Progress and Social Evolution

[drew]

I can't beleive people are actually upset that there are no Planes, trains or automobiles....the Earth of the Land is not Our earth.
There is no rule that states that all cultures have to contantly progress on an industrial level.

Even if there was a little bit of industrialsation, things like cannons, or windmills, It would not be the Land, and it would not be the earth that the Land is contained in.

If the Elohim had any decency left, they would be appointing one after another to STOP industialsation from happening anyways, or at least they should be...Heck maybe that's the fire Kas had to put out, a power plant up north.

[burgs]

I agree with you, Drew. Most people that post on this board fell in love with the Land as Donaldson presented it in the First Chronicles. That was why the Second Chronicles were so successful...the beatiful Land we knew and loved had been, figuratively, raped beyond recognition. I still remember the horror and disgust I felt as each new aspect of the Sunbane was revealed. The Wounded Land is an underrated and brilliant book - and perhaps the best title in the series. I don't believe that was Donaldson's initial title for the book - which makes it all the more interesting.

The Land wouldn't be the Land with aspects of industrialization. Who wants to see Revelstone on a wireless network, with Master's communicating with each other via cell phones? I wouldn't buy that book. Thankfully, Donaldson wouldn't write it.

[drew]

Thanks for the support Burgs....
Isn't there a place on SRD.com were he talkes about What Fantasy Is
I beleive it's in his published workes section...reading that might help people understand why things don't evolve on an industial level.

[Guest]

I wouldn't want to see planes, train and automobiles, but to say that the People of the Land did not embrace technology is narrow minded. The technology that the PoL had was earthpower, which would be analogous to our electricity. They are an very advanced civilzation, with great natural resources for developing their technology. But necessity and preparation for another Foul or other onslaught should have pushed some of them into developing a method for long distance communication at the very least . Not through wireless cell towers, but by lliandril (or whatever the wood was that they used in the IEW). They would also face population problems such as in Mithl Stowndown, where the town itself, if it existed for 6000+ years would have had to have become a larger town. Most of the people that are described as not having technologically advanced were nomadic, i.e. when things changed, they moved. Technological (and again, I don't mean developing a microchip) advances come when people decide to stay put and modify their surroundings to cope with whatever happens.

I completely agree that this is SRD's land and can follow whatever course he would like, but as someone said in another thread, the fun of these forums is to speculate and "What-if". Although I am not a writer myself, I think that often, in any work of art, the piece itself has levels and depths that the artist didn't even fully realize he had put into it. Speculating on these additional depths can only be a compliment to SRD.

[Jerico]

You know that we'll find out a little about how the people of the Land react to our technology if Roger still has his gun.

[burgs]

Now THAT is something I never thought of. If Joan has her ring, and they all have their clothes (which, duh, they do), then it stands to reason that Roger - unless he dropped it while being drilled into swiss cheese - may have brought the gun with him.

Interesting thought.

Linden or TC might be so disgusted by its appearance in the Land (which is somewhat of an Eden, not only an antithesis to leprosy but an antithesis, perhaps, to the modern world) that they simply melt it with wild magic.

[Guest]

If of course gun powder works in the Land (ala Zelazny). Hile Troy would certinly have known how to make gun powder and could have used it to take out the Raver in the assault of Revelstone. That mix of our world and their's would of course taken things in a new direction.

BEsides, a gun is much less powerful than the Staff of Law. The Staff follows the will and power of the weilder and doesn't need to be aimed.

[I'm Murrin]

Why would Troy know how to make gunpowder? He wasn't a chemist, he was a strategist. He had no need to learn that.

[burgs]

OK, so let's alter that. He may have known how to make gunpowder. Although you're correct in that he was a strategist and not a chemist, he struck me as a person who hungered for knowledge. Remember, he had Covenant's books read to him. Many people, even those not associatied with the military, and those who don't hunt or own guns (that means me), know that gunpowder is a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal.

[finn]

I think it distictly possible Burgs could be right about the gun, Hile Troy brought his sunglasses after all. However he may not have many bullets, and you'd have to speculate whether White Gold would work on another "alien" product.

Going back to the central theme, the root cause for many developments towards industrialisation and innovations has been territorial. A lot of wars were fought for possession of land or acquisition of land, often disguised with more noble reasons, the other great motivator has been religeon; without venturing too far into world politics, the same still applies today.

The Land over thousands of years has not had to suffer wars through these causes, there appears to be a stable population and plenty of land available: the Land provides much of what is needed. One reason the Australian aborigines did not evolve technologically was that the land provided what they needed to live, there was plenty of space and no competition for resources. There was no need to covet or defend possessions or territory (there were skirmishes from time to time of course, but to the best of my knowledge, no mass wars as we would define them).

With little motivation to accumulate, prestige can be gained from other characteristics than greed and the strength to make others subservient. The land has had little or no incursions from outside, with the intention of invasion and possession of occupied land. The only one being people taking land from the forests and that was addressed by the forestals. There are no idealogical or spiritual divisions in the land; the Stonedowners do not worship one God and the Woodhelvin another.

The conflicts are basic good and evil (Oh if our world were so simple!) and a lot of the good and evil can be discerned through health-sense. The weapons are weapons of "magic", tools of power using the power of the Land itself. These HAVE seen development with each chronicle unearthing greater weapons of destruction, the Illearth Stone, White Gold, the Sunbane, etc. Foul has attempted to up the ante for his ends at greater and greater cost to the people of the Land, including the threat to destroy it all by breaking the Arch.

Thus I don't find it at all hard to accept a Land with no technological or industrial development; what would be the purpose?

[Aleksandr]

There's no reason to think that they should except that we know they did. It's not just Giants in Bhrathrair harbor.

We don’t know the geography of that part of the world at all. It may be that Bhrathairrealm is one of several port towns on the edge of that ocean, and that people (other than the Giants, who have more sea-lore) simply sail up and down the coast for trade with no one (except the Giants) venturing far out to sea. This is how sea-trade was accomplisshed for millennia in our own history: ships hugged the coast, put in to land every night, and even just crossing the Mediterranean on open water from, say, Carthage to Rome, or Egypt to Greece was seen as a fearsome challenge and a major achievment.

If of course gun powder works in the Land (ala Zelazny).

If gunpowder does not work in the Land, then ordinary chemistry does not work in the Land, and life should be impossible.

[Guest]

You mean ordinary chemistry like making an alloy of gold and silver?

[burgs]

There isn't silver in white gold.

[Guest]

OK, I actually thought that SRD had simplified white gold in one of the books to be silver and gold. I'm probably wrong on that one. For those who want to know what white gold actually is:

White Gold Alloys with Palladium
[Other than nickel] The other metal which is ideal as a constituent of white gold alloys is palladium...Other possible whiteners include silver, platinum, chromium, cobalt, tin, zinc, and indium. Silver would be an ideal constituent, with excellent working properties, but unfortunately it does not have a very great bleaching effect.

There...my point was that the chemistry to make white gold doesn't exist in the Land, so things are slightly different there. Gun powder may not work. It would all depend on whether or not SRD wants it to.

[Aleksandr]

There...my point was that the chemistry to make white gold doesn't exist in the Land, so things are slightly different there.

It isn't the chemistry that lacking, it's the raw materials. We are told in LFB that gold itself is rare, and in the rest of the books the only time we encounter simple gold is in TOT, when Kasreyn uses it since even unalloyed gold apprently has some magical propeties. It's quite possible that the other metals needed to make white gold may not exist (in any obtainable form) in this Earth at all, which would say something about its geological history, but not anything about the laws of (unmagical) nature. I think I may have speculated above that one reason (among many) the Land hasn't seen any sort of technical "progress" may be that metals are rare: we've seen iron (and Kasreyn's gold, but not in the Land itself) and I think that's it: no copper, tin, lead, silver, zinc, mercury or the more esoteric metals.
As for gunpowder, all a gunpowder explosion is, is simple combustion. Things do burn in the Land, we've seen fire (and if things don't burn, then, as I wrote, life can't exist either since living creatures "burn" food with oxygen for energy). So gunpowder should work in the land, although there may be a probem with a raw materials shortage.

[IVB]

Why would Troy know how to make gunpowder? He wasn't a chemist, he was a strategist. He had no need to learn that.

The ingredients of gunpowder are well known buy most people with even a passing interest in military history. Charcoal, sulfur, potassium nitrate.

Potassium nitrate can be found in animal dung. Sulfur probably around Mt. Thunder (have to fight the cavewights for it) and I am sure Gilden wood makes fine charcoal.

I think if HT wanted to make gunpowder he could. But to make it on a scale to be useful in a campaign would require a the destruction of large numbers of trees… something the Lords would never tolerate.

[IVB]

that one reason (among many) the Land hasn't seen any sort of technical "progress" may be that metals are rare: we've seen iron (and Kasreyn's gold, but not in the Land itself) and I think that's it: no copper, tin, lead, silver, zinc, mercury or the more esoteric metals.
As for gunpowder, all a gunpowder explosion is, is simple combustion. Things do burn in the Land, we've seen fire (and if things don't burn, then, as I wrote, life can't exist either since living creatures "burn" food with oxygen for energy). So gunpowder should work in the land, although there may be a probem with a raw materials shortage.

I agree 100%...

Also, consider the nature of the Earth… It is a creation. There were not millions of years of dense bio-mass being converted to coal and oil. Industry based on wood burning would not scale, not enough energy density.

Another reason for the lack of technology:
Ask yourself what is industrial civilization based on? Science. Science is our attempt to define the underlying laws that govern our world.

Lore is the science of the Earth. Any industry we see will be based on the Lore they develop. We saw this in the first chronicles. Revelstone had HVAC technicians, Foamfollower had an outboard motor on his ski boat.

[King Elessar 8]

As for people visiting the Land, we simply have no way of knowing how large the Earth Donaldson is writing about is, or how remote the Land is from other places in that world. Its remoteness may leave it undiscovered and unknown to most of the other peoples of the Earth. much like the Americas were to the Europeans (a few Scandinavian journeys aside) for quite a considerable period of time.

The migrating question has been answered by Donaldson in the Gradual Interview. There are no people to the North, the only people to the West are the Haruchai, the Sea is to the East, and there is nothing in the South except for nomadic people who have no interest in the Land.