noise."Worldbuilding R1 · 3:48am Nov 16th, 2014
Worldbuilding R-1
Alrightly, boys and girls, it's been a little while since I wrote one of these, so here we go.
You may have noticed by the odd title that this doesn't seem to be focusing on a particular subject, like my last worldbuilding blog posts did. That's intentional; this one is on a slightly different, more universal topic.
By now, I'd assume that everyone who's reading these things knows I'm a bear for research. I don't always get it right; I've got legions of readers and pre-readers who correct all sorts of mistakes—but I try.
Most of us can probably agree that the ponies are a pre-industrial society. Individual opinions vary about what they may or may not have specifically—for example, I feel that they have a telegraph system, even if it's never been mentioned in canon, while I don't think they have electricity as we know it [and yes, I know that there is what appears to be a hydroelectric dam in one episode]. But we'll probably agree that they don't have airplanes, they don't have automobiles, they don't appear to have large factories, and they don't have Wal-Mart. Their space program appears to have consisted of sending Luna to the moon.
My own thought, based on their technology, is that they're roughly equivalent to the late Civil War period in the US, with some further advanced technology (such as movie projectors*) and some less-advanced technology (no Gatling guns)
_____________________
*although you might be interested to know that motion pictures came into being before the first power plant in the US, and it was to settle a bet. Specifically, whether all four hooves of a horse were simultaneously off the ground when a horse galloped. Wrap your mind around that next time you're watching a Hollywood blockbuster.
Those of you who are very regular readers have probably noticed that I sprinkle in small details of their less-advanced society all the time. In a review of Braiding, Rinnaul said
There are other topics that serve as background material, mostly technological differences, but those are the key points.
(bold added)
I'll mention—since I probably didn't in the notes—that some wood stoves did in fact have built-in water heaters, bundles of holly were used to sweep chimneys [hence the chimney sweep being named Holly Sweep], and withy-cutters cut and worked the reeds to make wicker baskets. There were several kinds of willow used—white withies, brown, and buff.
Much of this helpful information has been gleaned from a book called The Forgotten Arts and Crafts, by John Seymour. If you have any interest in the subject, do yourselves a favor and find yourself a copy of the book.
However, as a comprehensive book on a variety of subjects must do, it only scratches the surface, and of course there are topics which aren't even considered. Some of those have been—for me—the subject of hours of research; for example, it doesn't cover plumbing at all. I needed to know about old-school plumbing for Silver Spanner gets her Cutie Mark. There is no mention of old-fashioned medicine (which makes sense; most of the forgotton medical techniques fell by the wayside for a reason).
Thanks to a bit of serindipity—insomnia, mostly—I can offer you a resource to fill the gap.
Many of us are aware that there is a subset of people who believe that civilization will soon collapse, for whatever reason. Communists, zombies, solar flares . . . whatever the reason, some of them spend absurd amounts of money building underground bunkers in their backyards. It's easy to dismiss them as nuts (and they probably are), although if whatever fate they predict actually comes to pass, I suppose they'll be visionaries.
Anyway, for the most part, they're concerned with their own well-being, and could give a rip about the rest of society. But one group has actually put forth the effort of re-publishing books from the early industrial (pre-electrical) era which cover a broad range of subjects.
Whether you believe civilization is about to collapse or not, this is a valuable resource, and one I can assure you I'll be utilizing. I ran into trouble in my latest chapter of A Gift From Celestia when describing a medical exam performed by what we'd call a General Practitioner. I just couldn't find a good description.
THIS WEBSITE has whole books on medical science, sorted by era. It is, without a doubt, the third-best thing I've ever found on the internet.
Need to know about bee-keeping? They've got books on it.
Pre-WWI machine tools? Smithy? Check.
And the best part? They're all free. Downloadable. Printable.
Going forward, I will be using this newfound resource to its fullest extent, and I encourage my readers to do the same.
I read this first!
2597692
Huzzah! You also got the first reply!
Actually, it was shown to have a bi-plane in the comics, but it was very old-fashioned. And, with so many magical based works, it may not have been electrical. And I have little doubt that there's a higher chance that it was made through enchanted equipment.... and from all we have seen, enchantments aren't exactly easy to come by.
Oh, come on you know everyone needs a good blood-letting every now and then! Gotta let out that bad blood.
Or the general treatment for female hysteria. Whyever did that fall out of fashion?
2597706
I don't remember the biplane, but I'm behind on the comics. Might not have seen that one yet.
We have seen airships, hang-gliders, and pedal-powered helicopters in canon, so I'd say a biplane isn't beyond the bounds of their technology . . . indeed, as I'm sure you're very aware, the first powered flight by humans was in a biplane.
While I'm not normally a fan of handwaving away details, since here I'm playing on someone else's sandbox, I can say "A
wizardunicorn did it."I think that unicorn-enchanted or magical-powered appliances and technology exist in Equestria, but they're rare, and expensive. Perhaps, as in the old Dungeons and Dragons rules, casting a permanence spell on an enchantment is a big deal, and most unicorns won't do it.
Somewhere (and you'd have to dig through the comments on CSI or a CSI blog to find it), there's a pretty good discussion of magical-powered telephones.
2597715
That's still a treatment for one disease. I think it's excess iron build-up. And it turns out leeches still have their uses. They might have helped after my finger surgery. . . .
An over-abundance of puritanism? Oddly, I could see the pony viewpoint being the opposite, and having various 'treatments' of questionable efficacy for stallion 'hysteria.'
Actually, my current project has mentions of Tartarus as a nickname for the Maximum Security Prison in the Equestria Girls universe and that Tirek was an escaped killer until he was recaptured.
Here is the thing -- ponies are NOT for automation. A pony craftsman does the job and automating a task means taking the jobs away from ponies who have that cutie mark and it is what they do. Hence practically all industry is cottage level.
They do not do things like grand infrastructure projects. Even the romans tended to do a lot more than the equestrians. Again, pegasi can fly over the areas and unicorns can use magic, so you in general do not need such.
They have advanced in ways that suit their unique interests and situation which is why they seem so piecemeal in their technology. They must have at least low level computing because they have video games. These are probably in research areas. Heck we have a pony with a robot cutie mark. i.imgur.com/g5f70KX.png
Ponies simply do not tend to integrate technology into their everyday lives due to a lack of need, and a staunch stubbornness when it comes to keeping to the old ways of doing things.
They also have diarchs who are ancient who can "guide" things. I would figure a lot of things considered potentially dangerous are quietly redirected, or brought under state secrecy.
2597731
Humanized Tirek?
I suppose that's a possibility, given the EqG universe . . . and an interesting idea. I wonder what an EqG Discord would be like?
2597740 He'd be either a Science teacher or the Janitor.
If you have ever seen star trek insurrection, the ponies in some ways remind me of the baku.
Equestria is at the equivalent of the Bessemer Process for mass-producing steel for metal-framed skyscrapers at least.
img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140107224212/mlp/images/8/85/Manehattan_revealed_S4E08.png
2597734
That's a debatable and possibly contentious point. The weather factory suggests that they might be . . . but cutie marks especially imply that they might not be (who'd trust a machine to do the job of a pony with the right mark?).
I'd think it could be that they haven't quite gotten the concept of standardization and industrial processes, or it could be a desire for 'proper' craftsponyship . . . or maybe a mixture of the two. Weather production seems to have to concept of industrialization, while nearly everything else doesn't.
Except the rail network and weather control. However, I do agree in principle.
Yes! This is a very important point to any writers--in many cases, there is a reason why they do things the way they do, and even if they know a 'better' process, it might not fit with their societal views. Both Twilight's 'come to life' spell and the Flim Flam brothers' machine suggest that self-powered vehicles are a possibility, yet they don't use them. It's conceivable that that's more of a societal consideration, rather than stupidity on their part.
Arguable; we don't know what that 'video game' was. My own 'sanity check' involves not putting too much credence on what happens during musical numbers. Some 'video games' predate modern electronics (a pinball machine, for example); their games could be similar . . . or could be powered by some sort of spell.
A very good point, and one which might be even more prevalent in a town like Ponyville, which is largely an earth-pony enclave.
This, of course, wanders into headcanon territory. Still, even if Celestia isn't providing some guidance to technology, cutie marks and simple inertia are likely to play a large role in what the ponies embrace and what they ignore.
2597742
There's a reason I never trusted the janitor.
2597744
Not familiar enough to catch the reference. I think I saw it. . . .
2597768 Yeah, I remember someone on deviantart making a comic about the AU of Naruto where he attends a regular highschool and Danzo was the Janitor.
2597754
I'm not going to say 'no', and I'm not going to say 'yes' either. My own theory is that they certainly have a concept of steel-making; the railroad tracks alone prove that . . . what their process is, on the other hand, is fuzzier. Maybe only dragons make 'good' steel, and it's why the ponies and the dragons get along (they trade gems [farmed by rock farmers] for good steel). Maybe there's a field of unicorn magic which makes steel better, or makes bricks weigh practically nothing, while maintaining their strength (after all, no reason why a pony skyscraper would have to have a steel frame) . . . or maybe it's pegasus magic that makes it possible.
Or maybe they do have teams of unicorns working on modern chemistry, and maybe there is a region of Equestria that has blast furnaces, a strong coke industry, and everything that goes with it.
2597777 In my imagination, most of central Equestria is agrarian and pre-industrial. Advanced science does flow out Canterlot, but mostly of the magical rather than mundane nature. Ponyville's medieval-esque construction is owed to its rural setting, and whatever true heavy industry exists is located on the coasts and in the presumably volcanic Badlands, in which case would be the Kingdom's technological, scientific, and industrial hubs.
Coastal locations mean more trade connections to the other advanced nations that may lie outside of Equestria, which we all know translates to the inevitable exchange of scientific discoveries, new materials, etc.
2597721 Fully agreed. I'm thinking ponies' tech aren't that high, but magic is high enough to simulate some of it, but said magic is very expensive.
I thought man's first powered flight was in Action Comics #1!
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5a/Action_Comics_1.jpg
I don't know if having talents in a field would discourage ponies from developing tools to improve the process of it, including automation. After all, it certainly didn't stop the Flim Flam Brothers.
You're talking about the sort we used to call "Survivalists" but who have become slightly more fashionable and have taken on the name "Preppers?" Yeah... They're likely to be the most comfortable of us during the next power-outage lasting more than a few hours, but I suspect they'll be disappointed at the lack of zombies and such.
Still, any excuse to learn a little history! Ponies have magic, so they probably didn't have to live like our ancestors did.
For instance, around a century ago many homes still had no indoor plumbing. If you felt the "call of nature" at night, you pulled a chamber-pot from under your bed and ...filled it. In the morning, your "bathing" involved pouring cold water from a pitcher into a large bowl, and washing your face and hands there in your bedroom. The bowl and the chamber-pot would be poured out later, often from your bedroom window into the street below. I'm kind of glad MLP:FIM didn't show that sort of thing.
I concur -- my rule is that their overall tech level, especially in terms of energy, is last half of the 19th century (which means steam is reasonably common where great power is needed, such as powering a ship, pulling a train, or running the machines in a large factory, but electricity is still mostly experimental, with a few large cities beginning to electrify), with medical technology much more advanced (equivalent to mid-20th century) and weapons technology much less advanced (equivalent to 18th century but with much less development of personal firearms, to the point that they are pretty much not used because of the difficulty of hitting anything that moves as fast as a Pony).
In the context of the Shadow Wars main story arc, this changes very swiftly over the 25 years from YOH 1500 to 1525, with a forced-draft technological evolution (like that in Eric Flint's Grantville or David Weber's <i>Safehold</i> series) taking them to late 21st to early 22nd century level technology in some key applications. This is possible because they are led by two Ponies (Celestia and Luna) who remember (from their previous incarnations as Sundreamer and Moondreamer Finemare) how to run a high-tech society and can obtain detailed construction plans from a super-intelligent AI (the Paradise Entity). It is necessary because the alternative was planetary extinction.
In many other worldlines where the Shadows did not attack directly, nor did the Paradise Entity manifest as directly through their Pinkies, Equestria's technological development proceded more slowly and naturally, and it took them a century or two to rise to the point of regaining spaceflight.
2597792
All reasonably hypothesis given the canon setting. I surmise that besides Canterlot being the magical hub of the world at large, there are similar manufacturing hubs, although they are in their infancy. Some processes (such as steelmaking) have been known for a long time, yet they have not been significantly utilized by the ponies, as they've seen no need.
It's also worth considering their worldview when it comes to certain bits of technology . . . their mills could be powered by steam, but maybe with weather pagasi, wind's a predictable alternative, and might come cheaper than a steam engine.
Personally, I put them at roughly the World War I level of technology. Again, some things are more advanced, some less. There's no direct equivalent. But that seems to put their medicine at about the right point. They have more advanced construction and entertainment technology (the latter makes sense with the apparent abundance of musical cutie marks), but are definitely behind us on weapons and transportation. Everything else seems to be schizo tech.
I also like the idea of enchanted items, but with the caveat that, with the exception of a handful of high-level unicorns' creations, those enchantments run out fairly quickly. I intend to introduce the idea in a story, eventually, that the return of the Crystal Empire has brought a new wave of improvements using enchanted crystals that hold their "charge" much longer than spells alone. Such things were more common in the ancient past, and with the loss of the Empire, the only source of said crystals, a lot of technology was effectively lost for several centuries, until non- or less-magical alternatives developed.
2597729
Welp, adding that to the clopfic idea bin.
2597812
The one thing to consider with pony tech is that in canon some of it can be supplanted or replaced entirely with magic, and in some cases that's a reasonable alternative to bothering to invent technology. For example, in canon we've seen that a simple potion can heal a chipped tooth; were that actually possible on Earth, some of our medical research would have not been needed: whatever the dentist used to fix mine could have been replaced by one simple potion.
2597844
You so silly. Cars haven't been invented in Equestria.
That's quite the conundrum. I could see it going either way. A pony with a package-delivery cutie mark could just trudge along delivering the mail . . . or she could invent a more efficient method. Either would validate the cutie mark.
Certainly, in a town like Ponyville, I can see the ponies being hesitant when it comes to adopting new tech; yet we've seen that they do have locomotives, which of course replace the horse-drawn wagons. Airships can take the place of chariot-pulling pegasi. While their tech isn't a huge focus of stories like CSI and OPP, I can very well see them being on the edge of an industrial revolution which will change everpony's worldview . . . or, maybe unlike Earth, they'll decide that while they can mass-produce automobiles, it isn't worth the societal cost, and leave them as curiosities that some wealthy unicorns have, yet they never make a major impact on society.
2597932 Yep. In some ways, their magics are more advance than tech. It just depends on circumstances, eh?
2597851
Although, to be fair, if there is actually a zombie apocalypse, they'll be laughing their heads off.
Some of that naturally depends on how far their magic extended. We haven't seen any parasites, yet in real life, horses have trouble with flies and fleas. I'd love to write a HiE one-shot where the human gets fleas from the ponies....
Or just went outside, or out the window, if you were a guy (or a skilled girl). . .
Like all technology, though, the modern toilet has its drawbacks. In most communities, it runs off a large amount of treated water; in places like California, that water could be put to a better use. On the other hand, traditional pit toilets can be a haven for nasty parasites and bacteria.
I've assumed in many of my stories that the ponies have some 'modern' wastewater treatment (and all that goes with it), but it's not universal yet. In both OPP and Sam and Rose, pit toilets are the default in Ponyville, although indoor plumbing is not unknown: it just isn't fully realized.
2597729 Yeah! Leeches do have medical uses. Strange.
And uh, I think female hysteria treatments kind of fell out of fashion when doctors started realizing exactly what female hysteria really was...
2597925
Not a huge difference in tech, although the steam engine and internal combustion engine (and aircraft) were improved and developed in the interim.
I'd question the construction tech (but that's just me), while agreeing on the entertainment aspect. Both weapons and transportation kind of fall into the 'need' category; they may not need them. Also, we haven't seen what, if any, ocean-going ships the ponies may have.
Another reasonable explanation for why they just don't have come-to-life powered everything. Speaking as an author, it's always tricky at the intersection of magic and technology to explain why the characters couldn't just solve their problems with a magic spell, so it's always a smart idea to introduce limitations. I generally just go with 'it's expensive,' and don't explain further; limited duration is also a very good explanation.
Go nuts.
2597913
Of course, as we both know, some tech is dependent on need. I could very well see the ponies having advanced medical science (whether through magical or mundane means) quickly, while having little interest in military technology. It just seems to fit their worldview in general, even without speculating what wars they may or may not have fought.
One of the things that I always found fascinating about talking with my grandfather was how different his world was from mine. He was in the pre-ROTC, for example, and he was responsible for the mules which pulled the artillery piece. His photos of the Norfolk Naval Base show biplanes and blimps on patrol, and he was old enough to remember Civil War veterans marching in parades. It's easy to forget how much technology changed in one lifetime: now we've got supersonic jets and satellites on patrol, and there are no mules in the army (as far as I know). Heck, in his lifetime, we went from Jim Crow laws and women not able to vote, to an election that pitted a black candidate against a man running with a woman as a VP. It may not be fast progress . . . but when Woodrow Wilson was president, who could have imagined that such a competition could ever occur?
2597851
Eh, it could be worse. A pony might just stop in the middle of a walk and take a huge steaming dump in the middle of the street. Let's be thankful that the creators of FiM have at least seen fit to give the ponies the brilliant concept of at least picking a specific place to piss in.
2597961
Well, even in human history in times where indoor plumbing and toilets were available, and indeed even commonplace, wastewater treatment wasn't always a thing. Take Chicago, for example. 100 years ago, we had sewers and indoor plumbing. But the sewers just ran off to the Chicago River. Which, at the time, flowed into Lake Michigan. Which, incidentally, is where Chicago got its drinking water. See how that might be a problem? Yeah. Well anyways, they figured it out and reversed the flow of the Chicago River, sending all of our city's shit and piss down the Mississippi. Hehe. Well, it kind of treats itself along the way. Water gets aerated.
My point with all the boring plumbing-talk is, toilets and plumbing don't necessarily go hand-in-hand with wastewater treatment. Maybe ponies throw their shit into a river, like a bigger city. Maybe Ponyville has city-supplied running water, and every house has a septic tank. Who knows?
2597952
Yeah . . . and that kind of thing is what can make a HiE great--because for every magic or mundane technology that does (or doesn't) exist in Equestria, there's a reason why. One of the greatest failed technological advances was optical science . . . IIRC, by 900 AD, the Arabs had invented all the theories of modern optical science . . . yet they never built a microscope, telescope, or single pair of glasses--because none of those things seemed like practical projects.
One of the real joys of writing HiE first-contact fics, is I can poke fun at some of those things,
2597969
And maggots, too. Kind of weird how so many 'antique' medical treatments fell out of favor, and yet there are still a few circumstances where traditional medicine can do something that no pharmaceutical company can match. . . .
Way back when I was writing not-pony stories, I was working on a first-contact story where one of the minor plot elements was that the healers could cure cancer, because the spell could distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' cells. It's totally plausible that the Equestrian doctors can work similar 'miracles,' and thus might find themselves very much in demand on Earth.
4.bp.blogspot.com/-bHnF3cdtuaY/Ul-3VUVeUdI/AAAAAAAAGlI/u9H-6JG2EP8/s400/Vibration+advertisement+1910+public+domain+photo.jpg
2597983 Too true.^_^
2597971
It's no ocean liner, but the ship from Rarity Takes Manehattan looks pretty modern, at least.
i539.photobucket.com/albums/ff355/kaberinnaul/s4e8-boatscene.png
And I'm holding to the near-modern construction tech thanks to that episode, too. But that might be something like Izanagi's theory, too—some regions are more developed than others.
2597980
Even now, most older cities will occasionally have untreated sewage flow out into waterways. They built the original systems as combined sewers, i.e., they handle both wastewater and stormwater with the same system. (It's cheaper to build, and even major economies of 100 years ago would be considered poor countries by today's standards.) The wastewater treatment plants cannot handle the additional stormwater during a major rainfall event, and the excess is discharged as combined sewer overflow.
Nowadays it's illegal to build combined sewers, but we are both more wealthy and care a lot more about safety and the environment.
2597996 But, but... 'near-modern' construction tech is like... at least 90 years old. Steel frame buildings, iron propeller-driven ships, suspension bridges, cars, electric trains, all of these were available and even commonplace 90 years ago. Not a whole lot of the basics have changed since then, if you really think about it. Techniques for manufacturing and mining might have changed a bit, but that's about it. I don't think there's really been a significant advancement in building structure technology since the iron frame building and the elevator. I guess you could say the reinforced concrete building...
EDIT: It's actually just as old as iron buildings...
2598917 Exactly.
2597989 Hehehehehehe
2597996
I'll grant that it looks modern. How it's actually constructed could be debated, I suppose--heck, it could be wood, maybe with a copper-clad hull.
Older than you think. . . .
2598977
According to Wikipedia, the Bessemer process dates to 1855, which is when the first steel-framed building could have been built; cheap steel was available by 1870, and the first actual steel-framed building was constructed in 1890. Cast iron framed buildings date back to the ninth century, and the first 'modern' iron-framed building in the west was built in 1796. [Ditherington Flax Mill]
Iron ships: Civil war (and they had submarines, too).
Suspension bridge: Rope bridges are one of the earliest types of bridge; more 'modern' designs (chain) didn't come around until about 1433 (and one of those bridges lasted until 2004).
Cars: 1672 or 1769 (the 1672 model might not have ever been built).
Electric locomotive: 1837
There have been, but a lot of them haven't been popular in the West. Thin-shell domes, for example, aren't used much in the US. Geodesic domes aren't very common, either. Space frame technology is pretty recent, IIRC, and there have been some significant engineering advances in home construction (engineered trusses, for example)--but you're right, a lot of it hasn't changed to the futuristic world we thought we'd be living in.
I think even the Romans had concrete, although not reinforced.
2598917
Yeah, that's still an issue in a lot of major metropolitan areas. Some of Kalamazoo's system was converted to stormwater only and used as a backup for the new system (I've been inside of it, and it was damn cool).
I could see the ponies being more concerned about disease vectors and water cleanliness than we were historically, since they literally take up the water from holding ponds and make it rain. I doubt the workers in Cloudsdale would be too happy if they had to strain the incoming water of, ah, debris. If it got to be too much of a problem, they'd likely give a very special rain to the offending village.
Speaking of which, I wonder how cloud towns handle their sewers?
2599670
I was mostly thinking "20th Century", so I'm only off by about 50 years.
2599683
It doesn't come up often in anything I read, but I have seen both "clouds absorb waste and they have a process to get rid of it", and "pegasi buy the land under their cloud homes and let it fall through the floor".
2599705
Or a hundred, if we consider iron-framed structures. . . .
One of the most interesting things I've discovered doing research is how many 'modern' ideas date way back. Granted, most of them weren't in widespread use, but the technology was there.
I could imagine them having holding pits, which are periodically emptied on the ground. They could possibly sell it to earth ponies, as fertilizer, especially if they have a way to get rid of the potential diseases in it. Liquid waste could be cloud-filtered.
I haven't seen this in a fic, ever, but maybe there are at least tax rules for cloudhomes. Maybe RD owns a small plot of land on the ground which is big enough to theoretically hold her cloudhome. Otherwise, what's to stop a bunch of pegasi from moving above Ponyville, using public resources, and not paying a single bit in taxes? Perhaps to deal with pegasi wanderlust, the home doesn't have to stay over that land, but the pegasus has to own or lease it in order to receive resources in town. That could also lead to interesting arrangements with the earth ponies . . . maybe RD in turn leases her land to a farmer, which nets her enough bits to pay her tax obligation--or maybe a clever farmer has subdivided her fields into pegasus lots and leases them to cloudhome owners. Sort of a cloud trailer park.
2599670 I was only saying that that stuff existed 90 years ago, not that it was invented then. Besides, you'd hardly see a handful of steel frame buildings in any given major US city in 1855. But you probably would in 1920. For practical purposes, I'm saying 90-100 years ago... basically was when most of the cool shit was really implented. As versus just invented.
Using either time frame for an argument though, just leads to the same point: All this tech is way older than most people make it out to be.
As for the invention of the car, the idea is probably as old as the wheel itself. But the way I see it, the automobile as we know it only really came into existence when Bertha Benz decided to drive her husband's pet project to her mother's house in 1888. Before that, the automobile was just some stupid impractical idea.
Oh, I'm sure the Equestrian government has some kind of taxes for it. Not to mention codes, zoning, and other regulations. I mean, what's to stop a bunch of pegasi from just parking all their houses right over Ponyville, blocking out the sun?
Wouldn't Filthy Rich's Barnyard Bargains be Wal-Mart? Or would it be more like Dollar tree?
2600129
I know--I looked up the dates 'cause I was curious, and figured out I ought to share them with everybody.
And, while in most cases it took the inventions a while to really get going, in all cases it could have quickly become widespread, had people seen a need for it.
Probably, which is why I gave the dates that a functional car was actually built and demonstrated, rather then when some guy said "wouldn't it be cool if we could run this thing without horses?" I'd have to do some digging, but I think that self-propelled steam tractors pre-date Benz's automobile.
2600432
Well, as I recall, we've never actually seen the store, so it's hard to say for sure. It's possible he's operating a catalog store (although one of the IDW comics scotched that idea, so if you rely on them for canon, he isn't), or it could just be a good, old-fashioned general store for ponies who are too busy to go to market for things. In my headcanon, he's a savvy business operator, and is serving more as a middleman, selling imported goods around Ponyville, and exporting Ponyville goods to Canterlot and beyond.
In that sense, he might be more of a Sears and Roebuck type of operator.
2600492 Yeah, they do. There was that giant monstrosity of a steam car that crashed into a wall and killed someone. I think that incident might've uh... kindof been a turn-off to the idea of the automobile. I know that was a while before Benz's little moterwagen. And there were all sorts of patents registered long before in several countries.
To my knowledge though, there were no industrially produced steam tractors or anything of the sort pre-1888, minus track-ed trains. Could be wrong.
2601993
Steam engines started to be used on farms as early as 1799, and it didn't take too long before they were smaller, and portable (pulled by horses between jobs, rather than self-propelled). Based on some quick research, one firm alone had produced 26.000 portable steam engines by 1890.
What I don't know--and it would take more digging--is how many (if any) of those early farm machines were self-propelled. Certainly, the idea had to have occurred to someone in those years that they had an engine, and thus it could conceivably drive itself. When that was actually manufactured--if it ever was--I don't know.
And yes, you're right that some of the early 'cars' failed spectacularly, and of course they relied on a lot of other technologies to become successful. In 1769, there wouldn't have been much market for an automobile, if for no other reason than the roads it could travel would be few and far between, and a horse would be cheaper anyways.
2602033
Like I said, a stupid impractical idea. lol
Speaking of stationary steam engines, you know what was really cool? Sterling engines.
2602174
Yeah, they're pretty sweet. Also awesome are Fairbanks-Morse 2-stroke opposed-piston engines. They have no heads or valves.
On the books about rebuilding civilization thing one book I find rather interesting is The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch. I bought it just for fun mind you, if I was serious I wouldn't have bought it for Kindle, but it does provide a rather fascinating perspective. Rather than a historical text which basically just summarizes how technology developed in the past it looks to see if any stages of development can be skipped or if we'll be forced to develop differently due to our situation being different (eg a lack of easily available fossil fuels).
As an example food preservation - the method of sterilizing canned food was invented around the time of napoleon. But the method of sterilizing the contents of a sealed food container was first applied to bottles before they switched to cans - and Roman quality glasswear would have probably been good enough for the method to work.
Or Germ Theory - if you have retained the knowledge of germs you can do a lot of things to save lives even if you can't produce microscopes to prove it again. And on that topic apparently the Romans had a guy who came up with something akin to Germ Theory (but was ignored due to a lack of evidence) and they knew that glass orbs magnified objects (but dismissed it as a curiosity) - he calls this one of the great tragedies of history.
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Of course one must be careful about "having the technology" and actually having the capability to do it.
I imagine that one day people will say "they had brain uploading in 2014 but didn't use it for anything useful" because they read about the Open Worm project.