Explain

For context, this is from an alternate history scenario in which Aurangzeb never becomes emperor and thus the Mughal Empire never fragments and collapses. Essentially it is a very Persian-centric world.

"TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGY
With the much more advanced electrical engineering of Gurkani Âlam as compared to the real world, electrically-powered vehicles are very widely used around the world. These include railway engines, road vehicles and also off-road and air vehicles of most kinds, including military vehicles. Because of the patchy nature of the early electrical systems, particularly in the Mughal Empire, early electrical vehicles had chargers that allowed them to take many different forms of electricity, with differing voltages, currents and so on. Most electrical vehicles, particularly in the Mughal Empire, continue to use flexible chargers of this kind.

The relative amounts of road and rail transport used varies from nation to nation depending on the history of their respective transport systems [not unlike the case in the real world]. In some places rail is used for most things, with railways delivering to hubs and cars and lorries used only locally. In others roads are used for almost everything.

ROAD TRANSPORT
Road vehicles in this world have evolved from carts and carriages, in much the same way as the real world. They are thus largely based on a four-wheeled design, with one pair of wheels being steered. Roads are not unlike those of the real world, with concrete or Persianised [tarmaced] surfaces, good roads having been developed for military and trade purposes, much as in the real world.

Pneumatic tyres have not been invented in this world. Instead wheels have individually sprung segments, rather like a circular tank track, with a rubberised 'foot' on the end to reduce noise and road wear. Each segment has its own shock absorber (or sometimes two), and often a flexible link with adjacent segments to keep dirt from getting between them. This gives suspension, smoothes the ride and gives immunity to punctures and other damage.

Electrically-driven trams and trolleybuses are also widely used in many cities around the world.

RAILWAYS
Because of the earlier development of electrical technology, almost all railways around the world use electrical power, either from internal super-batteries, or from an external source. In some places, such as India and parts of Europe, trains using magnetic levitation are beginning to replace more conventional types, particularly on routes where speed is of the essence. Where non-electric trains are used, they have the engine at the front of the train as in the real world, but with the fuel bunker at the very front, then the driver's compartment, with the engine machinery behind that. This allows quicker and easier refuelling of the train.

There are a number of railway gauges in use around the world, in addition to the different ones in use within the Mughal Empire and Dakshina Nad. England-Denmark, France, Canada-Louisiana, the Ottoman Empire, the Sarajevo Pact, the Holy Russian Empire and the Brasealean Empire all use different gauges. Ling China and the Persian Empire use one of the more common of the Mughal railway gauges. The nations of South America use either the French or Brasealean gauge depending on their historical alliances. Most railway gauges are roughly the same [and not too different to those used in Europe in the real world]. Only the Holy Russian Empire differs greatly from this using an eight foot gauge dramatically larger than any other in the world. Thus their rail network is almost completely incompatible with that of the rest of the world, but its vast trains, mostly running on concrete rails, allow long journeys across the vastness of Russia without refuelling. Mughal-compatible rail lines extend beyond the Mughal Empire into the Central Asian Khanates, Ling China, Persia and the Ottoman Empire.

Underground railways are used in cities around the world to transport both people and goods. The first of these was opened in 1850 in the city of Warsaw in Poland in the Sarajevo Pact. The most extensive underground railway system in the world is that of Delhi in the Mughal Empire, though as with much of the infrastructure of the Mughal Empire this actually consists of a number of largely independent systems running to and from different parts of the Delhi region. The Mughal Empire has a few other underground railway systems in its cities but mostly relies on elevated railways for mass transportation of its people.

Many of the nobility of the world, particularly in the Mughal Empire, have long had private railway lines leading to their estates and so on, and their own private railway carriages and other rolling stock. In many cases, to help supplement their income, they have also allowed their branch lines to be used in the carrying of goods.

AIRCRAFT
Both heavier-than-air aircraft, known as Vimanas, after the mythological flying machines described in the ancient literature of India, and lighter-than-air aircraft known as havajahaz [airships] are widely used.

Heavier than air aircraft are fairly similar to those of the real world, though somewhat more technologically advanced. Lighter-than-air vehicles tend to use either hot air or steam to lift powered airships. Some more advanced designs also use helium gas. All of them are much safer than hydrogen-filled airships. [Steam has a lift per unit volume that is about sixty percent that of helium, and is vastly cheaper and easier to handle; see here, here and here for more details.] Havajahaz are widely used for a wide range of military purposes.

Over time the manufacturers of fixed-wing aircraft of this world have developed their designs so that now most aircraft are either flying wings or lifting bodies, depending on their intended role. A few are combinations of both, with the whole aircraft being one low aspect ratio wing, that is a flat, angular lifting shape [this is not unlike the Facetmobile of the real world]. Ground effect aircraft are also used quite widely, particularly by the militaries of the world.

While fixed-wing aircraft are the most common type of heavier-than-air aircraft in Gurkani Âlam, there are also a minority of rotary-winged designs. In this world helicopters have never been widely adopted, and are considered an over-complicated curiosity. Instead Acer-Ala ['maple-wing'; autogyros] are used in similar roles. Because of this seaplanes remain in use in some roles, particularly search and rescue [which the real world was taken over by helicopters, helping to make seaplanes obsolete].

SPACE TRANSPORTATION
Space travel is both more advanced and at more of a disadvantage in Gurkani Âlam than in the real world. The more advanced science and technology there, particularly in the field of electrical engineering, means that solar power, mass driver and ion drive systems are all much more developed than in the real world, and these form the main drive systems used by space-to-space vehicles. The Dakshina Nad leads the world in space and space technology.

A spin-off of this, the lunar mass-driver ring known as the Qamari Mosht [Lunar Fist], was the decisive weapon that ended the Long War, and which now worries many of the nations of the world. Also used for civilian purposes, it has launched a number of probes to all of the worlds of the solar system, as well as supplies to the manned mission that landed on Mars in 1999.

Nuclear thermal rockets are also reasonably well developed, and are used by many nations for space-to-space transportation when higher accelerations than an ion drive can provide are needed. Nuclear pulse propulsion, using nuclear explosions for propulsion [much like Project Orion of the real world] is not used after the catastrophic failure of the Russian vessel, the Archangel Mikhail [Archangel Michael], in 1959.

For launching from the Earth, chemical rockets are still used, although usually with electromagnetic catapults providing an initial boost. Single-stage-to-orbit vehicles not unlike the Delta Clipper of the real world are the most common form of ground-to-space transportation, although other types of reusable space vehicle are also used, as well as expendable launchers.

There are a number of types of cheap, simple and reliable non-reusable chemical space launch rockets made and used in the more developed nations of the world. The largest of these can launch hundreds of tons into orbit, and are, in general derived from the Archangel Uriil [Uriel] class of rocket developed by the Holy Russian Empire and first used by them in 1961 [this is itself similar to the real world Sea Dragon design put forward in the early 1960s for a heavy lift launcher, but which was never built].

Experiments are just beginning to be carried out on space facilities and other structures supported on a stream of massive pellets, allowing towers and stations to be held up against gravity, which in the real world is known as the Space Fountain concept.

Despite all of this, space travel close to the Earth is more limited than in the real world. This stems from the attempt by the Holy Russian Empire to close space, the ultimate high ground, to its enemies. They did this by launching vast numbers - in the billions - of pieces of gravel into low-earth and geosynchronous orbits around the Earth, making these regions of space very unsafe for satellites in the long term. [One rocket carrying a cubic metre of gravel, weighting perhaps three tonnes, divided into one cubic centimetre chunks, would put a million such chunks into space. For comparison in the real world there are some six hundred thousand objects of one centimetre or larger in Earth orbit.] Although the subset of this space-denial debris which is in low Earth orbit is gradually re-entering and being lost, there is still a great deal of it, and the debris in higher orbits will persist for a very long time. A number of ideas of clearing this debris have been put forward, but so far none have been adopted on a large scale.

Spacecraft launched from the Earth also have to be tougher and more compartmentalised than those in the real world, to survive a debris impact. It has also forced many space-based facilities further from the Earth, in particular to the Moon, or to the Kannankeril [Lagrange] points.

Modern low-orbit spacecraft are reasonably well-armoured to protect them against the high density of space debris; this is generally passive physical armour, but experimental active and/or electric armour systems are also coming into use. Most also have anti-debris guns, SWEDS [radar] or MOBSOLUR [lidar] guided weapons using slugs of solid carbon dioxide to blow away incoming debris without adding to the sum of it (as the slugs sublimate away into gas).

There are a number of settlements on the Moon in addition to those associated with the Qamari Mosht, some of a scientific nature, some commercial. Many of these are underground facilities, but some use greenhouses (augmented by artificial lighting during the two weeks long Lunar night) for growing food.

Since the end of the Long War the Mughal Empire and Dakshina Nad have begun licensing out the building and use of some of the space-based technologies that they have developed over time. In particular long-term life-support systems designed for use in space have found application in the much less hostile environment of Earth, and these are allowing the beginnings of large-scale permanent colonisation of the more hostile areas of the Earth, such as Antarctica and the deserts of Marege.

WATER TRANSPORTATION
Since the early twentieth century many nations have adopted the use of multiple-hulled ships, particularly for military purposes as these designs give more deck area for weaponry and other equipment. [This is not unlike some designs proposes recently in the real world, such as this.]

The Holy Russian Empire has made use of what are known as Korabl Leda [Ice Ships], vast vessels built of reinforced ice, as vast, slow, largely unsinkable mobile air bases. [These are basically the same as the ship proposed under Project Habakkuk.] Although they were destroyed in the last days of the Long War, there is nothing stopping them being rebuilt in the future.

Some nations, in particular the Dakshina Nad, make use of military vessels propelled by a magnetohydrodynamic drive. This is as effective as conventional propeller-based propulsion but much more stealthy. In particular submarines driven by this means are becoming widely used.

OTHER
In Central Asia skimmers [hovercraft] are widely used as a means of personal transportation, although horses are still very common there.

The variety of different railway gauges that developed in the Mughal Empire led to the development of containerisation much earlier than in the real world. The convenience of this when applied to other forms of transport soon became clear, leading to its use on the road and in ships for, by the present day, more than a century.

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