Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

[austenandrews]

Steampunk goes here, right?

 

I'm tinkering with a post-American Civil War steampunk setting. One idea I'm toying with is that the Maya had highly developed their stone technology and spread north. After their civilization fell, they left various pyramids, ruins and stone machines across the Old West, some of which are now used by various Indian tribes against the encroaching Europeans.

 

What I haven't settled on is a basis from which to develop these stone mechanisms. My initial thought was to have huge pyramids with various types of fortifications that could hold relatively well against cannon, airships and steam-powered war machines (like locomotive mechs). Since it's pulpy steampunk, I want the mechanisms to be big and impressive - massive stone walls rumbling into place, that kind of thing. But I have to answer several big questions first:

 

- How could the Maya, with wheelless stone technology, move huge stones around as part of a standing mechanism?

 

- How could such technology survive in (reasonably) working order after being abandoned for several centuries?

 

- How would 19th-century war chiefs effectively employ them against a steam-powered army?

 

I have a few notions brewing in my head, but I'd like to get some fresh ideas before I bias the discussion with my own.

 

So, ideas?

[Cancer]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

Stone technology works great for one-shot traps, but repeating mechanisms are much harder, wheel or no.

 

You can, with levers and counterweights, move some pretty big stuff without wheels. If their strongholds are in locations which can only be approached from one direction, the approach route could be heavily trapped with things of army-stopping magnitude. Drop-out traps a city block in size, for example.

 

It's well-known the Maya made no use of the wheel. They also don't seem to have done much with hydraulics ... aqueducts, cisterns, irrigation, canals ... but that is an alternative wheel-less technology that can work with stone, and since it is not so frequently acknowledged you might be able to appeal to that.

 

The Mayas had the bow, of course. I know of no evidence that they scaled it up beyond the simple bow, but you can appeal to this, also, with lever-cocked (rather than windlass-cocked) ballista-type devices. Lethality of simple bows can be jacked up by appealing to tropical-origin venom on the points. Won't stop a steam war wagon, but it'll stop infantry.

[Steve Long]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

I'm no engineer, but could primitive hydraulics factor in somehow? You can move a lot of weight with properly-channeled water.

[tgrandjean]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

Well personally, I'd just gloss over the how of how these things work. This is Pulp! For all that it matters you could have some sort of smoking obsidian heart with a water reserve (primitive steam energy with a wierd heat source). For movement, why not have some sort of walking tanks with steam propelled projectiles, rapid-firing arrows, even a sort of primitive cannonballs?

As for how they survived 1) obviously these weapons were hidden. The ones that were destroyed in battle were legendary and hidden when the jungle reclaimed them. 2) constructed of stone, gold, and crystal (why not? It's valuable and gives good incentive to fight these monsters).

[Mentor]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

What about using a stone screw, which is just a variation on an inclined plane, and we know the Mayas had ramps. I have visited Chichen Itza and would be willing to credit the Mayas or any similar culture with the ability to design and construct nearly any stone and wood mechanism using ratchets and planes.

 

IIRC, there is an artifact from the Incas, who also didn't commonly use the wheel, of a stone alligator to with wheels. Maybe they were better at telekinesis an didn't need wheels.

[Savinien]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

First thought is telekinesis, but it looks like your wanting to go tech with this.

 

Then, with the disclaimer I know nothing about pyshics, I would guess some sor to balance and counter-weight tech that moves large structures with a lot of man-power.

 

Maybe make the structures with massive multipede-like legs that move up and down with the connection of a counter-weight and then disengaging that to connect another. Doesn't sound feasible until you have literaly thousands of these moving diametrically opposed to a thousand others.

 

The fortificication would crawl, but it would be a damn impressive scene to see (read) about.

 

This an online game? (hope beyond hopes)

[austenandrews]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

Lots of great ideas here!

 

My thematic concept is that the Maya were just as advanced with their stone tech (compared to real-world Mayan tech) as 19th-century steampunk engineers are with their steam tech (compared to real-world steam tech). My initial thought also was to use water (you're correct, Cancer, that the lack of water power is not as "iconic" for the Mayans as the lack of wheels & tool-grade metals). Imagine a pyramid the size of a small mountain that houses a reservoir or series of cisterns near the top (under cover, of course) to collect rainwater. Large amounts of water can easily push heavy blocks, and stone cisterns won't degrade over a few hundred years; so we've got a power source that can be activated by other tribes centuries later. But how to translate that into a "machine?"

 

I had thought of somehow floating large stones, but wooden floats would have rotted away by the 19th century and even pumice loses buoyancy over time. Besides which, the sheer weight of these massive stones limits floating considerably (you don't want to know how much pumice is required to float a two-ton block!).

 

Running water can be used to slide stones along inclined grooves. That's a cool image, though it doesn't suggest any "reset mechanism." And even smooth, precisely-carved surfaces will abrade quickly under several tons of pressure. What I want are not just one-shot stone devices, but stone mechanisms built for indefinite reuse.

 

That's where everyone's mention of hydraulics sounds like the answer I'm looking for. It's brilliant! Pump water through conduits bored in solid stone and you can move great weights, with a machine that could withstand millennia of disuse.

 

Imagine inside the pyramid, near the summit, a shaft bored down through huge blocks of stone. Say the shaft drops a hundred feet. At the bottom it angles off and then turns up again. That's our hydraulic tube. Beside the top of the shaft, we rest a heavy stone cylinder of the same diameter. Now fill the shaft with water and drop the cylinder inside. That's going to deliver one serious burst of power at the other end! Enough to push a thick stone wall or door up from a groove in the floor, or squash the floor into the ceiling, or launch a stone "cannonball" quite a distance. And a big advantage is that the weight of the heavy stones is carried by the water itself, so abrasion between components is greatly reduced.

 

You can undo the mechanism by bleeding off the water & hoisting the cylinder back up; but a better idea would be to "stopper" the end point, "unstopper" a connecting tube and use a second cylinder to push the first cylinder back up. (At some point manual labor will be required to finish hoisting everything back into place, but I suspect this system will allow much greater weights to be employed.)

 

Plus, the critical components are enormous stone blocks that won't blink at a few hundred years of idle time. 19th-century tribes will have to lube & seal various parts and replace degradable components (like ropes), but on the whole they can reactivate the mechanisms with minimal fuss.

 

Do you think it would work? Am I missing any obvious flaws?

[austenandrews]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

You can' date=' with levers and counterweights, move some pretty big stuff without wheels. If their strongholds are in locations which can only be approached from one direction, the approach route could be heavily trapped with things of army-stopping magnitude. Drop-out traps a city block in size, for example.[/quote']

I had envisioned a pyramid set out from the plains, but you're right, in terms of defensibility something among the Badlands canyons would make far more sense. Do they have limestone caves in that area, I wonder?

 

The Mayas had the bow, of course. I know of no evidence that they scaled it up beyond the simple bow, but you can appeal to this, also, with lever-cocked (rather than windlass-cocked) ballista-type devices. Lethality of simple bows can be jacked up by appealing to tropical-origin venom on the points. Won't stop a steam war wagon, but it'll stop infantry.

Bows wouldn't age well, but modern tribes could rebuild them on old infrastructures. Hmm.

[austenandrews]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

Well personally' date=' I'd just gloss over the [b']how[/b] of how these things work. This is Pulp!

I'm a nerd. I like a veneer of plausibility.

[austenandrews]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

What about using a stone screw' date=' which is just a variation on an inclined plane, and we know the Mayas had ramps. I have visited Chichen Itza and would be willing to credit the Mayas or any similar culture with the ability to design and construct nearly any stone and wood mechanism using ratchets and planes.[/quote']

What's a "stone screw?" My Google fu is failing me.

 

IIRC, there is an artifact from the Incas, who also didn't commonly use the wheel, of a stone alligator to with wheels. Maybe they were better at telekinesis an didn't need wheels.

Oh yeah, I remember reading about that! The wheeled toy, I mean, not the telekinesis. That's just a given. (Actually weren't the Inca supposed to use some kind of magical "trumpet" to move their giant stones?)

[austenandrews]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

Maybe make the structures with massive multipede-like legs that move up and down with the connection of a counter-weight and then disengaging that to connect another. Doesn't sound feasible until you have literaly thousands of these moving diametrically opposed to a thousand others.

 

The fortificication would crawl, but it would be a damn impressive scene to see (read) about.

That's a very cool idea. I'm going to roll it around in my head for awhile and see if I can armchair-engineer a way for it to work.

 

This an online game? (hope beyond hopes)

At the moment it's just a setting with no destination. An idea building pressure in my imagination, that I must bleed off to get some sleep.

[Mentor]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

What's a "stone screw?" My Google fu is failing me.

 

 

Oh yeah, I remember reading about that! The wheeled toy, I mean, not the telekinesis. That's just a given. (Actually weren't the Inca supposed to use some kind of magical "trumpet" to move their giant stones?)

A stone screw is just a movable round plane/screw carved out of stone. Nothing esoteric or noteworthy. You may have been giving me credit for more ingenuity than I deserve. (Way more credit!)

[austenandrews]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

A stone screw is just a movable round plane/screw carved out of stone. Nothing esoteric or noteworthy.

Oh, I see what you mean. I didn't immediately connect "screw" with "inclined plane" and thought I was missing something. Though actually, I've been reading random web sites about pyramid building, and it's interesting what technology is implied by simply piling giant stones atop one another. There's even an unlikely but thought-provoking theory that some stone blocks were cast in place like concrete. Weird & fun.

 

You may have been giving me credit for more ingenuity than I deserve. (Way more credit!)

No problem. I'm confident you'll proffer with an ingenious idea in the near future and settle the account.

[Cancer]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

Though actually' date=' I've been reading random web sites about pyramid building, and it's interesting what technology is implied by simply piling giant stones atop one another. There's even an unlikely but thought-provoking theory that some stone blocks were cast in place like concrete. Weird & fun.[/quote']

 

The Mayas made heavy use of stucco. Lots of their large structures were built in layers, as each dynasty (or whatever) built over what their predecessors left behind. That "cast in place" pretty much has to be true for any stucco stuff.

[The Monster]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

Less impressive and certainly less quick, you could have items powered by muscle - i.e., slaves. Treadmills and such could move the water for hydraulics back into position, or through levers provide a way to reset.

 

Given a renegade lost Greek genius, you could even make land galleys, studded with stone for protection and actually driven on huge stone wheels by banks of oars across the land! Not quite a walking pyramid, but more useful for open warfare.

 

With steam and stone pipes/valves, sound signals could be created to reach long distances quickly. Push the science a bit and you could even have finely tuned crystals which resonate under certain frequencies, so that even low-volume (or even sub/supersonic) transmissions could relay information. Associated codes - assuming the transmission couldn't send actual voice - could be lost to history, locked in ancient codices, inscribed on the walls of signal chamber )or written and archaeologists think it's just graffiti), or an arcane secret passed down among a tiny caste of shamans.

 

Just for starters...

[Curufea]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

I've always been fond of the Hollywood Egyptian-themed movie image of sand being used instead of hydraulics for lowering weights and things...

[austenandrews]

Re: Steampunk Brainstorm: Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

Can you make a ram pump using sand?

[Lucius]

Heavy Stone Mechanisms

 

Check out this link:

 

http://www.crystalinks.com/coralcastle.html

 

 

Some relevant quotes..

 

"Coral Castle was built in the early 20th century by an eccentric Latvian recluse named Edward Leedskalnin"

 

"Edward Leedskalnin was a 100 pound - 5 foot tall man - who wound up in Homestead, Florida - on a ten-acre tract of land just south of Miami, Florida. Somehow he managed to single-handedly lift and maneuver blocks of coral weighing up to 30 tons each and create not only a castle but other things. How Edward did his work - has never been discovered - though he labored for 30 years."

 

Leaving aside the inevitable weird theories, it's obvious the man knew SOMETHING special; something that enabled him to quarry, carry, and work blocks of coral massing up to 30 tons.

 

Edward Leedskalnin was quoted as saying, "I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids, and have found out how the Egyptians and the ancient builders in Peru, Yucatan, and Asia, with only primitive tools, raised and set in place blocks of stone weighing many tons!"

 

And he was able to balance such enormous weights with incredible precision:

 

"Entrance to Coral Castle is made through a gate fashioned from a single coral block weighing nine tons. This miraculous monolith is approximately 80 inches wide, 92 inches tall, and 21 inches thick. It fits within a quarter of an inch of the walls on either side and pivots through an iron rod resting on an automobile gear. The enormous block balances so perfectly on its center of gravity that a visitor can easily push it open with one finger."

 

I only wish I COULD explain how he did it.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

He had access to forces unknown to man or palindromedary....