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Technology levels for an idealized Dark Ages society
So, this is prompted by a query on the part of ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aldersprig regarding a thing she's writing for NaNoWriMo. Since she asked on twitter and I suspect it would take me no less than thirty tweets to properly work through this (not to mention it is interesting), here it is.
ASSUMPTIONS
Speculating on how most of these sorts of movements think, I suspect the area to be most drastically cut back would be weaponry and vehicles. No motors. No firearms or explosives. Animal or human-powered vehicles only. They will probably allow the longbow and all forms of archery and projectile weaponry pre-dating it in western European history. Trebuchets are fine. Traditional blade-making methods only.
Any metals or ores that can be smelted via 11th century or earlier techniques are probably fine.
They will have animal-pulled plows but no hay balers. Sickles, scythes, and if it exists, some sort of animal-drawn harvesting cutty thing would probably be okay. Crops will need to be sown by hand. Hand-milking, slaughtering and butchering, of course. (I suspect the inability of the agricultural technology and methods to support current populations is irrelevant and they probably think there are too many people anyway.) Oh! Irrigation. Pre-Enlightenment irrigation techniques. I don't know what they are.
Wind mills and water wheels are fine. Conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy is not.
I was thinking they would probably keep compass technology, possibly gyroscopes, wooden ship-building, and sextants for navigation and long-distance travel, but on reflecting realized that making navigational exceptions runs counter to what I judge to be their ideologies of returning to a "simpler life". So the gyroscope is out, and any compass tech won't be more advanced than a lodestone that points north.
No time-keeping devices more advanced than a sundial.
Nothing resembling a postal system.
Candles, torches, no gas lamps. Pre-12th century construction techniques and technology only. They will probably be attempting to/have acquired apprenticeships or even the master therein of the rapidly-dying art of medieval masonry. Pottery is, of course, fine.
I think that is pretty much everything?
aldersprig regarding a thing she's writing for NaNoWriMo. Since she asked on twitter and I suspect it would take me no less than thirty tweets to properly work through this (not to mention it is interesting), here it is.ASSUMPTIONS
- The "dark ages" are post-Roman Empire, pre-HRE. I'm using 600 C.E. as a rough target point.
- They want to keep modern medical knowledge and technology for anything that wouldn't have been effectively treated at that time (i.e. most everything) because "everyone dies of diseases and accidents" is not a part of an idealized return to a "simpler time". ...well, where said technology doesn't involve things like running water and electricity. So medicines and stuff, basically.
- Desired political structure is feudal in nature and not theocratic (even surreptitiously).
- The people deciding what to keep/use or not keep/use in this retrograde society are fanatics of questionable rationality.
Speculating on how most of these sorts of movements think, I suspect the area to be most drastically cut back would be weaponry and vehicles. No motors. No firearms or explosives. Animal or human-powered vehicles only. They will probably allow the longbow and all forms of archery and projectile weaponry pre-dating it in western European history. Trebuchets are fine. Traditional blade-making methods only.
Any metals or ores that can be smelted via 11th century or earlier techniques are probably fine.
They will have animal-pulled plows but no hay balers. Sickles, scythes, and if it exists, some sort of animal-drawn harvesting cutty thing would probably be okay. Crops will need to be sown by hand. Hand-milking, slaughtering and butchering, of course. (I suspect the inability of the agricultural technology and methods to support current populations is irrelevant and they probably think there are too many people anyway.) Oh! Irrigation. Pre-Enlightenment irrigation techniques. I don't know what they are.
Wind mills and water wheels are fine. Conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy is not.
I was thinking they would probably keep compass technology, possibly gyroscopes, wooden ship-building, and sextants for navigation and long-distance travel, but on reflecting realized that making navigational exceptions runs counter to what I judge to be their ideologies of returning to a "simpler life". So the gyroscope is out, and any compass tech won't be more advanced than a lodestone that points north.
No time-keeping devices more advanced than a sundial.
Nothing resembling a postal system.
Candles, torches, no gas lamps. Pre-12th century construction techniques and technology only. They will probably be attempting to/have acquired apprenticeships or even the master therein of the rapidly-dying art of medieval masonry. Pottery is, of course, fine.
I think that is pretty much everything?
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