United Provinces devopment

Peterz
I think they may get a handful, at most, compressed air factories set up in 5 years
As said, you have to train folk...and train and retrain....

It's a huge jump forward.
They'll need to make pilot.plants purely to teach instructors and inspectors etc
But I doubt it's possible beyond a handful, in such a short time.
They'll need to build factories, to build feed and mechanisms to build enough material for the base of the industrial changes.

Charis will bring in I instructors, precise referent objects for measurements, and crucially, initial machinery like lathes and mills to produce machinery to make machinery to fuel the needs of the province without making them too in debt to Charis and as vital ways for the locals to learn.

Vast numbers of folk will need to be brought up.to speed
They have drive, social acceptance and raw skills
But the jump forward, while maintaining a production enough to supply their own basic needs, is gonna be a huge and lengthy project.
Look at China and Russia and how their leaders screwed up :/
Too.easy to blame."communism!" No. It's much more complex than that.
UP are having the blessing of.allies willing not.to screw them over for short term gain, but invest huge decades long effort to let them advance honourable, healthily, sanely

For years they'll need to have factories advancing a little at a time, sending out trained people to new "next step" factories...rinse repeat.
With the knowledge and planning the inner circle has, this can be done immensely better than ever Earth did!

Well planned, the improvement will be at a sort of geometric rate their society and ecosystems can handle
And yeah, they will be a juggernaut but the rate, being non-linear, should come one day as a sickening realisation, a smack.in the teeth to Waisu, lol!

Oops!.we have factories churning out improved Lee Enfield rifles, etc, so go ahead, invade and get decimated! :p

I find nothing in your post to disagree with. However, it sounds like you think I believe the UP will match Charis' productivity and total production. I don't. I do think that the UP will learn mass production on pneumatic powered assembly lines. They'll learn to use cutting edge measurement tools rather than develop them from scratch. All those craftsmen will be the core group who will manage this new process. Harchong gunsmiths won't have too much to learn with respect to assembling guns. They just have to learn the individual processes for making a gun's components. Their understanding of the overall design of a gun will ease the amount they have to learn.

The same can be said for all other trades; metalsmiths of all stripes, wood workers, weavers, spinners and miners. All these very knowledgeable people need to do is learn how to do their jobs with a much more powerful toolset that facilitates breaking down the processes in more productive ways. These same people are skilled at teaching apprentices. That's another way of saying they can teach workers in the new processes once they themselves learn them.

So, yes, there will only be a handful of manufactories in the UP within 5 years of Cayleb launching the Ahrmahk Plan. As of the end of TFT it has been about 7-8 years of technological development. By the time we rejoin our beloved UPers, we'll be moving into the 10-15 year period. They'll have their own rifle, pistol and bullet assembly lines. They will almost certainly have a plant trying to produce steam automotive (locomotive). Certainly they will produce their own rail cars. That's a hope, skip and jump away from a steam car. Both types of plants will be something Howsmyn would be eager to facilitate with a training cadre paid for by Cayleb's money.

By the end of the next book, the UP will be pushing past Dohlar in their manufacturing technology.

SilverbladeTE wrote:DMcCunney
Yeah Paiytr Wilson was.a major help
Often it's social/prejudice etc that in our history blocked some advances very, very foolishly.

When an unimpeachable authority everyone respects weighs in, some of those obstacles can be eliminated or greatly lessened.

Company my Dad worked at was offered quartz clock movement first iirc, they refused, too new fangled according to the bosses, so the company went to the wall...idiots had also refused investment and upgrades so machinery was out of date and robbed the pension fund so all the higher ups were rich and dandy...left my dad with £36 a month of pension after paying in for over 30 years.

At least he still got a pension. Some folks in circumstances like that are less fortunate.

An SF/F writer I talked to at a US SF con years back told me about the shop his wife worked for. She was Secretary/Treasurer of a union local. But that local was the wholly owned subsidiary of a Mafia family. The books were cooked till they were the consistency of shoe leather. It reached the point where she refused to sign off on their financial reports, because doing so would make her an accessory after the fact to racketeering, bribery, fraud and other charges. The local couldn't simply fire her, because that would lead to questions they wouldn't want to answer, so they did their best to make her working conditions so bad she would quit. I was glad I wasn't a member of that local, who might get a rude shock when he filed a health insurance claim or tried to retire and collect a pension because the money that should have gone to insurance premiums or the pension fund was actually funneled into Mafia family profits.

So, yeah, good.leadership, acceptance of.need for worthwhile changes, honest oversight for standards and safety make colossal difference!

Oh boy, do they.
______
Dennis

DMcCunney
On this side of the Pond thankfully we don't have the gangsters running.unions (idiots often enough but not thugs)

Unfortunately the ancient gangsters left their offspring to bedevil and crook us to this day :p
The noble families left a web of nepotistic inbred wahoos that tend to run or own things one way or another.
More dirty deals and criminality go on in golf course club houses in the UK than all the lairs of every thug and conmen!

I know RFC likes constitutional monarchies and there is something to be said for them, but truth is, most noble families came to.power by folk who today we'd have jailed or sent to asylums.

At most, at VERY most I'd say 1/3rd of companies or any group are adequately run, sigh, think I'm being way too kind on the numbers, lol.

Many folk never lived to get their pensions, apparently.only 3 or 4 lived to their 70s who worked in the radium painting part of that factory and they burned the radium waste out the back....

Yeah having a sensible working environment.is soooooooo nice but alas unusual.

SilverbladeTE wrote:DMcCunney
On this side of the Pond thankfully we don't have the gangsters running.unions (idiots often enough but not thugs)

They don't have to be penetrated by organized crime to be idiots.

A late friend was a long time postal worker, and toward the end of his tenure had become his local's shop steward at the facility where he worked. He finally had enough and quit. He grew tired of representing idiots, and union officers living in a dream world about what they might get out of management. His blood pressure dropped and he slept soundly at night after he quit. Fellow workers were unhappy that he quit, and he just said "I didn't vote for the idiots running the local. If you did, you reap what you sow." (The slate that won the union election was, um, aggressive in its dealings and promised union members things it could not deliver. The problem was that it was stupid enough to think it could.)

I was a union member once. A very much younger me once worked in a warehouse - the sort of crap job you get to make a few bucks while you look for something better. I was a Teamster. (The Teamsters were heavily penetrated by the Mafia. Union President Jimmy Hoffa disappeared, and they never found his body. It was apparently a mob hit, and there were grim jokes about what construction project he was actually buried under. The construction trades were another industry with heavy mob penetration.)

I went to one union meeting, at union local HQ, where our shop steward laid out what we were going for in the new contract. The local HQ was full of pictures of the local's President hob-nobbing with local big shots. The last time there was a union election, the President saw no reason not to use union funds and facilities to promote his bid for reelection, and if there was an opposing slat, I never heard about it. The experience left me cynical about unions in general, but I had to admit the management of the shop I worked for deserved to be Teamster ridden.

Unfortunately the ancient gangsters left their offspring to bedevil and crook us to this day :p
The noble families left a web of nepotistic inbred wahoos that tend to run or own things one way or another.
More dirty deals and criminality go on in golf course club houses in the UK than all the lairs of every thug and conmen!

One thing we haven't seen is a detailed history of the early days of Safehold. The Adams and Eves awakened in the enclaves were all equal. I'd be curious to know about the evolution of nobility, and the development of Emperors, Kings and Princes, with Grand Dukes, Dukes, Earls, and Barons below them.

In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, a secondary character who is a lord in his country is reassuring a protagonist who discovers he is being treated as a lord by the folks in the area he came from, and is taken aback. As far as he's concerned, he's not lord, he's a blacksmith. His mentor tells him "While the current Houses don't like to admit it, the Creator did not create the great Houses. They all had origins in a commoner keeping his head when everyone around him was losing theirs in panic, and providing leadership to deal with whatever the emergency was and reestablish something like peace and stability." Presto! You had a new noble and founder of a line and house.

I suspect something similar on Safehold

I know RFC likes constitutional monarchies and there is something to be said for them, but truth is, most noble families came to.power by folk who today we'd have jailed or sent to asylums.

See above about the development of nobility. Early history of Europe is fascinating. Most of it originated in a local strongman with fighters loyal to him asserting control over an area.
Consolidation gradually occurred, and you had a hierarchy with a King or Prince at the peak.

I lived in Philadelphia (which was once the capital of what became the United States) during the run up to the 1976 Bicentennial Celebration. I was deeply amused to see a poster on a telephone pole saying "200 years was long enough to hold a grudge, and it was time for the colonies to resume their status as members of the British Empire and subjects of the Queen." It laid out the benefits accruing to both sides. The UK would get a huge economic shot in the arm. The US would get the benefit of a couple of millennia of tradition and practice. Governments might rise and fall, but the monarchy would still exist and everyone would still be subjects of her Majesty. I was tickled, and thought you could make a case for it, but I never did discover who was behind the poster.
______
Dennis

PeterZ wrote:So, yes, there will only be a handful of manufactories in the UP within 5 years of Cayleb launching the Ahrmahk Plan. As of the end of TFT it has been about 7-8 years of technological development. By the time we rejoin our beloved UPers, we'll be moving into the 10-15 year period. They'll have their own rifle, pistol and bullet assembly lines. They will almost certainly have a plant trying to produce steam automotive (locomotive). Certainly they will produce their own rail cars. That's a hope, skip and jump away from a steam car. Both types of plants will be something Howsmyn would be eager to facilitate with a training cadre paid for by Cayleb's money.

There's one critical part you've left out, especially when it comes to producing things like steam automotives and rolling stock.

They need the ability to produce their own high quality steel, in quantity. Blast furnaces and foundries will need to exist before they can produce things like steam automotives, rolling stock, and the rails to run them on. Some of that may exist in Boisseau, but I rather doubt there's enough, especially for the really big parts some of that requires. The Armahk Plan can provide financing, and Howsmyn can provide plans and technical assistance, but you don't conjure such things with a snap of the fingers.

It's a reason I think your time frame of UP development is overly optimistic.

By the end of the next book, the UP will be pushing past Dohlar in their manufacturing technology.

Unlikely. Dohlor is already well along in the development the UP needs to undertake, and fully understands why it's needed. (Among other things, it already has fairly substantial domestic steel making capability.) King Rahnyld was well schooled by Earl Thirsk, and will get behind it and push, and Dohlor is established enough that it won't need Armahk Plan help on the financing. Investors elsewhere (starting with Duke Delthak, but he won't be the only one) will pony up the money if Dohlor doesn't have what is needed internally.
______
Dennis

PeterZ wrote:So, yes, there will only be a handful of manufactories in the UP within 5 years of Cayleb launching the Ahrmahk Plan. As of the end of TFT it has been about 7-8 years of technological development. By the time we rejoin our beloved UPers, we'll be moving into the 10-15 year period. They'll have their own rifle, pistol and bullet assembly lines. They will almost certainly have a plant trying to produce steam automotive (locomotive). Certainly they will produce their own rail cars. That's a hope, skip and jump away from a steam car. Both types of plants will be something Howsmyn would be eager to facilitate with a training cadre paid for by Cayleb's money.

DMcCunney wrote:There's one critical part you've left out, especially when it comes to producing things like steam automotives and rolling stock.

They need the ability to produce their own high quality steel, in quantity. Blast furnaces and foundries will need to exist before they can produce things like steam automotives, rolling stock, and the rails to run them on. Some of that may exist in Boisseau, but I rather doubt there's enough, especially for the really big parts some of that requires. The Armahk Plan can provide financing, and Howsmyn can provide plans and technical assistance, but you don't conjure such things with a snap of the fingers.

It's a reason I think your time frame of UP development is overly optimistic.

What makes you think there aren't state of the art steel plants in the UP? I strongly suspect there are. If Duke Delthak was willing to set up steel foundries in South Harchong, he would certainly set up such plant in the United Provinces. Furthermore, there isn't a technology the IC would withhold from the United Provinces for commercial purposes. They won't give them military tech, but will not prevent them from developing military technology.

There is no downside to giving the UP as much non-military tech as they want. The United Provinces has literally no political place to go besides Charis. They have no economic recourse besides partnering with Charis. Finally, the citizens of the UP won't go back to the Church that had forsaken them to the merciless attention of the Harchong aristocrats. They have adopted the Church that gave them life when hell came to Safehold and rampaged all over northern Harchong. They literally have no other place to go. It just so happens that Charis provides a nearly idyllic alternative to any other option.

That means Howsmyn will use the UP to show every other nation on Safehold just what Charisian technology can do when it is adopted totally. Dohlar has their own intransigent aristos that will slow things down. Silkiah will have less, but they will have those elements. The United Provinces will have NONE of them. Well, not enough to mention anyway. That means Howsmyn can establish a state of the art foundry, a state of the art heavy industry manufactory for weapons, heavy tools and steam engines. He can establish them without any of the problems each and every other attempt has run into. No corruption that can't be nipped in the bud. No revanchist elements that has something to lose with the adoption of new techniques. No strong attachment of the current social order to threaten.

The UP is the perfect petri dish of agar to grow the technology germ. That being the case, 5 years after breaking ground on the first foundry/manufactory and there will be a large enough cadre of reeducated craftsmen to begin a handful of new foundries/factories. 10 years after breaking ground and all those foundries/manufactories will be approaching Charisan productivity per man hour. Dohlar won't be nearly as far along because they will have elements that will lose something with each of the required changes. Same with Silkiah to a lesser the degree.

PeterZ wrote:By the end of the next book, the UP will be pushing past Dohlar in their manufacturing technology.

DMcCunney wrote:Unlikely. Dohlor is already well along in the development the UP needs to undertake, and fully understands why it's needed. (Among other things, it already has fairly substantial domestic steel making capability.) King Rahnyld was well schooled by Earl Thirsk, and will get behind it and push, and Dohlor is established enough that it won't need Armahk Plan help on the financing. Investors elsewhere (starting with Duke Delthak, but he won't be the only one) will pony up the money if Dohlor doesn't have what is needed internally.
______
Dennis

As I said Dohlar will have much more to lose with each new required change than the UP. Where almost every UPer will see the new technology as an unadorned opportunity, every other nation of Safehold will see the alternative costs for each change. Those costs will be a variety of complex social and economic negative impacts, but real and painful to enough people to matter. Given the degree that the UP society, government and economics were shattered; those alternative costs are miniscule in comparison. They nothing to lose, so why not? The answer from both the IC and the UPers will be a resounding YES!

On that note I see no reason why Charis wouldn't give the UP military tech as well. True they can always shuttle in guns and ammo by dirigible but the ability to manufacture as least the ammo for those guns on-site would be useful,as I can see the dirigibles being shot at either if war breaks out or some idiot attempting to stop supplies being delivered. As they do have those rockets floating around and them being mass-fired in the general direction of a dirigible, I'd be surprised if they didn't get at least one hit. After all fanatics don't always think about the results of such things.

Michae wrote:On that note I see no reason why Charis wouldn't give the UP military tech as well. True they can always shuttle in guns and ammo by dirigible but the ability to manufacture as least the ammo for those guns on-site would be useful,as I can see the dirigibles being shot at either if war breaks out or some idiot attempting to stop supplies being delivered. As they do have those rockets floating around and them being mass-fired in the general direction of a dirigible, I'd be surprised if they didn't get at least one hit. After all fanatics don't always think about the results of such things.

Some weapon tech, sure.
Smokeless powder...probably not, that's a HUGE game changer if enemies get the tech.

However...for the world to advance everyone needs the ability to.produce dynamite, Charis cannot supply the amounts needed for world industrialization!
So they may have to give other nations the knowledge of nitration chemistry...which eventually leads to TNT and cordite, though it would take many decades to develop stable smokeless propelllants, unless of course, it was stolen by a spy.

Bad enough if enemies get an advanced explosive for shells, far.worse if they get smokeless propellants.
And having Harchong factories producing bullets etc tech theft would eventually become inevitable.
You can bet many spies during the timeframe of Through Fiery Trials would be desperately trying to get smokeless powder info from Charis!

After the Hiaratha sabotage Charisian munitions factories probably have extreme security, over time though, any system fails.
Clyntahn's Rakurai showed everyone a means to.penetrate even Charisian security and you can bet that Mahry's and others are trying to set up tech theft and sabotage teams for the "long run"

Supplying ammo though for the wars to come in decades ahead may force the IC to set up such factories in Harchong though .

DMcCunney
Regarding unions...simple problem is Human Nature.
Humans in groups tend to be moronic arseholes, alas, because the inertia and corruption drag the group towards the lower end of the spectrum
This applies everywhere, sigh.
Hard, ugly brutal fact.
Takes a lot of effort.to reduce that problem and few.really think about it in detail and admit it, or its true menace to our species survival...much easier for folk to blame a group or a "side" rather than the real problem

With the military for example, you have harsh bloody "Darwinism" in action that ends up cleaning some of that out but at great cost, then post-war, it builds up again.
See the grotesque incompetence and stupidity of the first years of both World Wars...ugh.
Idea of shooting a crap load of officers and bureaucrats say around 1933....

In the US, your "robber barons" used thugs and corruption to break Unionism, people were machine gunned for goodness sake and even bombed from the air!
Organized crime infiltration is just icing on the cake...you can add not fixing that to J Edgar the Hypocrite's many crimes, sigh.
And I know gangsters are monsters, oh I do know very well, no matter how "spiffed up" they are, they are obscene scum who degrade and ruin entire communities...definitely need dealt with by "Rule .303"

Our literal barons, lol, used some crooked law but mostly willier propaganda, setting worker against worker and jingoism, we.know that for fact now due to cheques etc the sods used to fund BOTH sides of the vicious, murderous Sectarianism, sigh.
Thus UK had very bitter division of worker vs management which did NO ONE any good long term.

Some German companies were far smarter, either by humane leadership or simple smart pragmatism: having workers on the board defanged the communists, bettered working conditions and improved production!
Win win


Lol, UK and USA joining, had lots of good chats and laughs on that over the years on some forums
Was a shame the Revolution had to happen, but it was absolutely needed, not merely for the Revolutionary side, but for the world, hugely important event.
Benjamin Franklin is one of my heroes

Love the oft posted gag about the Queen telling Americans to use English properly etc

One of my fave alt history series is the superb
STARS AND STRIPES trilogy by Harry Harrison
Smug Victorians getting b*tchslapped by Yankees and Southerners, awesome sauce

Been writing a time travel/alt history story for a while when I'm up to it, about a Scottish military Engineer going back in time to help William Wallace win.
That I think is one of the most crucial points in history things could be changed for the better.
The Normans twisted British law and custom for the worse, so stomping their asses amongst other things, could guide a better outcome.
And as I point out, the real problem was never the "English" it was always our own feckless nobles.