|
Sextant
Apr 30, 2021 17:00:06 GMT -5
Post by boot on Apr 30, 2021 17:00:06 GMT -5
Is a sextant too sophisticated for the Hyborian Age? Or do you think it is in use along the coast? In the Vilayet?
A side question: Where to you think the technology is on ships? More like ancient Greece, with biremes and such? Or, more like the Medieval ships of the 1300's?
|
|
Owen
Wanderer
Posts: 24
|
Sextant
Apr 30, 2021 20:59:33 GMT -5
Post by Owen on Apr 30, 2021 20:59:33 GMT -5
Is a sextant too sophisticated for the Hyborian Age? Or do you think it is in use along the coast? In the Vilayet? A side question: Where to you think the technology is on ships? More like ancient Greece, with biremes and such? Or, more like the Medieval ships of the 1300's? That's a really interesting question. Hopefully an engineer could weigh in on whether the metallurgical technology would have existed at that period for something like that at that time. But without anything specific to back it up, my guess is that a sextant, being a double-mirrored device of modern origin, would be possible but not necessarily probable that it would have been independently invented. But the mathematical and geometric principles would certainly have been well understood. So I wouldn't doubt that something equally sophisticated could have been devised in the Hyborian Age. Maybe a backstaff or something operating on simpler principles might be more straightforward. As to the second question, depending on how authoritative you consider it, the pastiche novel by Poul Anderson (whose work is pretty well researched generally) Conan the Rebel mentions that Belit stole a felucca when she escape from Stygia.
|
|
|
Sextant
Apr 30, 2021 21:33:40 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Char-Vell on Apr 30, 2021 21:33:40 GMT -5
I'd say sextants and 17th century style ships could exist in the Hyborian age as technology that was discovered then forgotten.
|
|
|
Sextant
Apr 30, 2021 21:44:14 GMT -5
Post by boot on Apr 30, 2021 21:44:14 GMT -5
My impression is that navigation too far off the coast is not usually done. Sure, there are known islands, like the Barachans, but even those really aren't too far off of Zingara's coast line. I wonder if this is a result of having no where to go--so why risk deep sea? Or, if its a matter of navigation technology. That reminds me of the first season of Vikings when Ragnar showed his clansmen the new method of navigating--something that took him to the northern territories and Dark Age Britain. Ships seem to stay fairly close to the coast, I would say. But, I'm ready to be disputed!
|
|
|
Post by zarono on May 1, 2021 9:47:39 GMT -5
Something like a sextant is entirely possible in the Hyborian kingdoms but I don't think it is in widespread use or availability, but advanced navigation and the tools to perform it must have been a pretty well developed and prized skill take this from The Black Stranger: They're scared stiff. There's only half a dozen of them, and not one can navigate well enough to sail from here to the Barachan Isles. There are pockets of isolated high tech remnants in the Hyborian Age like the city in Red Nails so who knows how much of that tech made it's way into other civilizations of the time. Also consider the real world Antikythera Mechanism: www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-research-illuminates-how-antikythera-mechanism-first-computer-may-have-functioned-180977257/But as always the barbarians eventually win and everything gets pushed back to the stone age.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Sextant
May 6, 2021 19:44:31 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 6, 2021 19:44:31 GMT -5
Is a sextant too sophisticated for the Hyborian Age? Or do you think it is in use along the coast? In the Vilayet? A side question: Where to you think the technology is on ships? More like ancient Greece, with biremes and such? Or, more like the Medieval ships of the 1300's?
I think the Sextant can be worked into the Hyborian world by imagining that it was technology that was later lost. For the ships though, I get the impression that they never went far from shore from Howard's writing, though the ship in The Black Stranger does seem to be more advanced. I don't believe humans went very far from shore until the Caravel in the 15th century so I would go with more Roman style ships for the most part.
|
|
|
Sextant
May 19, 2021 13:11:14 GMT -5
Post by kobeck on May 19, 2021 13:11:14 GMT -5
the world was the Mediterranean for the Greeks and Romans as far as sailing. Never that far out but can get beyond site of shore. Seems a good fit to me
|
|