Thread replies: 2
Thread images: 2
Thread images: 2
Anonymous
Idea for justifying mechs, armies, and stagnation, in a fantasy setting 2017-08-23 04:32:05 Post No. 55023115
[Report] Image search: [Google]
Idea for justifying mechs, armies, and stagnation, in a fantasy setting 2017-08-23 04:32:05 Post No. 55023115
[Report] Image search: [Google]
File: MechManual_Cover_finalcopy_sm.preview.jpg (199KB, 484x640px) Image search:
[Google]
199KB, 484x640px
Idea for justifying mechs, armies, and stagnation, in a fantasy setting
Anonymous
2017-08-23 04:32:05
Post No. 55023115
[Report]
OK hear me out, but the fantasy mech thread we just had combined with recently playing Arcanum got me thinking. I believe most of you will agree with the following 3 points, but I have a way for them to solve each other.
1) Mechs, especially humanoid ones are fucking retardedly inefficient and overcomplicated for what they do.
2) When wizards and their fireballs exist in a setting, the traditional view of fantasy armies forming ranks and marching in formation is suicidal, as a single spell could decimate your army.
3) Fantasy settings never seem to advance technologically, despite their being incentive to do so. Small inventions appear but they never get adopted to move everyone forward.
My idea is to take the how magic and technology interact (or don't) from Arcanum. Magic bends and breaks natural laws and so fucks with nearby technology. Technology uses and reinforces natural laws and so fucks with nearby magic. Whichever is more powerful tends to suppress the other.
Say technology suppressing magic was based almost solely on its complexity? At first you might have early leaders with a wooden contraption which has a lot of moving parts when you turn the handle, giving themselves some protection. Eventually you get complicated probably wind, animal, and at some point steam gizmos that are complex enough to suppress magic that could harm nearby troops. Perhaps you get weird music boxes in your marching band that prevent fireballs exploding that column.
Eventually people want to use the mechanical devices to actually fight in combat, but for the most part things that kill effectively are simple. Even making a steam powered cart the cart is simple enough to be fireballed, even if the steam engine is still running fine in the crater afterwords.
>>
File: dragon_mech_cover_6372.jpg (121KB, 250x360px) Image search:
[Google]
121KB, 250x360px
Enter battlemechs ala Dragonmech. Absolutely, completely, and absurdly overcomplicated humanoid mechs. Which is perfect for what the setting wants. They don't want efficiency. They want complexity. They don't progress into electricity because going from a walking armored babbage engine to a light bulb is a severe step down in complexity.
Knights in the setting become mech pilots, with their castles holding a mech stable. Armies march with their mechs knowing them to be safe from enemy spellcasters, but spellcasters are still present in the army for when the enemy mechs go down.
Mechs and infantry fight mechs.
Infantry and cavalry fight wizards.
Wizards win when the mechs are destroyed.
You need something beyond just mechs and or wizards to ensure it isn't just unstoppable force/immovable object or a fair fight.
Mechs are justified specifically because of their retardedness.
Traditional fantasy armies still get to go at it and be recognizable as such despite wizards.
Technology doesn't advance because progress is focused on complexity not improving.
And you can even avoid guns if you're somehow fine with mechs but not guns, because they're fairly simple compared to a compound bow. As with electrical stuff, the precision (relatively) equipment desired to make them might be complex, but the actual items themselves are not.
To explain why biomachinery aka life doesn't have the Supressor effect maybe it's just complicated moving metal that does it? Or perhaps chemical complexity doesn't count, only mechanical, further suppressing advancement.
And obviously the physical laws of the setting would have to be different from our to allow mechs, but hey there's already magic. My point was to provide a reason for mechs that wouldn't equally benefit any more reasonable option.
Thoughts?
Thread posts: 2
Thread images: 2
Thread images: 2