Worldbuilding Wednesdays: Stresses and Stressors

Welcome to Worldbuilding Wednesdays!  Every Wednesday, we spend what is probably far too much time walking through our worldbuilding process.  This week, we're updating the technological changes that will occur because magic is present.  One thing that won't be changing, surprisingly, is building construction.

What We Have So Far

The last time we looked at the influx of magic and its effect on technology, we were looking at the rudimentary start of both technology and magic.  The biggest changes originally were the bits of technology that wouldn't be necessary due to magic- things like running water, lighting, heating, and air conditioning can be handled with a simple rune and the basic idea of "wouldn't it be handy to have this?"  Beyond that, one simple but ubiquitous upgrade was the concept of glazing stonework.  Because basic stone shapes are easy to craft and it doesn't take much to discover that the same process that colors stones also makes them more durable, the result on our city was a colorful panorama of tilework.

Magic has, up to this point, been unhelpful in any other areas of technological growth for two main reasons:  the magic involved was basic, and the technology involved was basic.  While magic can replace simple concepts, it can't replace more complicated ones, and it can only assist with the more complicated ones if the concepts are already developed.

As an example, look at the magical cars that we're slowly but surely working our way toward.  Of the types of magic that we've developed over at The Magic of Magicbuilding, exactly none of them could be used to simply push a car at 60 miles an hour down the road.  This means that we won't be seeing "horseless carriages" any time soon.  Or rather, we will, since there are no horses on Istenaiti, but not the kind that run on magic.  However, once our people develop the concept of a motor, the power source of that motor can definitely be magic, and the motor can transform the energy derived from magic into useful work.

Similarly, the ability to craft large stone slabs on the fly is very useful for masonry and other major construction projects, but it doesn't replace the need to make sure that the building constructed from those slabs will stay standing when you're done.  For that, you need concepts like arches, pillars, and support structures.

As it happens, that last bit is going to keep the people of our world from just building themselves castles.

Low Gravity Isn't Always A Good Thing

You probably didn't think that comment about horses was foreshadowing, but it was!  Istenaiti, among other things, has 1/10 the gravity of Earth.  Animals can safely grow much larger here, as can trees, and due to the choices we've made throughout the building of this world, the weather is always mild and near-constantly moist.  However, lower gravity means lower friction, and so certain animal designs, such as hooves, don't work anymore.  Even the Llaikan, our version of humans, had to have a few changes to their feet to make sure they didn't go sliding across the grasslands.

Lower gravity, it turns out, also means lower stability of tall structures.  Even if the winds are mild, tall buildings are effectively ten times more sail-like than they would be on Earth.  You can't count on a tall stone structure remaining intact due to its weight, since that weight is a fraction of what it would normally be.

Exactly how tall a building can get depends on the technology used to put it together.  Through our world's Bronze Age, that technology isn't much more complicated than "build until it falls over; the maximum height is one story lower than that."  Based on some napkin-level math, that turns out to be about 15-16 stories tall, depending on how willing you are to make the building look like a pyramid.  This is still taller than buildings got during the early Bronze Age, but it also happens to be the maximum height until well into the Iron Age, when Earth civilizations would start to figure out how to use trusses and such.  When Earth did that, the maximum height shot up to around 500 feet; on Istenaiti, the maximum height doesn't so much as twitch.

And as it happens, magic doesn't do a thing to that number, either.

Limited Acceleration

Now that we've established what magic can't do, let's roll through what magic can do.  We're looking primarily at technologies that our civilization, freshly introduced to the Iron Age, could comprehend.  As mentioned, we'll split it up by magical type:

Earth Magic.  As mentioned, while it might seem like earth magic leads to impossible constructions, the reality is that it mostly leads to much cheaper construction of buildings that could already be found on Earth during the same time period.  Istenaiti's wonders of the world won't be much more wonderful than those of Earth... but there will be a lot more of them, at the very least.

Air Magic.  Perhaps strangely, the science most affected by easily accessible winds and gases is alchemy.  Some folk may believe that "alchemy" doesn't count as science, but those folks simply stopped listening when they heard that alchemists were looking for things like the Philosopher's Stone.  In reality, alchemists were the first really committed chemists and physicists, and a ridiculous amount of scientific progress was based on them doing things like putting a flower pot under a glass jar and weighing the whole thing to try and detect aether.  That's a real example, by the way; it's how we learned about oxygen.  Expect the people of Istenaiti to make similar strides in chemistry and physics around the same time that mages become professionals, and finally have time to figure out what weird varieties of air they can summon.

Fire Magic.  Metal casting, forging, refining, and related fields receive a prompt and massive boost thanks to fire magic.  Effectively, any technology where the barrier to entry is being able to get a material hot enough is brought into reach thanks to enchanted crucibles.  As we already mentioned, this actually slows down certain aspects, such as the discovery of steel, since that relied on contamination from fuel sources to work, and the fuel source of these crucibles is "another dimension."  On the bright side, machinery from the Renaissance clean through to the Industrial Revolution mostly relied on bronze, since it was much easier to cast precisely than iron and steel anyway.  This means that any technology that relied on cogs is likely to be picked up fast- clocks and springs will be a thing relatively quickly. 

Water Magic.  At this point, the level of technology prohibits the coolest aspects of unlimited water from being tapped.  However, quality of life improves drastically with access to water; hygiene shoots way up, as does food safety and cooking.  One really neat use will be figured out by mages in much the same way that the alchemical discoveries above will be figured out: sufficiently high pressure turns water from a liquid into a short-range cutting implement.  The cuts aren't precise enough to use for machinery, but non-earthly construction materials would benefit, and our people finally have something capable of cutting down a tree, even one several times the size of a sequoia.  Of course, by now there are going to be social and religious objections to doing so, but managed growth is possible, and wood is now available for anyone, not just our furry Rontakowa.

Fae Magic.  Being able to manipulate minds leads directly to research on how minds work.  It will take time before real big leaps are possible (medical imaging is necessary), but the beginnings of psychiatry and psychology can occur well before this world's Renaissance.  Another massive boost will be given to the stage; our scaly gladiators, the Siculi, will pretty quickly transition from gladiators to actors and musicians with the aid of magical effects.

Necromantic Magic.  Basic anatomy and medicine, up to and including surgery, are possible thanks to necromantic magic.  Cutting someone open isn't fatal with a necromancer nearby.  However, things like painkillers, germ theory, and microbiology will have to wait.  Not too long; earth magic makes crafting lenses easier, so magnifying glasses and microscopes are going to be possible much earlier than they were on Earth.  Eventually, they'll get good enough to see the little critters covering everyone, and from there it's a matter of time before someone thinks, "Wait, maybe that's not always a good thing?"

Eldritch Magic.  This is the most massive technological boost, though it's quite niche; reconstructive surgery, and especially plastic surgery, will be figured out basically immediately.  The people of Istenaiti will have perfect noses before scalpels are invented, and the at-home liposuction kits will actually work.  There will likely be quite a few side effects, since knowledge of what's necessary for healthy bodily functions isn't there yet, but it's a small price to pay for beauty, right?

Conclusion

The advent of mages leads, roughly, our civilization to jump from the Iron Age to the Renaissance within just a handful of generations.  Rather than an age of social breakdown as the old civilizations crumbled under their own weight, our people will experience a massive explosion of development.  Academies and laboratories produce new magical or technological advances, which are introduced to the market and rapidly disseminated.  Magical use goes from "helpful" to "necessary" for everyday life.  Social backlash is likely, but history demonstrates that such behavior only slows down the boom; nothing will stop it once it starts.

Mages, as mentioned last week, will be the most important people in the world.  Second place, however, will go to farmers, with craftsmen taking a close third.  Even with all of this technology, no significant agricultural advance has occurred; that won't happen until mages figure out nitrogen fixation.  Similarly, even with all the magic available, truly detailed work must be done by hand.  It will take mages quite some time to develop sigils intricate enough to replicate what a single bronzesmith can knock out before lunch.

Next week, we'll take a look at the new world order in some detail.  It probably won't involve the words "god-kings," but just in case, keep your fingers crossed.