Technology

Technology In Thrace

Because Victor Spear was a librarian and focused on the written word, there is excellent writing technology. This includes technology for organizing books and records. Victor Spear is not a musician so he has had his scholars work on music, but does not understand it. There is both papyrus, parchment, and early rag paper.

The presence of written technology is interesting. There is both wood block printing and a form of rolling printing press using stone and metal from Ur. Technology for posters, wood block printing, seals, and the codex are being used. Scrolls and books exist at the same time because of the different levels of technology by the different authors.

There is also excellent organizational technology including basic alphabetization, a Universal Decimal Classification, map cases and rooms, and record keeping. Abdera and Oak have extensive printing industries.

His obsession is to search for the written word. There is a tax on books and knowledge with the right to copy books as a tax in the Nestos League.

There is a focus on low technology initially. Many things like the pot in pot refrigerator, the olla, clay baked with copper, bricks, clay pipes, and other technology were developed. Because low technology is associated with composting, organic gardening, and handicrafts, these developed much more quickly than more complex technologies. Thus, things like spinning wheels, potters wheels, nalbinding, wagons, fishing poles, and other hand made machines were built much more quickly than large complex machinery. One of the odd obsessions of low technology is bicycle machines. He worked on designing simple one wheeled bicycle machinery for lathes, spinning, and other activities.

Over time this changed, with bamboo, case hardened iron, and contact with Sumeria, the Imperium of Man, and Crimea, the bicycle machines became more complex. From studying the tools of the Imperium of Man, a greater variety of bicycle machines were created with new functions like hammering, crushing rock, threshing, mixing paints and chemicals and more complex activities.

With contact with Egypt and Mesopotamia, upright looms were introduced. These eventually gained foot pedals. The weavers from Egypt and Mesopotamia created more complex foot pedal mechanisms based on the bicycle machine which allowed for easier raising and lowering of threads moving threads left and right for weaving. Egyptian weavers who handled royal linens taught fine weaving in the Towers of the Learning allowing for pleated and sheer linen to be created.

During the war in Sumeria between Ur and Uruk, Luther introduced water powered machinery. This water powered machinery traveled with iron to reach the league. There water powered rock crushers, saws for wood and stone, bellows for furnaces, mills, and other machinery were introduced. Contact with Crimea introduced the first wind mills for grinding grain.

With the recent changes and competition with the Imperium of Man, some of the bicycle machines have been switched over to water power using a simplified turbine with spoons to power the bicycle machines.

Also, Victor Spear had an interest in gardening. This extended to include a variety of organic type activities like forest gardening, mushroom gardening, complementary insects and plants, fish ponds, growing papyrus, and similar activities. As time passed he sent out people to seek plants and animals which he had an idea about to add to his growing variety of herbs, spices, and plants which were used for trade. This interest in gardening has expanded to creating greenhouses. Eventually, it will lead to the creation of heated greenhouses for winter crops, and salt water greenhouses to study water purification and marine life.

The interest in gardening also led to an interest by some of the scholars in more than just plants. The scholars visited the menageries in Heliopolis and there is a zoo and a place to study animals not far from Oak. A variety of unusual animals are kept at the zoo including Wisents, African Forest Elephants, hyenas, domestic cats, and other animals.

Early on he figured out that he would not be able to do many things unless he sought out technology from other places. One of his first activities was to send out people to seek technology from Mesopotamia, the Aegean, the Cyclades, Troy, and Egypt. Things like faience, cosmetics, medicine, carpentry and other things which had not fully developed in Oak and he could not teach. He used his knowledge of gardening, trade goods, and the wealth of Thrace to acquire new technology.

Through the Scholar Translation committee, the Nestos League has acquired a great deal of technology. This includes glass blowing from Aksum, lenses from Uruk, heavy bond paper from Crimea, basic "mixing' theory, drilling technology, purifying salt, and making kerosene from Gdansk, fire setting from Egypt, knowledge of herbalism from Harappa as well as making pools.

Also, knolwedge has been acquired through trade. The Weavers Association from Crimea is in The Nestos League as well as the Farmers Association. In Uruk, the library of Uruk is slowly being copied and transferred to Anbar, a city across from Oak. There, a new library focused on acquired knowledge is being build.

It is not just machinery which he focuses. He also focuses on creating new things through a Formulary where recipes for industrial activities like making cosmetics, distillation, and other activities are kept. The Formulary also has a place where they store and study the ingredients of the world around them. The mixers are slowly learning the composition of the world.

Realizing he will never be able to compete completely with the Imperium of Man, he is also studying unusual areas of knowledge like the sea, currents on the ocean, geology, and similar activities. This includes the recent introduction of the barrel bell for diving and studying the sea.