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Is an industrialized setting without firearms feasible? What
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Is an industrialized setting without firearms feasible? What conditions would have to be in place for it to be more likely to happen?
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>>44696806
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>>44696806
>Is an industrialized setting without firearms feasible?
No.
>What conditions would have to be in place for it to be more likely to happen?
Unrealistic ones.
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>>44698480
>No.

in a world with no chemicals to produce gunpowder there would still be airguns as good as firearms.
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>>44698480
Wait why not?

Fire arms were around for a long time without the steam engine. I don't see why it couldn't be the other way around.
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>>44698480
Not helpful.
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>>44696806
It wouldn't be possible in our world, obviously, but in a world where humans had easy enough access to magic and it was commonplace enough to not need other weapons then it could work.

Basically, Legend of Korra.
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>>44697093
>Steampunk
>Arthurian used in a historical context
I'm doubly triggered

>>44696806
Guess so. Heron of Alexandria already had some sort of proto-steam engine, and Pascal (albeit already in a time with gunpowder) had created some sort of proto-computer calculator.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator

Considering the former was anciend and the latter does not require gunpowder to function per se, you can have a pre-gunpowder medieval industrial revolution. Though nothing too fancy, just steam engines and powered looms and the like. Admittedly that's a huge boon that would make the nobility obsolete a lot earlier, but it wouldn't result in some kewl steampunk world of coggy tophat jousting.
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>>44696806
"It's magic, i don't have to explain tits" or societal reasons, muh warrior code or some shit.
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>>44696806
Sure, nothing wrong with that. Don't bend over backwards coming up with an explanation, there's no real reason for certain technolgies to be developed in a certain order. Maybe nobody really figured out gunpowder in your setting.

Don't bother coming up with some shitty science explaination.
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>>44698523
Barely. They'd still be much more expensive than the equivalent black powder weapons, more fragile (especially with early industrial production methods/materials), and would be in generally more difficult to use.
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>>44696806
>industrialized setting without firearms
Nanny state.
>What conditions would have to be in place
Liberalism.
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>>44698523
>airguns
Why bother with guns in your setting when you're explicitly removing gunpowder? That's just pedantic.

>>44698673
Kek
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>>44698604
OP here, that was kind of my thinking. There's nothing in steam engines that require gunpowder. I imagine the nature of geopolitics and war would have to be very different than the real world for a full-blown pre-firearm industrial revolution, though
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>>44698527
a gun is simply a long barrel through which a bullet is propelled by a large amount of gas being released from behind it. that can be achieved via a chemical reaction or by steam, or anything.
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>>44696806
Fuck "feasible," do what you want. It's fiction.
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>>44696806
Firearms were invented, but at some point were deemed on a wide scale dangerous enough that they were banned, rounded up and destroyed. The art is completely lost now and only exists only in history books.
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>What conditions
Some world where chemistry operated a little differently: gunpowder became either not-workable, or prohibitively expensive to produce -- or even did not produce the gas necessary to make firearms work.

Interestingly, there is also evidence this would help delay the formation of strong nation-states, as it was only nation-states like Louis XIV's France that could afford to build and field cannons with a standing army (for a long time).

So....feudalism and it's strongest military unit - the pikeman's square - would continue to rule the battlefield for a while, and you wouldn't see the rise of strong navies.

So ask yourself, "how would the 16th-18th century have gone without large nation-states and powerful navies?"
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>>44696806
>Is an industrialized setting without firearms feasible?
yes
>What conditions would have to be in place for it to be more likely to happen?
Different atmosphere, gunpowder ignites bot not in small quantities you could use in a rifle.
Or maybe people never found out the good ratio since too many died trying and the king banned on gunpowder bellic experimentation.
Airguns could be feasible, but lack efficacy. Since the nation states still warred using increasingly harder fullplates, anything short of a really well applied sword blow couldn't harm a soldier. They could actually still cut each other because the permanent state of war segregated the nobles that warred and peasants that worked fields, and later factories. That genetically isolated the nobles enough to create a subrace like caste of strong resilient warrior, capable of applying greater force with a sword than a bow or airgun could. The increasing inefficacy of long anged weapons made every nation abandon ranged weaponry experiments altogether.
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>>44698694
>I imagine the nature of geopolitics and war would have to be very different than the real world for a full-blown pre-firearm industrial revolution, though
Perhaps not so much, the groundwork for the engine was already there. You could easily have some guy in the 11th century (when Europe had more or less recoverd from Charlemagne's retarded succession laws) who is some kind of Da Vinci figure create such an engine. Maybe just an experimental version with no real practical uses, but one that sparks everything and let's local merchants invest in it, tweek it and eventually discover a version that works allowing them to earn fat stacks with textile production etc.

And then the nobility and clergy get pissed because they see the bourgeoise growing too rich and powerful.
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>>44698855
When you put it that way, it could work, even without magic.
I always found firearms to be one of those things that came from a perfect storm.
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>>44698527
Because a steam engine is a fairly advanced bit of technology that requires much more scientific advancement than "put explosive thing in tube, put projectile in tube, light explosive thing on fire". There is almost no way a society could figure out the fairly complex mechanics of a steam engine before it could figure out how to put explosive shit in a tube, and that if they put something else in the tube it would go fast.
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>>44696806
One funny thing about gunpowder is that it was pretty much invented by acident.

A chinese emperor wanted be immortal, and his alchemist figured out gunpowder while trying to get the emperor's potion.

Perhaps the 'ops, it explodes' never happened in your setting.

Perhaps a easy piromancy spell was all it took to ignite the powder and fucking its users.

Perhaps the nations have a global treaty for banning powder because it gives too much power to the common man, flaying the 'users of the black death' as an example.
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>>44698855
>Or maybe people never found out the good ratio
>>44698934
>I always found firearms to be one of those things that came from a perfect storm.
>>44699000
>it was pretty much invented by acident.
THIS.
Gunpowder, and firearms in general, are not something that would surely eventualy come around at the time they did. It is very feasible for a setting, even a more realistic one, reach industrial prowess enough to build WWII vehicles without ever stumbling into firearms.
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>>44698527
>Fire arms were around for a long time without the steam engine
Doesn't that answer your question?
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>>44696806
You're asking if a industrialized setting, which relies on the invention of an external combustion engine and advanced metallurgy, we would be possible without knowledge of firearms?

No, that's stupid. How would they make a combustion engine without knowing how to combust material?
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>>44699123
No. Are you one of those uneducated faggots who thinks technology advances in a linear or almost linear fashion for no reason, just because that's how it works in video games?
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>>44699202
>nothing besides gunpowder is combustible
>people lived in darkness and ate only raw food up until the time someone created the first gun
a fucking log can be used to move a steam engine.
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>>44699202
I think the idea is that they have the mechanical breakthroughs that would be necessary and can burn wood and coal and so on, but they don't have the chemical breakthrough to make explosives like gunpowder.
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>>44698683
>Why bother with guns in your setting when you're explicitly removing gunpowder? That's just pedantic.

That's not pedantic. If you ignore shit like this you end up with a setting full of holes that makes no sense.

I bet you like the official DnD settings.
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>>44699105
No, that's bullshit. You can't have an industrial society without knowledge of chemical explosives and adequate metal working.

>>44698604
And you. You retard. Those steam engines were pretty much useless because the materials of those days were ineffective for the task. You think they just invented steam engines and just didn't realize that they were useful? No, they were impractical theoretical tech at that point.
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>>44699202
Dude, forgery was there before guns. A forge has heat enough to work a steam factory.
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>>44699327
Maybe they have chemical explosives like Dynamite and gun cotton, therefore having cannons, but nothing that can miniaturized for use in hand weapons?
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>>44699264
>You
>Nothing besides black powder can be used for firearms
>Doesn't even know why steam engines were impractical until the 19th century

>>44699272
You cannot get the necessary level of metal working to create a practical steam engine without the level of chemical knowledge that would allow you to create firearms.
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>>44699327
So what you're saying is that the materials science definitely wouldn't advance enough for industrial machinery without it also needing to be good enough to make better guns with?
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>>44699327
>You can't have an industrial society without knowledge of chemical explosives and adequate metal working
why?
If they could smith detailed greatswords what would stop them from smithing a fucking metal sphere conected to a seres of tubes and wheels?
if they could heat metal enough to smith, why couldn't they heat water to boiling point?
All you need to make a steam engine is a log and a fucking kettle. Those things were around before guns.
Also, the ratio for gunpowder to work in a gun isn't really easy to find. Fiction has done worse things than not finding out how to stuff a metal tube with the right ammount of powder.
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>>44699385
>impractical until the 19th century
That's widely because people didn't pay atention to the potential of it.
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>>44696806

Cultural reasons are your best bet. Take a look at Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Alternatively, magitech in a fantasy setting very unlike our own (e.g with lots of fantasy minerals and no equivalent to saltpeter, nitre, etc).


>>44699105
>>44699000

The problem with this is that the technologies of the industrial age came about through a lot of dedicated experimentation, usually using scientific principles. Even if these hadn't discovered gunpowder, there are many other possible propellants like cordite and ballistite. You'd have to handwave away how chemists missed them all.
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>>44699333
Dude!!!!111 those forgeries didn't produce good enough metal because their temperatures and refining processes weren't good enough. You need metal (and screws) that can withstand incredibly high pressures in order to have an efficient steam engine. Most of these technologies came from the development of firearms and cannons btw bro.

>>44699375
That doesn't make sense.
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>>44699418
It wasn't just materials for steam engines. They needed a level of materials and chemical knowledge that would put you far beyond primitive firearms in order to create an industrial revolution.

>>44699425
You're a fucking retard who needs to read about steam engines before you start trying to make revision histories because anything attempt is going to be extremely shallow and not well thought out whatsoever.

>>44699445
Humans in the past weren't retarded. Sure, they were some like you but there were plenty of intelligent people. It never comes down "oh they didn't realize! hurr hurr"

>>44699448
>Take a look at Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Firearms were common in Japan before and during that time. Are you smoking crack?
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>>44699448
>You'd have to handwave away how chemists missed them all.
You underestimate my stoicism. Still, in the right environment, like a higly chivalric kingdom being the only one advanced enough to find out these propellants, and not wanting to se any of them for guns because "muh single combat", the idea could work.
>>44699458
>temperatures and refining processes weren't good enough
start with shitty engine
use it to create better stuff
have less shitty engine
use it to create better stuff
have already not so shitty engine
miss the propelling potential of the stuff that exploded on the lab last week because you fear death enough to stay away
just like doctors missed the miracle of "washing hands" for ages(if you want an example of how people can miss scientific findings)
eventually create working useable engine
present it to the king
He is interested
LANCE KNIGHTS ON STEAM HORSE-LIKE MOTORCYCLES
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>>44696806
>>44699202
>>44699264
>>44699333
>>44699257

>>44699000 Here. I use these links to give me insights on medieval and post-medieval technology, how far one can industrialize without going into victorian era. I have an industrial zone powered by a not!Marly Machine

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil-fuels-in-pre-industrial-times.html

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/history-of-industrial-windmills.html

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/01/mechanical-transmission-of-power-stangenkunst.html

http://www.marlymachine.org/

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas-cars.html

http://www.vedbil.se/indexe.shtml

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/03/history-of-human-powered-cranes.html

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/01/aerial-ropeways-automatic-cargo-transport.html

http://www.notechmagazine.com/category/wind-power

http://www.notechmagazine.com/2010/05/the-origins-of-invention-industry-among-primitive-peoples.html

>>44699448
And the other reasons I wrote?
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There is an acceptable level of hand-waving in my opinion.

Getting away with no fire-arms in a industrialized society is one of them. So long as you also have the realistic cultural implications of the industrialization intact. Also probably cannons and a handful of high-tech but very expensive air rifles.
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There's such a nation in my present GURPS campaign. TL5 steampunk China ruled by vampires, they're isolationist, all the other nations are lower TL, and they've simply never discovered black powder. The elites in mortal society use compressed-air guns.
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>>44699590
Bro, everything you say is completely and utterly fucking dumb. Not only do you show a severe lack of understanding technological progression, but you also show that you think humans from the past are legally retarded which shows your level of intelligence.

No. They would not invent guns and magically stop using them for chivalry reasons. That's as unrealistic as super mario.

No. You cannot have a practical steam engine without the level of metal working and chemical knowledge that would allow you to easily create primitive firearms.

No. Nothing you have said has even been remotely correct or well thought out.

Please. Stop posting. You're one of those sad saps who can't take the tolkien fantasy out of your perspective of history.
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>>44699545
>It never comes down "oh they didn't realize! hurr hurr"
>>44699670
>you think humans from the past are legally retarded
tell me how every civilization has advanced exactly in the same fashion ever.
>tolkien fantasy
Just for the record, I do HATE Tolkien
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>>44699611
Forgot one

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi385.htm

>But carbon steel had been made long before either Kelly or Bessemer. One of the oldest and most sophisticated methods was that of the Haya people. They're an African tribe in what is Tanzania today. The Hayas produced high-grade carbon steel for about 2000 years.
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>>44699425
>If they could smith detailed greatswords
The problem isn't being able to make one nice thing, the problem is making metal of that quality consistently - including knowing how to improve the quality of steel as you smelt it. A sword is a wonderful tool to learn how to do that, but tends to have consequences for getting it wrong.

>if they could heat metal enough to smith, why couldn't they heat water to boiling point?
Because a steam engine that does useful work requires a closed compartment. Ever seen what happens when a pressure cooker fails? A steam engine is, in essence, a really big, really powerful pressure cooker, that uses the steam to do something other than cook food.

As far as requirements for the Industrial Revolution, you don't actually need to start with steam power - water power would suffice in limited quantities. What you need is an understanding of gearing, and for labor to be expensive. If there is a high fixed cost for labor, with high potential rewards for the work (in the case of England, valuable coal deposits that kept flooding), then people will find a way to circumvent the expense.

Using steam, specifically, requires the same understanding of gearing, understanding of material engineering sufficient to create consistent grades of steel, and a need for more labor than the market can supply.

Now, as far as making a high cost of labor and a shortage of workers, I recommend a plague. It usually works quite well - smallpox was traditional, before the bubonic plague spread, but that has been around for as long as Europe was. Maybe a more fantastic disease, or a nice hemorrhagic fever, perhaps?
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So, what are the minimum changes to the setting's physics/chemistry from ours would be necessary to make this sort of thing reasonable? I mean, we already warp these things willy nilly for the sake of introducing magic 'n' shit so it seems a reasonable enough solution if this is the kind of setting you want.
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>>44698604
>Admittedly that's a huge boon that would make the nobility obsolete a lot earlier
Industrialization isn't what made the nobility obsolete, the rise of professional armies and decline in nobles on the battlefield did.
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>>44699701
So stop applying him to historical ideas. Humans don't live on a fucking tech tree and we don't follow one either. Different groups of people had different things that worked and mattered to them so their technological progress reflects that. Civilization the game is nothing like real life.
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>>44696806
Have there be a primary fuel source that can't be set up to explode, and no intense explosive propellant that's stable enough to contain safely.
But there will still be prototype air rifles and likely crossbow-grenades.
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>>44699953
Peat and coal and wood, most fuel sources for most of history and most of the industrial revolution were slow burning fuels.
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>>44699701
>>44699915
Humans don't live in a tech tree, but the simple fact is that certain technologies simply cannot exist with other technologies and that humans will ALWAYS push their current technology to its limits in some part of the world. Read a history book.
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>>44699984
>certain technologies simply cannot exist with[out] other technologies
This tends to be hugely overstated, though.

>humans will ALWAYS push their current technology to its limits
If it's a technology that they use heavily, and they have a high social complexity, anyway.
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>>44699984
Well yea retard, but of course we are playing with definitions here. WHAT IS THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION? Where did it start? Why did it start? These are questions that still linger in academia and probably will never be fully answered satisfactorily, much less on 4chan.
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>>44700025
>This tends to be hugely overstated, though.
No it doesn't.

>>44700031
>These are questions that still linger in academia
Not really.
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>>44700158
>I say so so it must be true
Good job fag. Can you answer those three questions with sources then m8.
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>>44696806
Out of interest, why don't you want firearms to be a thing in your setting?
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>>44700184
>assert shit without evidence
>get mad when someone dismisses it without evidence
You can only blame yourself, faggot
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>>44700266
You haven't refuted me. But no matter, on OP. Yes you could probably for any number of reasons but it would have to come down to the people saying "lol why" or things like saltpeter being non-existant in the world. Maybe a overabundance of slow fuel or some ability to make slow burning fuels more plentiful. We still rely on coal for most of our energy today, so a world without gunpowder could work.
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>>44700344
They weren't even using saltpeter in firearms during the industrial revolution. gg
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>>44699327
>And you. You retard.
Wow, rude!

>You think they just invented steam engines and just didn't realize that they were useful?
I never implied that, which is why I shoved a possibly early industrialization... to the Middle Ages, mostly due to advances made in metalurgy and related fields.
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Of course you could, gunpowder is irreverent in every capacity compared to industrialization, the Romans in Egypt invented the basis for the steam engine long before the first fucking gun was invented, the only reason an industrial revolution didn't happen then is because they had no idea the potential the technology had and dismissed it.
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>>44700759
>the only reason an industrial revolution didn't happen then is because they had no idea the potential the technology had and dismissed it.

Kill yourself.
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>>44700759
>irreverent
I think you meant irrelevant, retard. Goes to show the intelligence of your side of the argument.
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>>44699706
>we wuz kings n shit

pls do not embarrass yourself like this
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This thread is full of /k/ucks. Dismiss all arguments in support of gunpowder's need to exist for industrialization outright.
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>>44699863
I'm just theorizing here so stop me if I say something stupid.

Let's say that industrialization happens around the late middle ages, and that gunpowder never happens, and armies never professionalize in the same way they did in our timeline (partially under the influence of gunpowder).

The creation of such industrial devices as powered looms and the like would greatly increase the wealth of the bourgeoise, to such a degree that they would spectacularly outearn the established nobility sitting on its old money with revenue from their estates. This massive money could be used by the heads of wealthy merchant families to raise their own retinues, in the same way the old nobility does, and come to the aid of their monarch in exchange for privileges. Considering that industrialization would also make it easier to mass produce arms and armor, as well as the fact that the pike square had on a few occassions shown to be superior to a cavalry charge, this would mean the merchant class would suddenly have become a rather powerful military force that would at first co-exist with the old nobility and later supercede them.

It is my belief that, if industrialization had come earlier and gunpowder weapons would never have happened, the nobility would not become obsolete because professional armies do the job better. Instead, their role in society would be ursurped by the merchant class.

Again, please tell me if something I said doesn't make sense or is just stupid.
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>>44700870
Not him, but Time has a story covering it.
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912179,00.html?iid=chix-sphere
So it's probably more than just "we wuz kangz 'n shiet"
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>>44700998
It wasn't gunpowder at all, it was the invention of the short bow that made nobility obsolete.
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>>44701025
>Time isn't getting cucked by libtard media that benefit from feeding you deliberate misinformation like that
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>>44700998
>implying gunpowder is the reason for the development of mercenary armies
I'm stopping you right here.
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>>44700998
You just described what happened IRL m8.
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>>44701052
>Any information that goes against my world view is also factually wrong and a purposeful lie to perpetuate a world view other than my own, and since those are all clearly supported only by lies, my world view is the only one with actual evidence supporting it!
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>>44696806
Unlikely but less so that you think. Look at a county like China or Japan. They *invented* gunpowder but never really had developed gun as serious weapons until centuries late.

War is the mother of invention. A stable society with a strong government could quite easily simply never come up it. An 'heroic' setting where monsters be and the rule law is a good idea, almost certainly would.
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>>44700998
It's a nice theory, but it has some problems.

First, the limiting factor for the merchant class would be access to personnel. Second, the obvious way to restrict that would be extensive taxation before it becomes a problem - which is also the obvious approach to "holy shit, he made a fuck-ton of money, but I'm still in charge!" Third, it's usually easier to marry into a class than to usurp it.

I'd propose, based on your timeline, that the nobility would rather gracelessly decline, and the merchants would become a second estate, making corporate nations or merchant republics - stateless trading companies that seek warrants and permissions, which the nobility would lease for various considerations.

It would likely come down to how legitimacy of governance decays, but it sounds like the American Revolution was firmly on track, merely with a lower chance of success.
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>>44701118
I know it's not easy being in the know, thank you for noticing.
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>>44701048
>the short bow
Care to elaborate, please? I can't find a lot about it in a social/political context.
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>>44701052
Look, man, if everyone who researches shit has a bias away from your position, it's likely that your position is what we call wrong.
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>>44696806
Depends on time, eventually any industrialized society will invent their way out of inherent issues unless said issues are mandated by the state.

Gunpowder is irrelevant because said society will just use something else. Less or more powerful doesn't matter either as this society doesn't have a frame of reference for how powerful gunpowder might be.
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>>44701144
It shoots arrows fast and makes people dead faster, which kills them.
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>>44701144

He is wrong and stupid.

Short bows have zero hope of penetrating decent armor.
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>>44701134
>Look at a county like China or Japan. They *invented* gunpowder but never really had developed gun as serious weapons until centuries late.

Oh fuck off, you idiot.
>China: The earliest depiction of a gun is a sculpture from a cave in Sichuan dating to the 12th century
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>>44700870
Didn't get it, what's embarassing?
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>>44701342
And they gunpowder since the 9th century dipshit. It never caught on. It's like pointing at a laser disc and saying they had DVDs in the 80s
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>>44701468
But, the 12th century is still early for a gun. What you are saying is that because Betamax failed commercially, magnetic tapes as a storage medium never caught on.

And before you say "they started, but past," figure out what every bank mainframe backs data up to. No, it's not the cloud.
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>>44701468
That was the mid 9th century and by the early 10th century they were regularly deploying fire lances along with grenades and all kinds of other nasty explosive weapons. End your life.
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>>44696806
Unlikely but not completely impossible. I'd chalk it up to an isolated kingdom retaining certain elements of past knowledge but losing others
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>>44701440
He's suggesting that any statement of cultural accomplishment from Africa is completely specious because it was either utterly undermined by, or had disappeared before, colonialism.
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>>44701509
No what it's saying they only used it for computer back ups becuase they never had with 8 track tapes.
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>>44699327
You are a retard I only arrived to this thread and god dammit your dumb shit guess what the Chinese invented black powder yet never invented the gun. Shit the invention of a single thing doesn't implicitly mean that another invention will just happen. Fuck if op wants to have a setting that is 18th c but not firearms it's easy; shit i can think of multiple ways; the first person to try show off the use of his new miracle blackpowder weapon failed so miserably they executed him/her for wasting the kings time.

Shit make it so saltpeter or sulphur is a rare as fuck commodity; there is literally nothing but your autism that stops this idea from working and the funniest part is that your autism sucks as its not even logical as called out by other anon. Shit inventions throughout history have been invenoted and never caught on the gun could of been suck an invention; relegated to a scientists cupboard till it rusts away or the metal melted for scrap.

Tldr: fuck you are your ignorance of reality and lack of imagination.
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>>44701278
>Short bows have zero hope of penetrating decent armor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Armour_penetration
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>>44701706
"no"
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>>44701712
Did you notice your link is about LONG bows?
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>>44701706
>guess what the Chinese invented black powder yet never invented the gun
That's false. Post discarded.
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>>44701712
>Refers to an article about longbows for the effectivity of shortbows
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>>44701741
>>44701794
Short bows don't exist. The closest thing to a short bow is a long bow.
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>>44701813

How about a NORMAL SIZE BOW, doofus?
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>>44701813

Short bows are meant to represent bows of smaller size than a longbow but which aren't composite/recurve etc. So, just a bow. A comparison to a longbow, which a shortbow explicitly isn't, is, frankly, retarded logic.
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>>44701876
>>44701853
That being the case, how could something that already existed revolutionize war to make nobility less relevant on the battlefield? That guy was probably referring to the longbow, because 'normal sized' bows already existed, and short bows don't exist at all.
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How about a world involved in massive, brutal war, tooth and nail, barbaric type stuff.

Early firearms exist as a curiousity and an experimental rarity, but as they aren't as proven, safe, or effective as bows and crossbows yet, no-one wants to waste time on r&d to make them work only to create a logistics nightmare of swapping out equipment en masse to millions

The industrialization comes in the form of massive facilities dedicated to forging medieval armor and weapons, tried, simple, tested designs, that are easy to quickly make and push out to conscripts without needing any finicky engineering, training or maintenance.

Gunpowder shows up in the hands of "spec ops" units like grenades and in siege weaponry, but is just too expensive and difficult to supply everyone with.

Tldr; 40k's imperium meets ww1 at the beginning of the early modern age
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>>44696806
Why would industry need guns?
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>>44698743
Yes but technology and inventions dont just happen when you have the stuff around. It happens by pure and total chance most of the time.

Also >>44698745
Disregard autist
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>>44696806
It's feasible, but basically a world without gunpowder and that technological level would be a rare occurrence. Steam based technology, or minor electricity from dams would be useful.

It's more likely that firearms are banned weapons and only dangerous criminals carry them. This could either be an old attitude, fear of technology or maybe even mass shootings made them illegal.
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>/tg/ believes pre-modern humans were idiots who only created things through pure accident

>/tg/ thinks that just because someone made a proto-steam engine in ancient Greece they should have had an industrial revolution because all you need is any old steam engine but ancient people were too stupid to realize how it could be useful

>/tg/ doesn't understand how most technologies are theorized hundreds of years before they ever become practical due to restrictions in materials and energy sources

>/tg/ doesn't know that pre-modern humans were just as intelligent as anyone alive today and that our modern society is built on their innovations and genius

This is breaking my heart.
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>>44703320
It's not that pre-modern humans were stupid, humans in general are fucking idiots. We don't think of ourselves as stupid because we don't look at our current situation in retrospect often enough. In the future, with all likelihood, technological innovations made in modern times are going to be reinvented and only then, hundreds of years later, will we realize that we could have made those advances so much earlier.
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>>44698527
>Fire arms were around for a long time without the steam engine. I don't see why it couldn't be the other way around.

The metallurgy needed to make firearms is far simpler then the metallurgy needed to make useful steam engines. Look the oldest surviving dated gun was made in 1288. It is believed that the hand cannon, the most important of the second generation of firearms, was invented around 1189 to 1192 in northern China. The pic is of a European hand cannon from before 1399, however hand cannon became popular in parts of Europe well before that. For Southern Germany its use took off in the mid 1340's. The reason why hand cannons became so popular so fast was because they were cheaper and easier to make then a crossbow. Any village blacksmith could make one if given instructions. In fact there is no reason that I can things of why hand cannons did not get invented earlier other then no one tried to do so.

Steam engine on the other hand need at lest blister steel to be useful and even then still had a issue with exploding till the introduction of crucible steel in the 1740s.
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>>44703498
Nope, that's bullshit. You can back up your ridiculous claim with evidence if you want though.
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>>44703320
>ancient people were too stupid to realize how it could be useful
Yeah, because those ancient people really knew exactly what could come of that little steam toy if they just built a huge infrastructure to make it feasible.
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>>44703610
>ancient civilizations didn't have huge infrastructure
>ancient civilizations didn't have industrialized machines powered by heat, wind, water and beasts of burden that would clearly benefit from steam engines
>you aren't retarded
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>>44703670
How exactly would it benefit them to power that using a steam engine burning coal over using the falling water that's already set up?
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>>44703320
While I do agree with you, to be fair, the people that get things right ahead of time often have very little evidence to support their claims besides inductive reasoning. When you have a vast sea of competing theories eventually one theory will come close to the thruth.
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>>44703710
Why would they use the same machine with a steam engine? It'd be a different setup, obviously. Do you even have human level intelligence?
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>>44703559
forgot pic

>>44702423
>The industrialization comes in the form of massive facilities dedicated to forging medieval armor and weapons

The arquebus was invented around ~1423, is that medieval?

>Early firearms exist as a curiousity and an experimental rarity, but as they aren't as proven, safe, or effective as bows and crossbows yet

The thing is that hand cannons were cheaper then crossbows or bows that would be useful for war. They were also had bit higher rate of fire then crossbows and inside 50m were more effective then the time of crossbows made for field battles against armor. They did have short range.The thing that keeped them off the field during the 14yth centruy was the range issue. During that time they were most used to defend strong points like gate houses. The war that changed that was the Hussite Wars and creative use of field fortifications in the 1420s.
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>>44703753
>to be fair, the people that get things right ahead of time often have very little evidence to support their claims besides inductive reasoning. When you have a vast sea of competing theories eventually one theory will come close to the thruth.

That's now how it works. These are people who produced results, but their results were not good enough to justify the technique at the time of invention. In example of steam engine, early prototypes were pointless for industry due to its fuel/output ratio which was a result of the poor material construction (you could not achieve the needed levels of pressure and heat). The steam engine did not become viable until other areas of technology caught up to make it viable. This is the case for most technological breakthroughs - they are theorized and have proto forms until another technological breakthrough or condition makes it viable.
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gunpowder (either nitrocellulose or black powder) is self-oxidizing; doesn't rely on the external atmosphere.
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>>44703868
>>44703559
>>44703821
But how does that have anything to do with gunpowder? Metallurgy doesn't require gunpowder to advance to the state where steam engines are possible.
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>>44704006
Because the chemical knowledge to create gunpowder is associated with the knowledge that advanced metal working to the point where steam engines became viable.
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>>44701876
The term taht you guys are looking for is a self bow or simple bow. English longbows are a type of self bow, most self bows are not longbows. In mainland Europe most would have a draw around 50 to 60 lb.

>>44701278
>>44701712


Against any medieval armor with a good amount of coverage self bows are just about useless. Why do you thing that mainland Europe moved as fast as it did over to the crossbow?
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>>44696806
Gunnm
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>>44696806
>Is an industrialized setting without firearms feasible?
that all depends...
What exactly IS the reason you are so avert to including firearms in the setting? And do be honest with us...
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>>44698523
In a world with no chemicals to produce gunpowder, there's no life.
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Guys

GUYS

Listen:
>humanity just never really got around to the whole "fairly select a representative for the people and live as a group in an area larger than a city" bit
>isolationism and walled cities EVERYWHERE
>scientific advancement is kept out of reach of the common man, used primarily to educate and better the elite
>advancement in quality of living is largely due to a Macguffin substance/element
>this Blufftonium is regularly used for street lamps, heating, and as a catalyst for steam technology
>now, pike formations and crossbowmen FWOOOSH across battlefields and over shield formations using Bluff-powered steam rockets
>steam-powered siege engines clatter across rough terrain to crash through walls and scatter infantry
>ALTERNATE YEAR A.D.: WAR WAS BEGINNING
>typical inter-city war
>everything going about as smoothly as you can expect
>suddenly
>reports from the front of entire divisions wiped out, with much burned and a strange, acrid fog covering the site
>lone survivors with eerie wounds, ashen faces, and hearing loss
>strange tales of small numbers of men, clad in black with thunderous pikes, besting forces five times their number
>iron engines spewing brimstone, and laying waste to hamlet and city alike
>some clutch their rosaries, and whisper of the Devil's reckoning, come to reap the sins of all who stand with the greedy and prideful City Lord
>there is a clattering at night on the horizon, like the distant sound of so many war drums, drawing closer each eve...
>there are regular drawings for conscription into the Lord's Men, now
>they abandoned the restrictions on recruiting women, the young, and the elderly long ago
>your talents are recognized as exemplary, and you're brought to the Lord Himself before you fall prey to the conscription
>his task to you: find out what the black hell is going on at the front, before it takes another city
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