline a reservation. In any case, the entire goal of the Imperial Society was to stimulate scientific discussion and keep the Empire on the right path to advancement, much like the OTL The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.
Volta was now the most influential member of the Elysium scientific community, both in rank and in terms of respect. Using his many contacts, he was able to convince four Senators to have one of his Waterwheel Generators built on their Villa properties, for a very high price of course. One of the biggest things which Volta had going for him was the cost of electricity at the time. Only huge guilds could afford it as batteries had been the only source. As a single generator was projected to be able to provide power for decades, Volta could put practically any price he desired on his product, which he did. Each of the units he sold, not including the waterwheel and wiring, cost around 90,000 Dn, or ten times more than most Elyseans citizens made in a year.
Over the next 12 years, Volta had another 100 generators built at the villas of more of his friends in the Senate and he had been using many of the funds he was gaining in this to further his research into electricity. For instance he developed a small electrical device which he theorized would be able to act as a kind of "gate" for the electricity. Consisting of two metal plates with a removable insulator between them, the device shocked Volta when he found out its actual use. Instead of stopping and releasing the electricity when the insulator was removed, it allowed the current to pass unhindered. Confused, he tried it with DC current instead, and whilst this did stop the current, it did not act as a gate as he expected. Over the next two years he discovered that the Condensatrum (Capacitor) responded to what he termed "electrical potential" differences, and could be made to store and later release a charge depending on these factors, acting kind of like a battery.
Inventions like the capacitor though were only a distraction, albeit a persistent one, from his primary work on the generator. By 1470 AD the technology had been greatly improved, and in the next year he had a deal with the resort town of Argen (OTL: Aspen) to build his largest generator yet to heat some of the Thermae (Public Baths) which were so popular there. This time he tried out a Windmill design for his generator, something which required far larger magnets than he would have liked, bringing the generator cost up to about 30,000 Dn. That same year, at the insistence of a close friend in the Imperial Society, Volta created his own guild, Eletrika Generalis so that his family could continue to reap the benefits of his inventions even after he had died. Ironically, it was because of this action that his family would ultimately lose access to a lot of that money. However, the guild did allow him to pay his own people to build the devices and the wheels or mills for him, so it did have its advantages at the time.
GE built 14 Waterwheel generators near Civis Cheienne providing almost 30,000 W of power to the the city. The next year 3 were built to supplement the Windmill in Argen and then in one of the largest deals of his career, the Praetor of Dina commissioned for 30 generators to be built outside Civis Dine in 1472. In general, the power provided by the generators was used by printing houses, electroplating industries and the all popular public bathing houses. The problem at the time though was that a lot of power was still being lost in bringing the electricity from the generators up to the cities. Even with large amounts of electrical insulation, energy was being lost as heat in the wire and nothing it seemed could be done to stop this.
Further construction projects stopped for the next two years whilst Volta worked on solving the problem. Right off the bat, he reasoned that the heating originated from the "movement of electrical fluid" in the wires and that since he had earlier discovered that the power generated was a product of the electrical current and the electrical potential, all he needed to do was lower the current whilst simultaneously increasing the voltage. Although the solution eluded him for all of 1474, mid-way through the next year he realized that it might lie in the number of wire loops used in the generators. After trying several combinations of wire in different places, he finally tried to loop wires around a metal ring and then pass the current onto a more looped wire on the opposite end. He realized that this was perfectly in line with his theory of electromagnetic induction. Volta had invented the first transformer.
Almost immediately Volta offered a "deal" on these new transformers, promising that they will significantly improve the amount of power that they'll have access to. Although the Governor in particular was skeptical of the scientist's intentions, everyone agreed that the pay-off was worth it and so the devices were installed at every power generator over the course of the next year. The next year GE built their second windmill generator, along with 6 waterwheel generators, this time north of the city of Colonia Canina Apache. Over the course of the next 5 years, Volta became the third richest man in the Empire, after the emperor and the head of the Printing House Guild. More than 900 waterwheel generators and 40 windmill generators were built for the most important cities of the Empire, providing huge boons to the local economies.
Unfortunately, Volta was researching a new gas which he had discovered along with "empowering airs" when splitting water with electricity, a substance which he dubbed for the time being Aquas Materias Vegetas, what later scientists call "Protium". Anyway, he had a very large glass container filled with the gas which was accidentally knocked over by a slave of his bringing him some water to drink. The resulting explosion knocked him off his feet and gave him serious injuries, but worst of all, set his villa on fire. In only moments the burning building collapsed around him and he died in the rubble.
As was stated in his will, his body was buried in the Academia Imperia Scientiae which was completed by Volta's own request, and served not only as the seat of the Societas Imperialis de Scientiae but also as a Universalis dedicated to the natural sciences. It was decided that he was to be buried in the main courtyard and a statue was to be built on top to honor his achievements. Known as the Throne of Volta, the statue shows the man himself seated on a marble and silver throne and holding a clear glass ball in his right hand to represent clarity gained through science.
This was not to say that all was well and good following his death, as the government of Elysium was able to influence matters so that they "inherited" the entirety of Volta's estate, in particular the guild he had founded. His four children were given only about 20% of his wealth (every children receive a 5%), which despite making up more than 120 million Denarii, was nothing compared to the wealth being generated, so to speak, by his company. Through the deals he had made with his customers, 30% of the money received from selling the electricity had to come back to General Electric. The government now had full use of his patents, and therefore his inventions and was already preparing itself to expand this new industry even before Volta's body had made it into the ground.
The next emperor was especially delighted by what the government was now capable of and ensured that within only a year the now government owned General Electric was building its generators again, with a new stipulation that the newly created Ministry of Energy had full management duties over all GE power generators and that 50% of all income garnered by them went to the Imperial Government. From that point up until the end of next Emperor' reign, more than 600 waterwheel generators and 900 windmill generators were constructed and power was now being provided to over 80 cities.
The two Ministries within the jurisdiction of electrical generation were also working on the issue of long-distance power generation in order to bring the generators away from urban areas. Years later it was decided that wires were allowed to only extend along a roadway, and that when doing so must run through the small concrete walls on the edges of the roads. Though this necessitated rebuilding these walls to be open-able, it was agreed that it was the best option to not only maintain the security of the power grid, but to also stay to the interests of conservative who would have objected to great big wires "getting in their way" so to speak. Also, in order to prevent the problem of arcing between wires, all lines on one side of the road provided power in one direction, whilst those on the other side brought it in the opposite direction and the concrete and wide space between them prevented an electrical field from forming.
Tesla and Eddison for be exact.
Although I am currently looking for someone who is willing to help me make maps for the following chapters. The benefits it will bring will be leaks apart from my friendship. I do not ask for a brutal mapper, but someone who at least knows how to do a job with something superior to photoshop. For talk, go to the discord in my signature.
Whoever volunteers will make Daddy Antoninus happy.
That just furthers my point. Elysium would be enough of a space-filling empire with just North America, much less both of the Americas. I really don’t want them to reconquer Europe. Especially since at this point nobody in Europe speaks Latin. Except, ironically, the church that usurped the place of traditional Roman paganism.
We don't even know if Elysium WANTS to reconquer Europe. In all this time they haven't even thought about it. I don't think they suddenly feel the urgency. And neither can it be said that they have simply forgotten that Europe is there, which was something that could be argued in the opposite case. (Europe did not know that America was there).
Once they start exploring, they'll most likely find Australia a lot earlier than the Europeans did as well.
In reality... they speaks Latin. Its a International lenguage like now the English.
I do like how we went from a civil war last update to revolutions in electricity this update.
Chapter 39 Caesar Aulus Claudius Magnus 2226 AUC / 1473 AD - 2241 AUC / 1488 AD
The electricity generated by the Irrigagger was however put to very good use in Factiara. The first factiarum was built less than one km from the Dam and was designed to cast metallic pieces for wheels at a rate of about two every second. As the entire process was powered by electricity, there was only a slight need for human involvement to oversee the process and fix any minor mistakes made by the machines. It was an extremely simple process however and mistakes in this factiarum were very rare. Over the next two years, nine more factiara were built around the Irrigagger, building things like Armors, Gladius, Muskets, Building components.
The repercussions of the Industrial Revolution are enormous. Engineers were now focusing on building innovative new machines that made use of electrical energy to more easily perform a task. A large machine, not unlike a Spinning Jenny was created that automatically wove large cloths for bedding and the like. Others built things purely catered to the rich. The patriarch of the Valerian family for instance now had a front door that could be allowed to open whenever someone stepped on a mat on either side. Other Patricians and Equestrians had things like electric heaters for keeping their houses warm in the Winter and large fans to keep them cool in the Summer. In fact, when Gaius Metellus Corvus was elected Senatus he promised to the people of Faunina that every home by the end of his reign would have access to enough electricity to keep out the cold. Amazingly, he was able to have more than 50 Windmill generators and 80 waterwheel generators built to serve the cities of his provinces, thereby supplying power to over three-quarters of the population.
In 1480 an interesting new innovation was developed. Lucius Claudius Horus asked some Doctores Electrikae (Electrical Engineers) to install wiring directly into the walls of his house, and give him access to this electricity at will through a small emplacement sticking out of the wall. Normally, any electrical equipment had to be specially installed in each house, but this new convenience that Horus had come up with would allow someone to have the wiring installed, and then bring in any other devices later. This "contact piece" (Contactrum) became all the rage among the aristocracy, many of whom had their electrical plus coming out of some fancy piece of furniture in their homes to proudly display them to guests.
The only requirement for a contactrum was that it need three holes. An input, an output and a grounding wire for safety (required by law). The actual arrangement of these holes varied widely, making it impossible to create standardized power plugs, but that was all part of the fun for the rich as customization seemed to be the big thing when it came to electricity. Virtually no poor houses had access to electricity, the only time the Plebs could ever see any electrical devices were in public places or at work where they were used.
One of the novelties within the army was the beginning of the Bellum Exercitiis. Magnus seeing the state of the Legions, decided to teach a series of exercises aimed at improving the command, logistics and tactical capabilities of the Empire's units. The most famous exercises are:
- Imperatoria Defensio: The Exercise is one of the largest and takes place in the vicinity of Augusta Elysium. The objective of the exercise is to defend a series of lines in a fictional invasion of Augusta Elysium. Imperatoria Defensio's focus is learning about possible defensive weaknesses in Augusta Elysium.
- Obsidium (Siege): Obsidium is a military exercise conducted to explore defensive and offensive warfare. The stated goal was military training to break through the heavily fortified defensive lines of a military opponent.
- Excipio (Capture): Excipio was an exercise carried out with the aim of capturing a person or a group of people. Normally, this exercise could be combined with Obsidium.
This trend led a series of students from the Bellica Academy in Lenape to create a strategy game called Ludi Bellum with the aim of realistically representing war. the pieces represented real military units (cavalry, infantry, artillery, etc.) and the squares were color coded to represent different types of terrain (rivers, urban, plain, forest, swamp, etc), to alternate the boards it was allowed that each board was removable and mountable in a total of 100 grids. The pieces were forced to move across a chess-style grid: only a single piece could occupy a square (even if that square represented, say, a square mile), and the pieces had to move square by square. This, of course, did not represent how royal troops maneuvered in the field.
Years later, a Patrician and wargame enthusiast named Quintus Fabius Barbatus set out to develop a more realistic wargame in which units could move freely over more natural terrain. Barbatus first experimented with a table covered with a layer of wet sand. He sculpted the arena into a three-dimensional model battlefield, with hills and valleys and even added rivers with water in some. He used blocks with representations of troop formations whether it be infantry, cavalry, artillery or other. Several Legion officers heard about the project and called for a demonstration. He showed it to them and they enthusiastically recommended the game to the Emperor.
Barbatus did not want to present the Emperor with a table of wet sand, so he set about building a more impressive device. Two years later, he presented the Emperor with a wooden folding table. The table drawers stored all the materials to play. The cabinet came with a folding board which, when unfolded and placed on top of the cabinet, provided a playing surface approximately two meters in size. Instead of sculptured sand, the battlefield was made of ceramic tiles, on which the terrain features were depicted in painted bas-reliefs. The tiles were modular and could be placed on the tabletop to create a custom battlefield for every occasion. Troop formations were represented by small blocks of wood. Blocks could be moved around the battlefield freely; Dividers and rulers were used to regulate movement.
The Imperial family loved the game and played it frequently. However, it was not adopted by army instructors or sold commercially due to its small size. But more importantly, his system was not complete and required some improvisation on the part of the players. For example, the rules for resolving shooting and melee effects weren't fully worked out. The development of the wargame was continued by his son and Centurion of the Legion.
He took over the development of the war game from his father after his father lost interest in it. He developed the game with the help of a circle of young officers. In earlier wargames, units were like chess pieces in that when attacked they were simply killed and removed from the game, even if the pieces represented groups of soldiers. Conversely, units of that version could take partial losses and still remain on the battlefield. A unit can withstand several rounds of enemy attacks before finally collapsing. The game was therefore the first to incorporate unit hitpoints. He also modeled variable damage: the casualties inflicted by an attacker on his enemy were determined using dice.
The Son of Barbatus game was designed to be played on topographical maps. The Elysian army had only recently begun to use these types of maps, which were the product of new advances in cartography and printing. The use of topographic maps allowed for a more natural terrain and the game of battles in real places, reaching the point of being able to make recreations of cities.
However, the big innovation was the introduction of a referee. Players did not directly control troop blocks on the game map. Rather, they wrote down their orders for their troops and gave them to the referee. The arbiter would then move the blocks across the game map according to how he judged the imaginary troops would interpret and carry out the players' orders. When the troops engaged the enemy on the map, it was the arbiter who rolled the dice, calculated the effects, and removed the dead units from the map. The game could also simulate the so-called fog of war, where the arbiter would place blocks on the map only for troops that were in visual range of both sides. The arbiter kept track of where hidden troops were and only deployed blocks for them when they were in sight of the enemy. The referee also refereed situations not explicitly covered by the rules, plugging any loopholes in the previous system. Naturally, this required the referee to be an impartial and experienced official.
In the early 1480s, Barbatus's son was invited to present his wargame to the Emperor and his superior officers at the Imperial Palace. They were impressed and officially endorsed his game as a training tool for the officer corps. The Commander of the Praetorian Guard, declared: "This is not an ordinary type of game, it is an education for war. I must recommend it and I will strongly recommend it to the army." The Emperor ordered that each regiment receive a set of this new game which was called Strategus, after the Generals in command of the armies of Ancient Greece. Barbatus's son established a workshop whereby he could mass produce and distribute it. He sold the game material in a box at a price of 30 Denarii. This was thus the first wargame widely adopted by an army as a serious tool for training and research.
On the other hand, a group of engineers wanted to build an improvement on the usual material transport system where wagons (or trams) using wooden rails, pulled by horses, were used to facilitate the transport of barrels of ore to and from the mines. . With the introduction of mass steel, the wooden rails were replaced by steel. The transportation method known as Ferriviaria was a horse train or passenger tramway between Augusta Elysium and Mons Reial with a stop at Castellum Martiana on a 240 kilometer journey. The Ferriviaria Imperialis stood out for a series of wagons that included a sleeper train for those night journeys.
This would lay the foundation for the Elysium rail system. For this reason, the aforementioned Engineers designed a system that dispensed with the horses that were necessary for a total of eight. The result was a Railway Electrification System: A system that supplies electrical energy to trains and trams thanks to a network of electrical cables suspended above the tracks that is used to transmit electrical energy to the electric motors of the trains. Which use a high electrical potential by connecting to feeder stations at regular intervals.
In metropolitan areas, the use of streetcars became popular for rapid connection, even leading to the formation of private companies with the aim of coordinating operations and projecting expansion. This on the other hand came with the creation of the Locomotives using steam engines that were created for the use of long distances, reaching the point of starting the creation of the Ferriviaria Transcontinens: A continuous railway line that would take years to create but gave thousands of jobs while emphasizing trade and transportation of material and people, even sending Legions to the Oxaca Province in a matter of days.
Years later, a Patrician and wargame enthusiast named Quintus Fabius Barbatus set out to develop a more realistic wargame in which units could move freely over more natural terrain. Barbatus first experimented with a table covered with a layer of wet sand. He sculpted the arena into a three-dimensional model battlefield, with hills and valleys and even added rivers with water in some. He used blocks with representations of troop formations whether it be infantry, cavalry, artillery or other. Several Legion officers heard about the project and called for a demonstration. He showed it to them and they enthusiastically recommended the game to the Emperor.
Barbatus did not want to present the Emperor with a table of wet sand, so he set about building a more impressive device. Two years later, he presented the Emperor with a wooden folding table. The table drawers stored all the materials to play. The cabinet came with a folding board which, when unfolded and placed on top of the cabinet, provided a playing surface approximately two meters in size. Instead of sculptured sand, the battlefield was made of ceramic tiles, on which the terrain features were depicted in painted bas-reliefs. The tiles were modular and could be placed on the tabletop to create a custom battlefield for every occasion. Troop formations were represented by small blocks of wood. Blocks could be moved around the battlefield freely; Dividers and rulers were used to regulate movement.
The Imperial family loved the game and played it frequently. However, it was not adopted by army instructors or sold commercially due to its small size. But more importantly, his system was not complete and required some improvisation on the part of the players. For example, the rules for resolving shooting and melee effects weren't fully worked out. The development of the wargame was continued by his son and Centurion of the Legion.
He took over the development of the war game from his father after his father lost interest in it. He developed the game with the help of a circle of young officers. In earlier wargames, units were like chess pieces in that when attacked they were simply killed and removed from the game, even if the pieces represented groups of soldiers. Conversely, units of that version could take partial losses and still remain on the battlefield. A unit can withstand several rounds of enemy attacks before finally collapsing. The game was therefore the first to incorporate unit hitpoints. He also modeled variable damage: the casualties inflicted by an attacker on his enemy were determined using dice.
The Son of Barbatus game was designed to be played on topographical maps. The Elysian army had only recently begun to use these types of maps, which were the product of new advances in cartography and printing. The use of topographic maps allowed for a more natural terrain and the game of battles in real places, reaching the point of being able to make recreations of cities.
In the early 1480s, Barbatus's son was invited to present his wargame to the Emperor and his superior officers at the Imperial Palace. They were impressed and officially endorsed his game as a training tool for the officer corps. The Commander of the Praetorian Guard, declared: "This is not an ordinary type of game, it is an education for war. I must recommend it and I will strongly recommend it to the army." The Emperor ordered that each regiment receive a set of this new game which was called Strategus, after the Generals in command of the armies of Ancient Greece. Barbatus's son established a workshop whereby he could mass produce and distribute it. He sold the game material in a box at a price of 30 Denarii. This was thus the first wargame widely adopted by an army as a serious tool for training and research.
This would lay the foundation for the Elysium rail system. For this reason, the aforementioned Engineers designed a system that dispensed with the horses that were necessary for a total of eight. The result was a Railway Electrification System: A system that supplies electrical energy to trains and trams thanks to a network of electrical cables suspended above the tracks that is used to transmit electrical energy to the electric motors of the trains. Which use a high electrical potential by connecting to feeder stations at regular intervals.
Columbus: I claim this land in the name of God and Spain!
Elysians: W h a t
Columbus: W h a t
Elysians: W h a t
Columbus: W h a t
Ships appear...
A patrol from the Classis of Galleons stops them...
Colombus discovers that the "Indians" have more firepower than all of Europe and Asia put together.
Oh... Shit.
