A couple weeks ago, I came up with what I considered a neat idea for my color shifter's world (color shifters are people who can change the color of an object just by willing it to happen): the world is actually Earth, but I removed a very important point in our history; the Tower of Babel. Instead of building a tower to defy God, the people built a great tower, or other type of monument, to give glory to God for saving them from the Great Flood.

However... I've run into a problem.

I still want this to be a fantasy world, but it's not logical for it to be one. With only a single language, even with the many dialects that would form, information could spread rapidly. Things like cars and airplanes might be invented within a hundred years of the flood. Higher tech things, such as iPads and other compact computers, probably wouldn't be far behind. And then it goes right into typical sci-fi with laser guns and spaceships.

Anyone have any ideas? Is there a logical way to keep the tech level from rising too high too fast so that it's still a fantasy world? If I added unicorns and other mythical beasts, would they "counteract" the high tech level? For that matter, how could I add them without altering the original creation story?

I'm already keeping dragons around, btw, and their cousins the dinosaurs. I never quite believed the story that the change of climate after the flood killed them all anyway.

I don't think it would develop as rapidly as you said. Their technology would likely develop like the Romans, like with advanced highways and stuff.

And, another thing, is if there are things like dragons, why do you need airplanes? If info travels quickly with one language, why do you need the internet? Stuff like that.

*nods* Elanhil's right.

I'd recommend researching how fast science developed during the Roman Empire. To quote my sister's history book-



Take the research you come up with and speed things up a little bit (to account for the fact that there is only one language instead of one common language) and you'll have the rate at which your world's science grows.

The Roman empire lasted for about 500 years, and they didn't get iPads.

This thread has caught my attention. *subscribes * I'm interested to see how you work through this So far Sui and Hilly have suggested what I would have

eru

That's not the point.

A few thoughts:

First, another thing to factor in is that while not much in the way of technology or whatever got brought along on the ark, had languages not been confused any knowledge from before the Flood might well have survived; we know very little if anything about antedeluvian society.

Second, a significant fraction of scientific and technical advancement has come from inspiration striking one person (or possibly more than one, like calculus with Newton and Leibniz) rather than simple, gradual improvement. And even with inspiration, sometimes a technology or a scientific hypothesis depends on another bit of technology that doesn't exist yet. So by rationing or cherry-picking when and where which Great Ideas appear, you can direct the course of technological history where you like.

Third, even with only a single language (which I'd still expect to develop into dialects and then different languages, like Latin into the various Romance languages), until the development of somewhat modern technologies, information transmission will be very slow; remember that in the story of the Tower of Babel the reason they were building the tower was so that they wouldn't be scattered over the earth, as God had commanded, and the confusion of the languages was the means for scattering them against their will, so if we posit that in your world they obeyed, they would have spread out significantly, and continued to expand.

(Hmm ... I'm going to add a variation on this idea to my list of alternate histories to consider exploring in my own series.)

Also in Babel if they where all living in one great big city then they would develop things like cars or other transportation much more slowly, mostly because they would live relatively close to where they would need to go and not need to travel great distances.

There was also a lot of time that went by before the flood, (at the very least a couple thousand years) and that time saw more indulgence in riches, a want for more, and lawlessness than any other time in history. With such freedom is the time at which technologies advance fastest. (Maybe though, it would move slower because of all the distractions. I don't know, I wasn't there.) At any rate, I don't think you really have a problem here...

Ya'll are brilliant. XD You've completely solved my problem, and given me tons more ideas for how this all is going to work. Thank you, guys!

Can I throw a couple more questions at you?

Hmm, let me think about that...

Well, I suppose.

Alright, you asked for it. Actually, I only have one, because I forgot the other ones I was going to ask...

Anyhow, it seems to be decided that this is going to be roughly Roman-era fantasy. I like that - Roman garb is cool, and that's an era that doesn't get many fantasy stories set in it, to my knowledge. (except for the Arthurian legends ) That leads me to my next question..

When do I have Jesus Christ come to earth?

The lack of Babel sounds like it'd speed up technology to the point of the Roman era coming within less than a thousand years, rather than over three thousand years. (guessing there, I don't remember how long it's supposed to have been from Babel to the time of Christ) Jesus Christ came in the Roman era in our world - would He do the same here? What would make most logical sense to you, as a reader - Him coming a good 800 years after "Babel", and setting the story about 200 years after that, or Him coming a good three thousand years later, like IRL?

Oh, there, remembered another question.

How long should I make this Roman era last? IRL, it lasted, what, 500 years? Would then a thousand or a thousand five hundred still be alright? (not having a world empire for all those years, but keeping a similar level of tech.)

The point about dialects, idiom, euphemisms - excellent. The United States takes up a large chunk of a continent, and even with the unifying influences of communication technologies (radio/television/internet) people from various parts of the country can have an amazingly difficult time understanding each other's English by times. ~_^ A better example would be China. They all speak Chinese, but folks from one village often can't understand what someone from two or three villages over is trying to say.

There's the option of substituting another catastrophe or accident that could have slowed the progression of technology. Perhaps Johannes Gutenberg had a bad day and gave up on inventing movable type. Or an inconvenient solar flare wiped out all progress on the development of a key piece of equipment, and the would-be inventor was too discouraged to try again. Or a blight wiped out all coffee and/or cocoa cultivars on the planet and therefore there's no such thing as convenient caffeine or chocolate fixes. Do you think we would have made it to the moon without coffee? ~_^

On the arrival of Christ, I would ask yourself this - how are you changing Jewish history?

Jewish history played a big role in the prophecies regarding Christ. Even though Christ's arrival was planned with the world in mind, it did come at a specific phase in Jewish history, after the Jewish captivity to Babylon had been restored. If you want Jesus to come into an era of similar political and social climate (which I think you would, so as to avoid tampering with the Bible), you'll want to replicate that phase in Jewish history.

Hope that made sense!

Question to ask yourself: If the Roman Empire already had the technologies it developed as a foundation, then how would it have been different? Likely, they would have developed much more advanced systems, maybe even simple electricity, definitely things such as the Franklin Stove.

To answer the question at hand, why not have him still come during the Roman Empire? There would be different things that happened, but I wouldn't mess with that if I were you.

Alternate histories are so messy. I'd never write one, because it's like saying: 'I know how things should have been run better than God.' Not to say that was your mentality, but just something you should be aware of.

Not necessarily, for example that is like saying writing fiction is wrong because that is not what God has destined this world for. Our goal is not to make our own worlds better then this one, because we can't. Rather our goal should be to preach the Gospel of Christ through our writing. Again, our own symbolic versions of the Gospel will be full of faults, because we are sinful Man. That's why we need Christ, that's why we need the Gospel.

Unless of course you don't mean that writing History not based off real life is sinful, but the other kind of alternate history. In which case I agree with you.

By the way sorry if I came across as arrogant or rude...Or simply don't know what you meant in what you said, that is not my intention.

No no, your thoughts are well taken and I agree. My point was that alternate histories should not be written as something better than what happened in real life, because that's impossible.

Ooooooooooohhhh this is getting too complicated!

You all have good ideas, though. * gathers them all up and stores them in her handy little GDocs document * I'm not sure what I'm going to use yet, but ya'll have given me wonderful ideas and have been a big help! I'll be sure to post when I have more questions/need more brilliance. Although - sorry, 'Lais - I'm fairly certain man could have made it to the moon without coffee. * doesn't like coffee *

And, I suppose, there would still be tea. ~_^
Or perhaps without coffee they would have expedited the creation of energy drinks to fuel those late-night inventing sessions.

I don't like tea either, so no. XD (and I have never had an energy drink, unless you count soda pop, which isn't really an energy drink, just a high-sugar liquid that should never come near me if you value your sanity. )