Science

[valeria]

And while making that locking mechanism they must not forget to appease the machine spiri--oh wait, wrong game.

[Malifaxis]

And while making that locking mechanism they must not forget to appease the machine spiri--oh wait, wrong game.

I hear the Machine Spirit's voice!

[Erythil]

Actually, the 40k analogy works pretty well:

Zalanthas is in the Dark Age of Technology.

Jihaens are space marines.

Lirathans are inquisitors.

Muk Utep is the god-emperor of man.

[Xeran Van Houten]

hahah... no.

[Morrolan]

Upon reflection, perhaps the number one ingredient that is (or should be) missing from Zalanthas that is necessary to develop science is a notion of "progress" akin to the one that developed in the Renaissance and Enlightenment.

A notion that the world can be made a better place for all.  That knowledge is not to gain power, but for its own sake, to be passed on to one's culture.

Without that, there is no science.

[Zoan]

Everyone knows Muk is a Primarch. The Emperor just hasn't come yet to try and recruit him. Tektolnes is probably an agent of Chaos.

[Ghost]

everyone knows

if you are doing science in zalanthas you are wasting your time

you miught as well sneak/hide and watch other peop,e mudsex that is equally (if not more) useful

plus you get to watch mudsex

[HavokBlue]

Upon reflection, perhaps the number one ingredient that is (or should be) missing from Zalanthas that is necessary to develop science is a notion of "progress" akin to the one that developed in the Renaissance and Enlightenment.

A notion that the world can be made a better place for all.  That knowledge is not to gain power, but for its own sake, to be passed on to one's culture.

Without that, there is no science.

I think this is a silly definition of science and a silly reason to say Zalanthas can't/doesn't have it. Plenty of people throughout history have done science entirely to gain power, for their own sake, to destroy other cultures.

[SMuz]

If anything, it seems about the opposite. Dwarves are definitely the type to work very hard at progress. If any dwarf has a focus to build a bow that can shoot 3 arrows at once, it would probably be invented and other people would learn from the process.

[Morrolan]

...necessary to develop science

...done science...

Yes, HB, many people have used science to gain power, etc. etc.

But that was after the basic principles, etc. had been developed.

"Throughout history" happens to mean only three centuries, here.  It wasn't until Newton, Descartes, Pascal, Boyle, and Leibniz that things got going.

It's difficult to think of a world without science and rational experimentation, but the whole idea is new.  Before that, there was a lot of arguing from first principles, reinterpreting the ancient luminaries and using the Bible to make calculations of what was true.  And all that was from cultures where literacy was not punished by death.

Morrolan

[Marc]

...necessary to develop science

...done science...

Yes, HB, many people have used science to gain power, etc. etc.

But that was after the basic principles, etc. had been developed.

"Throughout history" happens to mean only three centuries, here.  It wasn't until Newton, Descartes, Pascal, Boyle, and Leibniz that things got going.

It's difficult to think of a world without science and rational experimentation, but the whole idea is new.  Before that, there was a lot of arguing from first principles, reinterpreting the ancient luminaries and using the Bible to make calculations of what was true.  And all that was from cultures where literacy was not punished by death.

Morrolan

You're turning this into a question of semantics.

Some will argue (I assume this is your arguement) that Science has only been pursued and around since the Scientific Method and the modern disciplines were established.  All the fun 'ologies, chemists, physics etc.  In that way a Zalanthian never could or would pursue learning.  It's alien.  All agreed?       (screw your exceptions.  these are broad strokes.)

But let's exchange the word "science" for "alchemy".  Is our Real-world history a bit longer now?  What if we sub out "science" for our Real-world "magic"?  Archimedes.  Zosimus.  Thomas Aquinas.  Geber.  All tried to find the elixir of life or turn lead into gold or pursue any of untold thousands of scientific endeavors, all before Science was Science.

That said it is a slippery slope.  Really slippery.  How do you make breakthroughs or discover how things work (erroneously or otherwise) without staff intervention?  If your answer is "I dont.  Staff" then you're already messing with a character that will be at the very least frustrating.  What will you be adding to the game world?  If you emote how something reacts to your inputs (adding some ground up rock makes the fire turn green etc.) without a precedent set before, you would be playing god and unilaterally making that choice.  Slippery slope.

There is another topic about astronomy.  Someone suggested someone actually pay attention to the lunar cycles and build a knowledge base that way.  If someone (you?) can figure out how to pursue science in-game using existing code then I say go for it.  If not, maybe special app and get some staff input before rolling ahead?

(none of the above touches on the feasibility of science developing on Zalanthian i.e. lack of writing, no established disciplines [church or otherwise], an abundance of Magick etc.)

[Jdr]

There's plenty of science in Zalanthas, but it's mostly engineering sciences.

[jstorrie]

Everyone knows Muk is a Primarch. The Emperor just hasn't come yet to try and recruit him. Tektolnes is probably an agent of Chaos.

The Rotten King's with the necrons, man. That's why he tries to gem all of the psykers.

Chaos are the Dragonthralls and the kryl are the 'nids.

[Blackisback]

It'd be kind of neat if all of the background mythology turned out to be just that: mythology, and there was a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation for all of the phenomena they and their world experiences.

But I don't necessarily see a problem with making a character who is trying a rudimentary form of science, such as alchemy, astrology, biology, medicine or engineering to name a few. You want it to be something that would fit the period. It'd be kind of odd if Skagmar the Dwarf's focus was to find the Higgs Boson, though subguild Quantum Physicist would be pretty neat. Perhaps Skagmar wants to create a faster wagon, or wants to find out how quickly the moons pass. Subguild Tinkerer could probably get some mileage from a character like that.