A cool analysis of elemental machinery, Ian. Well done.
>a large undine or sylph (10 cubic meters) produces hundreds of
>horsepower, a medium one (3 cubic meters) produces tens of horsepower.
Well, that rules out undines for portability. Having to lug all that water around ruins them as mobile powerplants except aboard ship.
Note that in the River of Cradles book, the old riverman's boat had bound undines that he uses when he needs to get somewhere fast. The Zola Fel temple at Pavis is moved by sweep oars ceremonially, and by undines routinely. I think most water cultures use the bound undine motor, but the Waertagi use it on the grand scale.
>Does anyone really believe that such power systems could exist on
>Glorantha without irrevocably changing it from the bronze-age/medieval
>culture and technology that we all believe is there?
Yes. The dwarves/mostali already do all that you've suggested and more. They have steam engines too. They don't count for this discussion, because no-one knows except themselves. The Feldichi artifact in the Dorastor book and Golden Age Prax myths suggest that advanced civilisations have used all you've suggested and more. They're extinct. The Clanking City, Machine Ruins, and Zistor suggest that Second Age civilisations used all you've suggested. They were destroyed. The Waertagi use undines to drive their dragon ships. They were almost annihilated at the end of the Second Age. We know at least 1 dragonship survived the age-long journey through the underworld to return at the end of the Third Age. I think they're almost extinct. Do they survive the Hero Wars? The Lunar Heartland may already have factories that do as you've suggested (except for sylphs, which may point to an economic subtext to the Orlanth/Shepelkirt conflict). We know what happens to them.
Civilisations on Glorantha aren't getting more advanced. Quite the reverse. The world gets closer to destruction with every age.
>'The Medieval Machine' Jean Gimpel, Penguin/Holt, Rinehart and Wilson,
>'A Roman Factory' A. Trevor Hodge, Scientific American, November 1990.
Yep, got/had those. Fascinating stuff.
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