Thoughts on Technology

Ok first of all, if there's a better place for this I'd be happy enough if it were moved to a more appropriate forum. I chose to start it in crafting because of the question of how technology could be involved in crafting and what technology could be crafted. This is also the question I'd like to explore here with some discussion.

I've been thinking about this a bit lately about how technology could fit in Sota, how it might generate a force shield around a city, what the power source might be and how closely related SotA is to Ultima and here's what I've come up with.

There is one substance in Ultima that if technology would to evolve it would likely be from this source: Blackrock.

If you consider how blackrock behaves in Ultima it appears to be a kind of conductor for ethereal energy. The blackrock sword was needed to be fused with a magical gem to house a demon (I forget his name). Then later used to chanel the fractured soul of the chaos serpent in SI.

Blackrock was used to construct gates between worlds similiar to moongates. This was significant in U7 with the guardian and again in SI for the Wall of Lights which was essentially a massive interplanetary gateway activated by a blackrock serpent style key.

U7 had the 3 blackrock generators.. one disrupting the flow of ether, one for the guardian to communicate to his followers from another world.. I forget what the 3rd one did.

Blackrock was unstable when subjected to ethereal energy (magic) presumably of an incompatible "frequency" or however you want to think of it.

So my thinking is that blackrock (or named something else in SotA) would be a material through which ethereal energy could be channeled in a more technological way. Which could explain the source of the enormous amount of power needed for a city wide force field. The power source being the ether, channeled through a blackrock based device.

Another question I've been pondering on tech is this: Is technology available on a smaller scale? Consider the evolution of computers. It used to be that computers filled an entire room and were about as powerful as a pocket calculator. So at what stage is this emerging technology? How small could technological devices be? How available are they?

We know there's a large scale force field generator and a small, portable personalized one would not likely be available. But could we say.. install a force shield in a doorway?

What kind of devices could we craft with this tech that would be appropriate? (Now we already know RG doesn't want firearms so ray guns ala Martian Dreams aren't very likely either). However, magical fields of various types are common in Ultimas. So this option seems feasible in keeping with the Ultima style.

There was blackrock weapons and armor.

A further thought occurs that perhaps this material should have a foil. Players of U7 will recall the blackrock generators had a sonic defense.. the way around that was to have helms made out of another special ore harvested from a metorite to block out the sound. So perhaps this could be a sort of anti-blackrock material.

These were essentially the only two mythical minerals in Ultimas that I'm aware of.

I'd like to hear some thoughts on the subject. Particularly as they pertain to craftables.

 

In Underworld II, there was a metal called fraznium that allowed wearers to penetrate force fields created by Blackrock magic. This is how you rescued Bishop from his cell.

As far as other mythical minerals in Ultima, there is Valorite and Verite in Ultima Online and Lord of Ultima (purple and blue hued metal), Agapite in UO (tannish, if I remember), and Veritium in LoU (purified iron). Other magical materials are Bloodwood, Heartwood, and Frostwood in UO, and Darkwood in LoU. Plus the many reagents.

 

@Browncoat, Serpent Isle also has a mineral called Stoneheart which is used to create a reagent.