Records: magical motors

## **Skipping 600 Years of Research & Development**

Richard had glimpsed the future, so he had some clue what would've been, when he glimpsed a closer and darker future that replaced it. As problematic as the original future had been, it had been a learning experience for the world as they discovered the "mundane" rules of science and engineering. To battle the Darkess, he needed high capacity in 6 years, not 6 centuries.

He would have to guide the rediscovery and hope that magic didn't cause the future's great minds to rest on their laurels. Via the RANP, he guided the [re]discovery of the measurement of work, in this case: that of the average horse. Naturally, they called this unit one Horsepower (or 550 foot-pounds per second).

Once the mundane benchmark was set, the Royal Order of Merlin set out to simplify the generation of harnessed force.

### **Magical vs Mundane**

Via the Visions of the Angels (to oversimplify), Richard had plans in his head, and full knowledge of the science behind, human engines through the 22nd century. Courtesy of the same angels, he knew considerably beyond that as well, but none of that did any good as it required have a planet's worth of logistical and production capacity in place.

The magic, on the other hand, could replicate force and motion with comparatively minimal engineering. Minimal, however, did not equal "none." The Angels had zero insights into magic, only that it was volatile and that it existed, leaving Richard to lead the way on science and engineering, reasearch and development into the arcane.

Fortunately, once one broke through the actuation threshold, making magic work was dangerously easy. The real elegance, coming from the mundane side, was maximizing the magic to be as efficient as possible. The less force, the less magic... or the same magic to get more work done.

This led to the Order's first several attempts at magical motors. They were using steam concepts rather than more advanced concepts that only they knew simply because at some point, history would have to trace the line of discovery to keep that validation of human deductive reasoning. Magic itself was going to change that whole "neighborhood equation" but they were playing it conservatively until they could really open it up.

### **Magical Models**

The first several models of enchanted motors had the work and the energy combined. It had to do with how magic was responsive to thought, and they needed to isolate it to be mechanically activated rather wizard-actuated.

By November 1377, they'd created different versions that used magical equivalents of turbines, engines, and half a dozen different kinds of magical generators. For limited use, maybe by the ROM or the SA, some were fairly sophisticated. For the general public, they had to fairly simple. Even then, people would find ways to break it – or horrifically break themselves – with the power they were about to wield.

Even in the Royal Army, where there was legitimate training, they were creating motors that would be applied to the War Wagons. While the wagons were already a couple of centuries beyond what they world had ever seen, the nature of the job was going to beat the holy living snot out of the magical equipment. This had to be as literally bomb-proof as possible.

## **Enchanted motors adopted by the Royal Arms**

There were a dozen ways to do this, from a central motor and transmission to per-axle motors, and beyond. The design the ROM settled on – along with the Mechanical Mages of the RC – was in-wheel motors.

These motors could be made from steel and would be virtually indestructible from anything short of a direct cannon shot. The motors were highly oblate spheroid (roughly flattened ball), a foot in diameter and four inches thick. Embedded in the wheel around the axle, the control was wirelessly linked to a control unit (sort of a magical WiFi).

The UK RA war wagons already produced were retrofitted with magical motors topping off at 2 horsepower each, with 1 each at wheel. The equivalent power, like the measurement goes, was like being pulled by eight horses. For wagons designed to be pulled by two horses, this gave pilots (drivers) a tremendous amount of power.

### **Looking Ahead**

More powerful versions were in the pipeline, and that would be critical as the war wagons grew – but just as critical to wagon that were hauling ore or produced metals. Those loads were insanely heavy, but the early models helped cut the horse-train in half.

They were already experimenting with multiple motors per wheel, revisiting motors in the axle and so on. One of the intriguing bits of engineering and technical operation was learning how to keep a wagon moving even a motor failed.

This made the UK RA logistics considerably easier as only the cavalry horses needed to be transported now (and they were looking at high mobility designs to replace those horses, too).

### **Driving Through the Mind**

Most observers saw horseless carriages and some level of equipment to it. They assumed mechanical means (which was technically true), and further assumed steam. They did *not* realize the motors were actually magical.

Horseless carriages themselves alone were a stunning development and contributed to the psychological impact of the Royal Arms' *Regiment of St. George*.

The range was about 500 miles on a single crystal, which could be transported en masse or created by arcano-engineers in the field, from scratch, relatively quickly.

Also critically, these motors were actually affordable to the merchant class – and with eventual expansion as the market grew – would be affordable by everybody. A 1-horsepower motor could be had for about as much as a horse. And this was only the transport application...

## **Beginning the Industrial Revolution**

Pressure research would pick up in surrounding areas, fed mostly by stories of travelers to London, but in Southern England itself, steam was already fading as arcane motors were being used in non-transportation applications.

The initial burst of interest for those who could afford it was simple curiosity of a motor itself, much less that it was magically driven. There was an amount of geek-out over the device, making it work simply to make it work. “Stupid Motor Tricks” became a theme for these merchants, showing what they could do.

Outside of their novelty status, the magical motors were doing for private merchants the same things they were doing for the Royal Company: driving mining pumps, pushing mining belts, pulling mining cars, automating bellows for forges and foundries, automatic massive hammers…

While the RC was already in the throes of mass manufacturing, it wasn’t “real” until it was in the hands of private merchants – and now it was. It started a surge in English capacity that began to be felt outside the vaunted Royal Company.

Bypassing steam (and wood and coal fuel), this marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.