I need some help from smart people...

makenzie71

Not a very descriptive subject, I know, but my needs exceed the character limits of subject line anyway...so (raspberry noise).

I'm an aspiring author. Over the last fifteen years I have written a collection of short stories and segments I'm hoping to tie into one solid story. They're only loosely connected, though, and the benefit of a short story over a full novel is that there isn't much world/setting/character development...I need to get me some of that to tie them all together into one coherent "thing". That's where I need your help.

In my stories mankind has lost the ability to create and store electricity. What I'm wanting to know is what the world might look like in 1000 years? What technologies will still exist, and what technologies might have been improved upon?

My primary focus will be how industrial, military, and medical fields are affected.

Of course, it's science fiction, so nothing really has to have any substance behind it...but little tidbits of realistic information always help a story. Ideas supported by reality are just as good as those supported by theory...or even by imagination.

Someone from another forum I'm on suggested I ask here...I really appreciate any help.

Thanks!

lisab

Imagine the year 1010. Could anyone living then have imagined how we'd be living today? No, it would be beyond the capability of even the most brilliant, insightful people living then.

I'm afraid no one today can know how the world will be in 3010. But that's a good thing, it frees you to make it up yourself, create a world that looks any way you like. Make it cool .

Oh and welcome to PF!

CRGreathouse

I think we need more information on "lost the ability to create and store electricity". If humanity was simply reverted to a much earlier point in our technology, then we would advance again in fairly similar fashion (one would imagine) as was done historically. If the reversion was uneven, leaving us with some 1000s-era technology but some 500 BC-era technology, then the progress would depend on the how it was distributed.

If, instead, some magic or McGuffin prevents the use of electricity, then I'd want to know if anything else was affected. (Could we move positrons instead of electrons? Could we use steam? Could we use light?) Also, is the loss sudden or gradual? If humanity can prepare (using electricity) for the electric-less future that might be different than if they could not.

If there is both reversion and electricity-blocking magic, we'd need information on both.

DaveC426913

Some details about this may be salient before we can figure the implications.

First question: Is this simply a plot-device? i.e. you want a world without electricity - how it happened is not important and not known to anyone in the story. (A giant metoerite composed of handwavium makes landfall).

If you want some plausibility to how it happened, you may have to set some conditions on it. Lightning is electrical; so is the human nervous system. If electricity failed unilaterally, it would be ... more than a little inconvenient.

Have humans given up on electricity? Or are there costly efforts to store it? (In the film Quest For Fire, ancient man could not make fire at will, but they did haul around a glowing ember from some lightning strike. It formed the focus of much of their survival efforts and rivalries.)

[EDIT DOh. And here I thought I was first responder...]

rootX

See news articles when we had a big outage on the USA/Canada east coast.

makenzie71

A magic, of sorts. The basis of my "world" is that a big rock hit Earth in the near (to us) future...not a life-ending chunk of stone, but big enough to cause global notice. My original idea was that a compound in the meteorite created an electromagnetic field that had worldwide reach. I've given up on that idea, though, because I have no idea really how electromagnetic fields effect electrical devices. If I could pinpoint a feasible cause, then I'd love to have it, but, for the most part...

If you want some plausibility to how it happened, you may have to set some conditions on it. Lightning is electrical; so is the human nervous system. If electricity failed unilaterally, it would be ... more than a little inconvenient.

Have humans given up on electricity? Or are there costly efforts to store it? (In the film Quest For Fire, ancient man could not make fire at will, but they did haul around a glowing ember from some lightning strike. It formed the focus of much of their survival efforts and a rivalries.)[/QUOTE]

...it's mostly plot-device. The people know of electricity, but cannot produce it. In the stories' settings, it's an unimportant background fact. At some point, though, I want to finish a work about how the world got to that point. It'll be important then...but that's a long time from now.

Those conditions are what stump me...mostly the human nervous system. I've been trying to think of something that would affect the everything from computers to cordless screwdrivers...without pretty much ending all life. I want to find a way to eliminate them from any practical use but doesn't eliminate things like lightening and stuff like a static spark from rubbing your socks on the carpet and things like that. Likely going to just be all the "handwavium" in the atmosphere.

Steam power is still around...and I portray a lot of ground transport being done by steam locomotives and ships. Firearms are around, but they're much simpler. I've even used rockets (solid fuel and fuses).

DaveC426913

omg, I totally just made that up. I swear.

Evo

It is believed that fire caused by lightning is the first time humans experienced fire. Nothing to do with electricity. So throw that out.

DaveC426913

I think you misread that. (It is further confused by the fact that mackenzie misplaced the quotes. I was actually me that said that.)
The "fire" thing was simply an analogy I made for the quest for a "technology", i.e.: ancient man: fire::future man: electricity

The point I was trying to make was that, if his deux ex machina eliminated all electricty, it woiuld also eliminate lightning (inconvenient) and the human nervous system (very inconvenient). So, whatever thing killed electricity would have to be selective.

Evo

*Nevermind*

makenzie71

haha The only real way such a drastic change in technology could happen would be almost utterly dependent on extraterrestrial interference...or the will of God...but whose to say that God wouldn't do it by hitting the Earth with a big rock?

My writing began with a work of fiction I was suppose to conjure up in High School. It was supposed to be a story about how all of mankind achieved peace. It is my belief that the only way the all of Earthly humanity could ever be peaceful "with one another" is if we were forced to unify against a common enemy. To me, the only way that would happen is in an "Independence Day" scenario...aliens come to kill us. The aliens, however, were unfamiliar with nuclear fission and were unprepared to deal with missiles from all over striking their capitol ships. It would be like a three minute long version of every evil alien movie..."oh em gee...there's aliens coming at us with guns! Fire missiles! Roll credits!" 5000 word story.

Everything since has been written off of that...though much further down the line. The aliens' ships were organic and alive...like the shadows/volrons ships in Babylon 5 or the Leviathan in Farscape. Many struck Earth's surface and somehow between the radiation from their engines and the materials they were created from and their effect on the Earth's environment we could no longer produce electricity...

Apparently there's holes in that though....with lightening and nervous systems and all...

makenzie71

What common building materials would we no longer have access to without the use of electricity?

These big 1~2mw wind turbines...how long could one of those things stand and still be spinning if it was in a free-wheeling non-production state?

I'll probably post seemingly random questions like these often...:)

jobyts

Like in the waterworld movie where cigarette and paper are considered precious and use for bribery, you can have some underworld mafia making generator or electric battery as bribe.

DaveC426913

That's what I was getting at. Either electricity is dead, a non-issue - or it is merely extremely precious; two very different scenarios ensue.

Newai

Maybe a range of very advanced nanobots that selected machinery and electrical targets? Conceivable as a kind of military or terrorist-modified weapon gone awry.

I suppose there would be minor creative attempts to sheath some devices in skin. Think cyborg specialists for intervention and attempt to fix the global fallout.

Add a sense of urgency when it's discovered a virus may change their target from mechanical to organic, i.e. humans and animals.

_Tully

So, is the general idea that this is going to be Steampunk, but starting with our current technology/knowledge, instead of Victorian?

BobG

That wouldn't be very good for electrical engineers. They would probably have to invent a new religion that would provide them jobs as televangelists....

.... only to realize they had to invent a new type of device to replace television and radio, as both rely on converting elecromagnetic waves into electrical signals (not to mention most televisions and radios rely on electricity for power).

Communications in general would suffer a huge setback.

Maybe they could find jobs as postmen, doing the pony express thing, and doing local religious services just as a side job.