Alternate technologies

AstroRangerBeans

AstroRangerBeans

List:
  1. Virtual holodeck: based on Star Trek but it is actually an open-world virtual simulation through immersive reality which involves projecting energy that creates solid objects in achieving the creation of an actual 3D simulation of a real or imaginary or fictitious setting
  2. Cloaking or conceal device: using new technologies and successful research experiments in using the new technology to hide or make a person or any object invisible to others which rendered undetected even when it comes to encountering an opponent during such wars or dangerous objects.
  3. Chronovision: A machining device invented by an Italian priest, named Father Pellegrini Maria Ernetti in 1950 which could be used to let users see the past or important events within the chronology or a span of history but unfortunately, neither could be the truth or not as it was found hidden within the vault of the Vatican.
  4. Ogle's carburetor: An efficiency tracking device that was made in 1977 came close to reality but the inventor has mysteriously died of unknown circumstances
  5. Ekranoplan: Highly efficient and fast in terms of speed but it could be flown on both the ground and around the water and it was the fact it is considered a ground-effect vehicle propelled by the air in fact, these ekranoplanes are operated on the water which led to accidents and engine failures less hazardous but in fact the lack of attitude control which means collision with other objects are likely risky while operating on that failed technology. Take-off in high winds or strong winds must be into the wind where the craft could take time in traversing the successive lines of waves that led to heavy pounding which puts the craft under stress and has sometimes made the ride uncomfortable.
  6. Nuclear-powered automobiles and aircraft: Both cars and aircraft have their power being harnessed and propelled by the usage of existing nuclear energy which can produce a jet engine that could heat the compressed air with the heat from fission, instead of heating from fuel while those cars that could have a small nuclear reactor which the nuclear-powered cars could use a spark-initiated internal combustion engine with fission instead of burning cars using the combustion engine where it is propelled by a fossil-based fuel if it is possible to be used as an alternative to gas-based cars.
 

Lucas

How about the New York Central M-497 Black Beetle Jet-Power train? from 66. I always think that instead of they built just as one single railcar, use a original Budd RDC, the idea could have been instead of a proper trainset if Jet-Powers, articulated cars and bidirectional cabs. I know that USSR built a similar thing in late 60s too. Could Jet-Power trains be a "viable" thing.

nyc-m-497-tow.jpg
 

Lucas

On non-transport stuff, i think that Arcologies-like buildings could be a thing for heavy-densely populated areas, if housing a large number of people in little space and better use of land. Maybe this is more as "Futuristic" stuff we could see in next decades...

128499440930042500.jpg
 

Arkenfolm

Lucas said:
On non-transport stuff, i think that Arcologies-like buildings could be a thing for heavy-densely populated areas, if housing a large number of people in little space and better use of land. Maybe this is more as "Futuristic" stuff we could see in next decades...

128499440930042500.jpg
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Given the small town of Whittier, Alaska is already an arcology (as all homes and facilities in the town are in one building) and the usual nonsense regarding zoning laws in many areas which would ban arcologies, I wouldn't be surprised if the most common use would be in isolated areas like remote mining towns. Just throw up some cheap high-rise, put the homes, company store, and government/local corporate office in there, and call it a day.
 

Horton229

Canuck Wingnut said:
Capsule pipelines- the WW2 proposal to supplement PLUTO with a pipeline capable of transporting infantry in capsules was clearly underbaked; but the concept of transporting small yet durable goods from rail stations to their destinations is a potential solution to some of rail's last mile delivery problem which allows for denser urban environments compared to using motor vehicles for those tasks. A city with an underground, unmanned "subway" moving its freight could look substantially different to OTL!

It's worth noting that mining industries in the Soviet Union (the LILO-1 and 2 projects) and Japan (Sumimoto Metal Industries) have used large-scale capsule pipelines successfully for transporting ores- this isn't so much an alternate technology as a radically alternate use of a technology.
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The Post Office used an unmanned railway for many decades in London: London Post Office Railway.
When I think about sci-fi writing, I invariably envision (perhaps somewhat utopian) cities being designed with all infrastructure (transport, power, waste etc.) in tunnels as part of the 'commissioning' of a city - the earth etc. excavated being used as construction material for the tunnels, and landscaping.
 

Horton229

Lucas said:
On non-transport stuff, i think that Arcologies-like buildings could be a thing for heavy-densely populated areas, if housing a large number of people in little space and better use of land. Maybe this is more as "Futuristic" stuff we could see in next decades...

128499440930042500.jpg
Click to expand...
Given the changing nature of work, large multi-purpose buildings which include living & office space, retail and even schools and medical facilities might replace pure office buildings. People would largely wfh, with 'occasional' face-to-face meetings.
You might even stretch it to farming, with hydroponics and artificial lighting to grow round the clock for the ultimate in local product. Probably limited to fruit & vegetables!
 

Canuck Wingnut

Horton229 said:
When I think about sci-fi writing, I invariably envision (perhaps somewhat utopian) cities being designed with all infrastructure (transport, power, waste etc.) in tunnels as part of the 'commissioning' of a city - the earth etc. excavated being used as construction material for the tunnels, and landscaping.
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I also like infrastructure being unexpectedly being placed up into the air: aerial ropeways for urban transport purposes being the obvious alternate technology that's been adopted on a small scale several times (in NYC or Haifa, for instance) but never as a major part of a city's public transit (to my knowledge). The Kibera aerial water pipe system also seems oddly futuristic to me, in a cyberpunk sort of way.
 

DocBen

Banned
I've been thinking about creating a medieval society science fiction kind of environment. In the book "The Road Not Taken", it proposes the idea that alternate technologies may come at different paces. Meaning that being advanced in one technology does not necessarily imply advancement in another technology. In this book it is written about an alien society called the Roxolani who being a medieval society, invented the anti gravity and FTL travel. Apparently anti gravity and FTL are not so difficult technologies, just the modern western civilization casually missed that invention, and went down an entirely different path of development.


I want to create an advanced society, which is not a "StarTrek" type of society, not a technocratic, computerized, industrialized society. A society which has more of like "medieval Asian" aesthetics, but has certain advanced knowledge that a technocratic civilization does not have, such as the anti gravity and FTL travel, as is depicted in the book "The Road Not Taken". A civilization which is more like the Fire Nation from "Avatar the Last Airbender". Or perhaps like "Lord of the Rings".

This civilization would have a traditional, theocratic, monarchist, ornate architecture, predominantly rural look and feel to it. They would have vimanas, which are boat shaped flying vehicles propelled by anti gravity generators, just literally wooden boats, except enclosed on all sides instead of just the bottom, and covered with copper, with a steampunk aesthetic.

Another inspiration is the Chudinov-verse.

www.deviantart.com

Step aside, turboslavs! Chudinov is coming... by Vanga-Vangog on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com www.deviantart.com

In terms of technology it is a weird mix of archaic and futuristic - books are made of metal, the ground military has no vehicles and consists of infantry, archery and cavalry (although sometimes instead of horses they use dinosaurs... seriously) while at the same time there are airplanes, UFO-like bombers and even spaceships.
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In addition to these "Roxolani" inventions they would have certain specialized "clockwork" steampunk machines, the ability to melt granite and reshape it to whatever form in order to use granite as their main building material for more advanced building techniques, and also their priest/wizard class would have certain "magical" abilities (actually ESP abilities such as hypnosis, astral projection, limited telekinesis), and some other limited esoteric knowledges.

Besides these foreign to the modern western society innovations, this civilization is basically stuck at a Medieval or Renaissance level. In spite of that however, by virtue of their weird innovations, but also their tenacity, they have been able to find other Earthlike habitable planets and establish colonies and breakaway civilizations there.

They would be descended from medieval Asian civilizations such as Indian, Chinese, Russian, Turkic, Iranian, or Thai. I really like the aesthetic of the Mahakhitan civilization. I think that they would be a good candidate for the invention (or re-discovery) or anti gravity vimanas, which would allow them to pretty much dominate the whole entire world, and eventually travel to other planets in a couple hundred years.

Mahakhitan: A Chinese Buddhist Civilization in India

Mahakhitan: A Sinicized Buddhist Civilization in India Image drawn by Chuye Kara This is a timeline about a the OTL Khanate of Qara Khitai, or Western Liao expanding south to Central Asia and Indian Subcontinent, with the focus on the arts, architecture and culture in the fusion of cultures...
www.alternatehistory.com

Eventually you get a "magical" technological space fantasy kind of civilization, with a much lesser ecological footprint for obvious reasons, which has colonies on multiple planets, and Asian "knights" fighting against "monsters" (alien animals) on those planets. Don't say that it's implausible, because according to Turtledove, the modern western atheistic technocratic (for lack of a better single all-encompassing word) civilization, is only one possible path of development, and probably not the canonical one either.
 

Sokolov

DocBen said:
In addition to these "Roxolani" inventions they would have certain specialized "clockwork" steampunk machines, the ability to melt granite and reshape it to whatever form in order to use granite as their main building material for more advanced building techniques, and also their priest/wizard class would have certain "magical" abilities (actually ESP abilities such as hypnosis, astral projection, limited telekinesis), and some other limited esoteric knowledges.

Besides these foreign to the modern western society innovations, this civilization is basically stuck at a Medieval or Renaissance level. In spite of that however, by virtue of their weird innovations, but also their tenacity, they have been able to find other Earthlike habitable planets and establish colonies and breakaway civilizations there.
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This sound similar to the theory that humanity had a crossroads in technological development between physical and spiritual ideas. So for instance instead of developing industry and physics we could have diverged into spirits and magic, that's why all this spiritual stuff like ghosts seems to exist, but is perceived to be fake because we are not advanced enough in those fields to understand it. Perhaps the Indian subcontinent, which was historically more advanced than Europe, managed to do the equivalent technology of industrialising for spirituality and spread out into Europe. Physical technology would still exist but would be far behind or different to OTL. I don't mean to write your story for you, it just seems interesting.
 
marathag

marathag

Banned
Lucas said:
How about the New York Central M-497 Black Beetle Jet-Power train? from 66. I always think that instead of they built just as one single railcar, use a original Budd RDC, the idea could have been instead of a proper trainset if Jet-Powers, articulated cars and bidirectional cabs. I know that USSR built a similar thing in late 60s too. Could Jet-Power trains be a "viable" thing.

nyc-m-497-tow.jpg
Click to expand...
Similar, but how UP big 8500hp gas Turbine locomotives got doomed from the cost increase in heavy Bunker Fuel
220px-Alco-GE_Union_Pacific_Gas_turbine_locomotive_diagram.JPG
 

M79

Carl Schwamberger said:
Mega lift transport rockets. Back in the 1960s the USMC did a design study on a ballistic transport large enough to carry a reinforced infantry battalion on a single vehicle. The study advanced to the point where it was determined that current technology would suffice. In the end the USN/Marines did not find a strategic or operational need strong enough to justify the up front costs.
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Nova MM S10E-2

Nova MM S10E-2

Nova MM S10E-2
www.astronautix.com www.astronautix.com
 

M79

Horton229 said:
The Post Office used an unmanned railway for many decades in London: London Post Office Railway.
When I think about sci-fi writing, I invariably envision (perhaps somewhat utopian) cities being designed with all infrastructure (transport, power, waste etc.) in tunnels as part of the 'commissioning' of a city - the earth etc. excavated being used as construction material for the tunnels, and landscaping.
Click to expand...
How about an overgrown modular model railroad capable of carrying passengers?

Narrow gauge railway at Camp A. A. Humphreys - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org

Narrow gauge railway at Camp A. A. Humphreys - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 

DocBen

Banned
Sokolov said:
This sound similar to the theory that humanity had a crossroads in technological development between physical and spiritual ideas. So for instance instead of developing industry and physics we could have diverged into spirits and magic, that's why all this spiritual stuff like ghosts seems to exist, but is perceived to be fake because we are not advanced enough in those fields to understand it. Perhaps the Indian subcontinent, which was historically more advanced than Europe, managed to do the equivalent technology of industrialising for spirituality and spread out into Europe. Physical technology would still exist but would be far behind or different to OTL. I don't mean to write your story for you, it just seems interesting.
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Yes, that sounds about right. The Australian Aboriginals have a very advanced spiritual abilities. For example, shamanism and out of body travels. They have even mapped out the whole astral plane, which they call "the Dreamtime", within which they can speak with the spirits of their deceased ancestors. Similar things can be said about other traditional cultures such as Native Americans, Hindu Indians, and various Chinese esoteric sects. For example, the Chinese have knowledge of the qi and acupuncture, hence their spiritual knowledge found a practical application of medicine. But in ancient times they used spiritual abilities in martial arts too, for example contactless fighting.

Now in modern times, there are communities on Reddit who are studying and discussing astral projection, shared dreaming, paranormal phenomena, and other esoteric topics. They are just not accepted by the mainstream scientific establishment however. Partly as you said, because they are not advanced enough in those fields to understand it, and partly because they do not want such knowledge to break their hegemony, like in the times of Galileo Galilei.

managed to do the equivalent technology of industrialising for spirituality
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This is interesting. Perhaps they can learn how to create "spiritual" technologies, meaning devices which interact with various parts of the person's spirit, and amplify it in various ways for accomplishing various tasks. For example, certain energetic devices which could be used to heal the person from the spirit, and those effects would be in turn manifested onto the physical body, as a ripple effect. Perhaps as an extreme example, would be creation of an "astral internet", which would enable people to send thoughts, feelings, images, and concepts directly to someone else's brain, without the need for specialized hardware, similar to the phenomenon of shared dreaming. It would take a lot of work and practice however, but it would probably be doable if a civilization has advanced far enough on that particular path of development. Such a system could perhaps be used also for inter planetary communication, and true communication with animals.
 
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viewcode

Phage therapy. It's the use of bacteriophages instead of antibiotics to attack bacterial infections. Would have slowed down antibiotic resistance.
 

Ordinary

DocBen said:
Now in modern times, there are communities on Reddit who are studying and discussing astral projection, shared dreaming, paranormal phenomena, and other esoteric topics. They are just not accepted by the mainstream scientific establishment however. Partly as you said, because they are not advanced enough in those fields to understand it, and partly because they do not want such knowledge to break their hegemony, like in the times of Galileo Galilei.
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I've also looked into the idea of spiritual technology and personally believe that humans have a poorly understood spiritual existence. One piece of evidence for this is a Southern French faith healing practice known as coupeur de feu which is accepted by medical professionals in their area as being useful for treating burns and other ailments. Unfortunately, I find that the spiritualistic community is pseudoscientific, relying on unprovable assertions rather than rigorous experimentation.

In the case of astral projection, I notice that most believers are largely uninterested in challenging their beliefs and setting up testable experiments. If a disembodied soul can exert significant force on the material world, then it can place a piece of colored tape on an otherwise inaccessible ceiling. This proof is fairly simple and seems to be highly repeatable. Alternatively, a skeptic could create a series of sealed, opaque containers lit from the inside. These containers each contain a different painting with a simple color pattern. For this test, the astral projector's disembodied soul would enter the active container and memorize the pattern inside. Later, they could communicate to the skeptic what they saw within the container. Both of these experiments are not difficult, yet to my knowledge they have not been completed and results disseminated. This makes me pessimistic about advances in the field of scientific spirituality. This extends to after death exploration and technology.

A major problem with any theory of scientific spirituality is that it has difficulty reconciling observed reality and the existence of detectable ghosts. In essence, for a spiritual theory about the afterlife to be proven, a ghost needs to be able to reliably affect the physical world. However, if all or most ghosts can apply significant forces to objects, then the actions of the dead would have shaped world history. For instance, the combined efforts of millions upon millions of ghosts would have made the holocaust much more difficult by attacking concentration camps and derailing trains. Yet, these horrific crimes continued unabated until the end of WW2. Any attempt to reconcile the existence of ghosts and the afterlife must provide an explanation for why ghosts are so rare. My personal view is that the afterlife is dominated some sort of highly sucessful predator of human souls. That said, until more evidence is gathered my view is nothing more than a hypothesis.
 
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