Help Wanted: Hypothetical Time

[Malloriel]

Looking for some perspective on a few ideas that have been swimming around my head. Some hypothetical situations that could never be realities, but which create a plethora of interesting possibilities from a literary/alternative history stand point. Now, there are SEVERAL questions, some in parts, and I by no means expect anyone to comment on every single point, but I crave a discussion, an exchange of theories and ideas that I just can't find anywhere else, so if one of my questions really gets your mind going enough to inspire a contribution, I'd love to see what you have to say. I just find these so juicy and brain-churning as concepts, I couldn't help but seek perspectives outside of my own. But enough of my prattling on.


It's Hypothetical Time!


---


1) If Rome had never ultimately destroyed all that had been Carthage, what might some of the wide-spread ramifications be?

1.a) If Carthage had won and retained Sicily to cement its influence in the Mediterranean as an unbeatable naval and trade power, would Rome have had enough clout and influence behind it (without Carthaginian technology reverse engineered) to have spread as widely throughout Europe as it did?

1.b) What if Rome never gained the power necessary to have conquered Alba?

2) If England hadn't rejected nearly all things Roman in the wake of their occupation, might the presence of the Black Plague have been lessened?

2.a) If England hadn't rejected nearly all things Roman in the wake of their occupation, what might they have retained, and how might that change the face of Modern England?

3) What if the British colonists never revolted?

4) What if Jesus and Christianity never appeared?

4.a) How would the absence of Christianity have affected development in the rest of the world? (For instance, the Renaissance was marked heavily by the presence of the Catholic church, which would not exist in this scenario, but which in reality influenced much of the art coming out of this period. Assuming that such people as the Medici would still have existed --whether in the form of the Medici, or as another similar family--, would the Renaissance have even occurred? Following the path of Christianity, from it's approximate inception throughout history to see what sorts of things it has influenced, what would have remained untouched? What might have filled the void?)

5) Scenario:
Magic exists, and has existed throughout human history. This is not new, nor a novelty, but a genetic fact as obvious as breathing, balance, and sight. An individual's strengths and talents are as varied as their aptitude for wood working, sports, opera, or rocket science, however within this pool of magic, anything can be done/created/manipulated/destroyed/transformed given the right players in the right places, from light that doesn't require the presence of electricity to airships (like those in Stardust, but probably also lacking the electricity in the "we catches it" way).

Questions:
A) What conveniences are we as humans likely to replicate for our Modern Era by using magical means?

B) What might we lose or never think to develop?

C) What might war look like?

D) What conveniences/technologies might arise that DON'T rely on magic, or only rely on it in small part?

E) What do you consider to be essential in your modern life that could be replaced by elemental or magical means?

6) What from the past would make the modern world better, in your opinion, and why?



---

That's the majority of what's been kicking around my head lately. I just thought I'd put it out there to see what other opinions and perspectives might be. I don't know if I'm going anywhere with the concepts just yet, but I think they bear exploring, and, again, I'd love to have a discussion about them.

 

[J Riff]

Balloons. people would ride around in balloon homes.
War would start with the people who tried to corner the magic market, and it would be just like in The Raven, where people sit in chairs and hurl spells at each other, but no-one gets hurt.

 

[Toby Frost]

I suspect the answer comes down to pretty much "Whatever you want and can explain to a reasonably convincing level". The trouble is that societies change naturally anyhow, and hence, say, the British Empire of 1910 was very different to that of 1750. And that's without magic. I suspect the end result would be many things, but it wouldn't be just Caesar with a car casting spells.

(On a separate note I wonder if the alternate history and magic might be a bit too much, but I'm not sure on that).

SM Stirling (not the best guide for alternative history overall) makes this mistake in his otherwise good novel The Peshawar Lancers. Because Germany is wrecked by natural events, he assumes that empirical science never evolves, and hence the internal combustion engine is never developed properly. It might be delayed, or to have come about via some other way, but humans are humans, and so it's pretty certain that science would have become empirical some other way in the period before the book begins.

 

[The Judge]

The Catholic church clearly pressed heavily upon all aspects of culture in the Italy of 14-16th centuries, but I would categorise the Renaissance as being a movement away from the medievalism of the-then church and towards humanism -- probably the first step towards the present day secularisation of the West. The thinkers, writers and artists of the day -- and bankers and politicians such as Lorenzo de' Medici -- were looking to the classical, pre-Christian, world of the Greeks and Romans. Michaelangelo's statue may be called David but his form is that of any of the classical statues of the gods/heroes. In art, the old heirarchical idea of ascribing size to the importance of the figure -- which albeit not itself a Christian idea was certainly whole-heartedly embraced by painters of the saints and madonnas -- is overtaken by perspective, almost literally a different way of looking at the world and the relationships of objects/people within it.

So my feeling is that if the classical world had existed, but knowledge of it had been lost for centuries and then rediscovered, we would have had much the same flowering of art as existed in the Renaissance. It would have found different patrons, and different subjects, but it would still have happened.


I have to say I'm a bit puzzled by the "If England hadn't rejected nearly all things Roman in the wake of their occupation". I'm no expert, but my understanding is that far from being rejected, Roman ideas and structures were kept in place for some considerable time. The buildings themselves may have crumbled as centuries passed, but the cities the Romans founded remained, which surely wouldn't have been the case if there had been wide-spread revulsion and antagonism.

 

[alchemist]

4) I suspect western Europe would be largely Muslim.

5) Certain magical abilities would be passed through the genes, like height, musical ability, good looks. Society would be based on a hierarchy according to magical abilities. A magic-poor underclass would develop, always on the edge of revolt, with only superior wit with which to fight.
A "scientific" magic (with an explanation for its existence) has its limits ie. law of conservation of magic, so novel abilities will be prized, and the military will always be looking out to steal/develop new abilities.

 

[chopper]

agree with alchemist on number 4. and that, from a science point of view, might not be a bad thing given the evidence of places like Cordoba and the grand mosque there (see first episode of Andrew Graham Dixon's Art of Spain (BBC) for further examples). the caliphates were also very given to mathematics, so you might find a certain art-science interface rising to the fore rather than an art-led renaissence.

 

[chrispenycate]

With alternative history you can only continue a few years, perchance a few decades beyond the cusp point before nothing is recognisable any more. Works like Turtledove's "Darkness" series (the second world war with inverted geography and working magic) are convergent evolution, not divergence at a split point. The renaissance was born from the fall of Byzantium. and the arrival, with the refugees, of huge quantities of Greek philosophy and technology. Without Christianity as spur and opponent, would Islam have developed in any recognisable fashion? Would the eastern Roman empire, famous for its religious controversy, even have attempted to resist the invading hordes?

Now the cusp point for magic over technology lies much further back. Would it even have been worth, in a world where anything can be done by force of will (or demon control, or whatever) developing agriculture? Metalworking, architecture? Think what percentage of the human race worked the land until a century ago, and consider; if any peasant in his draught-proofed, heated pile of stick can conjure up a three course meal just by learning the correct cantrip, what need for a society beyond family level at all?

"Ah no," I hear you protest "it wouldn't be that easy, at all."

So, powerful magicians would enchant, effectively enslave, the population of non-magicians to do all the essential scut work, and become an aristocracy indistinguishable from the birth and church one OTL. Hierarchies of magical ability might make it easier for the noble ******* who had inherited the talent to advance and be recognised, but, judging by experience OTL (our time line, the one I'm writing in) I wouldn't expect too much. Birth is more important than talent, generally, at least until society had considerable disposable income and had come into contact with races it could consider inferior to any of its own citizens – always assuming that the "city", the conurbation, was the successful way to develop for such a society, rather than widespread kernels of individual power, jealous of any influence from outside and without the advantages that a concentrated artisan base gives for compressing population together when you have specialised masons, carpenters, smiths and merchants. Simplify communication and transport and all your sums come out different. Make forging a sword less work, and more reliable, than summoning it from nowhere, and your society swerves much closer to the one we know. (Smiths were often considered to have magic, but it was a very muscular, physical one.)

But most of the presents of technology – mobile phones, airliners, anaesthetics) have been developed because people wanted them, and alternative uses of resources rejected, and I would expect many of the same results from a long-term magic using society. Merely different means.

 

[TacticalLoco]

4) I suspect western Europe would be largely Muslim.

5) Certain magical abilities would be passed through the genes, like height, musical ability, good looks. Society would be based on a hierarchy according to magical abilities. A magic-poor underclass would develop, always on the edge of revolt, with only superior wit with which to fight.
A "scientific" magic (with an explanation for its existence) has its limits ie. law of conservation of magic, so novel abilities will be prized, and the military will always be looking out to steal/develop new abilities.

Many fantasy role players have dabbled in recreating tech devices (even space scraft) using only magic.
While this strikes me as a good settings for a story, I wonder...
Assuming the basic physical laws stay the same, only plus magic laws,
would that magic-poor underclass begin to devolop technology out of sheer self-defense?

 

[Malloriel]

I wanted to put my foot in for a second to assure that as the OP of this thread I have not vanished into the aethers of the interwebs, abandoning my questions as soon as I hit "post". I'm simultaneously absorbing the perspectives thus far offered, and swimming in a vicodin haze (which has, as I write this, veered violently toward vertigo [A+ on the alliteration, I say]) to keep the "just had my wisdom teeth pulled this morning" pain at bay, which makes additional contribution sit on the far side of the room where it won't even meet my gaze directly. In any case, I appreciate what has been offered, and hope to encourage more.