Steam! But in Greece?

Episode 1
Hero of Alexandria stepped back. Well, he thought, it wasn't the most beutiful of his works, but it could work.[1] He called to a servant: "Some wine, please. Oh, and could I have a bucket of water and some firewood?" The servant hurried off, and returned quarter of an hour later.
"We couldn't find the wine, sir, but the water and the firewood we did find."
"Good. Light a fire under the big dish, pour the water in, and put the lid on. Don't knock the pipes!"
The servant did so, muttering to himself "You can't trust those kitchen workers, give 'em some indoors work in a nice warm room and they get lax. 'We've lost the wine,' indeed."
Hero stepped back. "Come back. The steam will be coming out soon, and you won't want to get burned."
The servant stepped back hurriedly, just as a funny whistling noise came from the globe, and steam started jetting out from the nozzles.The globe went round and round, faster and faster. "Well, sir,it'svery good, but what is it?"
Hero coudn't remember what the contraption was, so he rushed to his desk [2], shuffled through the papers [3], grabbed one, scanned through it and called "It's my aeolipile!" [4]
He then hurried back over, to watch the aeolipile. "Hmm... If it were possible to harness that..."
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[1]: Well, obviously he didn't think exactly that, as he thought it in ancient Greek, and translation errors are bound to come in, not to mention it probably wasn't what he thought, as nobody wrote down what he thought, and even if they did, they probably took liberties. All things considered, it's probably a pretty good estimation.
[2]: Yeah, yeah, he didn't have a desk and all that crap. Come on, people, he probably used a slab of marble or something. Honestly, do I have to "correct" for everything?
[3]: See above, but substitute "desk" for "papers" and "slab of marble" for "wax tablet or piece of parchment".
[4]: Aeolipile
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Basically, this is a thread devoted to an idea I had: "What if Hero of Alexandria didn't think of his steam engine as a toy? What if he thought of it as a potential power source?"
 
Their first thought might have been over the amount of fuel (firewood) it would take to run the engine. The steam pressures would not have been high enough to produce enough work to offset that spend by humans and animals to move the fuel.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
The second is why? What use is a primitive stream machine to ancient Greece, what can it do easier than muscles, animal, wind and water craft, sailing? You need at least a few centuries of improvement in crafting of metal to use it to that.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Their first thought might have been over the amount of fuel (firewood) it would take to run the engine. The steam pressures would not have been high enough to produce enough work to offset that spend by humans and animals to move the fuel.

However animals die and steam only needs fire.
 
The second is why? What use is a primitive stream machine to ancient Greece, what can it do easier than muscles, animal, wind and water craft, sailing? You need at least a few centuries of improvement in crafting of metal to use it to that.

Opening church doors, duh!
 
I wrote a thread like this about the Romans capitalizing on his invention. Everyone complained about the poor metallurgy of the time. However, pistons aren't the only use for a steam engine. The spinning of the engine could turn a crank or gears, running a conveyor, a pump, a well, or temple doors. This might lead to a primitive industrial age, maybe replaceable parts (but for what?) or an assembly line making furniture, but don't expect steam locomotives.

All in all, good idea. Wonder what the Roman conquerors would make of it? Or would Rome suffer?
 
The second is why? What use is a primitive stream machine to ancient Greece, what can it do easier than muscles, animal, wind and water craft, sailing?

One day, somebody needs to do a timeline on Romans with renaissance technology. Can the Roman economy survive the bubble burst after the publicani overinvest in the conquest of Mesopotamia?

What chance does Christianity have, in a world with the printing press?

And, most importantly, the rapid development of the Gallic textile industry.
 
The main problem with the Aeolipile is figuring out a way to check and replenish the water level.

If you can solve the scaling up problems I can see this being used in cranes and elevator type applications.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
In an ATL with an industrialized Roman Empire, you could see Christianity become an analog to Marxism. Christianity, as it is preached by Jesus, unaltered by usage of the Bible for the political convenience of various ruling castes through history has many similarities to Marxism and socialism.

If slaves are used to work the factories and do the manufacturing, the Roman ruling classes may be more hostile to Christianity and less willing to sponsor it, as if their slaves are freed or organized amongst themselves, it makes it harder to manufacture things and run the economy. This will only make it more popular and potentially more radicalized. Maybe as the Roman Empire weakens under barbarian incursion and civil war, instead of adopting Christianity as a state legitimization measure and incorporating it, mobs of organized and angry Christian slaves and workers overthrow the empire, redistributing the latifundia among the slaves, creating parallel administrations in local churches without an overarching Imperial church (analogs to Soviets) under a vanguard sect of church fathers analogous to the Bolsheviks, signing a treaty with the barbarians and Sassanids to cede certain provinces in return for peace, and executing the Emperor and his children outside Rome. Later on, Father Attila, who was purchased as a factory slave for an ironworks as a child and later joined the church revolutionaries assumes power after the Christian priest and revolt leader Leo dies. Father Attila starves Latin freemen in his attempts to bring the farms under Church control, eliminates any rival and has suspected heretics sent to Germania and Dacia.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
Father Attila signs a non-aggression treaty with the Goths and the Franks under King Theodemir late in his rule over the Dominate of Christian Churches and Congregations and is caught off guard when Theodemir's German warriors cross the limes with their aeliopile driven armored steam carts in a form of warfare known as Blitzkrieg. Father Attila intitially considers abandoning Rome and resigning his leadership of the church, but is convinced to stay and lead resistance. His purge of his rival Augustine of Hippo, now in exile in Ghazzanid Arabia, founder of the Christian Legions, and other generals he viewed as a threat left the Christian Legions devoid of competent generals with the remaining exception of Bonifacius, who lead the defensive Great Imperial War against Theodemir's Germanic armies. Theodemir, overconfident, diverted his war bands from attacking Rome and they ended up bogged down in Ravenna in street to street fighting with partisans for over a year, eventually beginning the Christian Legion's driving Theodemir's war bands back and Theodemir's suicide inside his Meeting Hall.
 
Father Attila signs a non-aggression treaty with the Goths and the Franks under King Theodemir late in his rule over the Dominate of Christian Churches and Congregations and is caught off guard when Theodemir's German warriors cross the limes with their aeliopile driven armored steam carts in a form of warfare known as Blitzkrieg. Father Attila intitially considers abandoning Rome and resigning his leadership of the church, but is convinced to stay and lead resistance. His purge of his rival Augustine of Hippo, now in exile in Ghazzanid Arabia, founder of the Christian Legions, and other generals he viewed as a threat left the Christian Legions devoid of competent generals with the remaining exception of Bonifacius, who lead the defensive Great Imperial War against Theodemir's Germanic armies. Theodemir, overconfident, diverted his war bands from attacking Rome and they ended up bogged down in Ravenna in street to street fighting with partisans for over a year, eventually beginning the Christian Legion's driving Theodemir's war bands back and Theodemir's suicide inside his Meeting Hall.

OK, now let's take this seriously and not establish a Christian Rome as USSR, while making the barbarians into Nazi Germany. What next, gunpowder as a WMD and the breakup of Rome into the Byzantine Empire and former Roman Republics within 60 years? Is Parthian Empire equal to the United States of America, with both powers wielding gunpowder WMDs in a state of MAD?
 

Stephen

Banned
Such a primitive turbine will not provide enough power for anything useful. In order to be useful the muscle power used to obtain the fuel must be significantly less than the power that comes out of the machine. So Heron needs to develop a much more effiecient and powerful steam engine before it has any practical aplication.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
Their rivals are the Sassanid Persians. Father Attila dies and is replaced by Aetius who denounces him as a brutal tyrant and begins relaxing the church congregation's internal restrictions while saber rattling with the Persians.

Alexandria in Aegyptus is divided between the Roman churches and the Sassanids with the city itself divided by the Alexandrian Wall.

The Cyprus Cannon Crisis occurs when the Romans establish cannon batteries on the island of Cyprus and Sassanid triremes blockade the islands leading to a standoff that is resolved by the removal of Sassanid armies from Armenia.

And after Boethius AKA "Buy Me a Drink" dies and is succeeded by former Legionary Belisarius who reestablishes secular Roman rule but with many echoes of the old Christian repression in his methods of governance.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
Christianity creates a backlash inside the Sassanid Empire with Zoroastrianism being promoted as a cultural counter over religious tolerance in the satrapies. The satrapies in Media and Persia become known as "the Magi belt" for their conservative Zoroastrianism.

Christians are persecuted, their names placed on scrolls called "blacklists", but are usually not killed. Shapur II makes his reign as Shah noteworthy for addressing his satraps and stating "I have here on this scroll the names of fifty suspected Christians working for the Movadh and the Shahnashah."

Shah Bahram III is known as a great king who was assaninated in Ctestiphon under mysterious circumstances by a man with a crossbow. For many years, scholars and Magi will debate whether there was a second crossbowman on the grassy knoll.

Shah "Tricky Yazdegerd" Yazdegerd is known as an opportunistic and scandal prone shah among the satraps but also for his diplomatic accomplishments. He forges an alliance with the Christian kingdom in Armenia against their former Roman allies, coining the phrase "only Yazdegerd can go to Armenia".

OK. I'm done now. And I admit all of this was waaaaaaaay over the top.
 
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