#there's also some fossils and shells in there along with a big old chunk of amber

[lathbora-virann]

the evolution of my cool rock collection :)

[weirdponytail]

How modern is everything in MIC? Like what technology do they have? Plus, what does dragon armor look like in this universe, I’m really curious, lol?

Haha, once again that’s a sort of difficult question that needs to be answered!! Buckle in, folks. Sorry the post got so damn long!

Modern Inheritance Cycle is a bit of a misnomer, really. Technology varies pretty widely, so I can’t point to a chunk of our history and say ‘iz like that!’ for MIC. I’ll do my best to give a general overview.

Big things are that fossil fuel engines do not exist. Planes, automobiles, etc, do not and will not exist in MIC. Horses and walking are still the main travel methods. Both swords and guns are used. In the Broddring Empire, the most technologically advanced computers are those box computers from the late 90s early 2000s. Somehow, MP3 players exist, but not the sleek ones we know now (Eragon has one that he keeps on his person at all times). There is some difference between the level of computer tech humans have when looking at the Empire and Surda. Elves and dwarves have their own levels of tech that are more advanced. Radios are a thing, but for communication and entertainment/news, and again differ somewhat between races. 

Also, big note that my friend Cor brought to my attention: My dumbass completely forgot about the Urgals and figuring out their levels of tech. It’s low, mostly due to combat focused and rather secluded (iirc) lifestyles. 

Alright, let’s get down to specifics.

Handheld Weapons: While guns are a thing (modern, right here, right now guns), they haven’t taken over swords and other bladed weapons completely. Heck, swords are still a major part of the series! Close combat is done with swords, while guns are usually pistols, rifles, etc, used mid to long range. Things like AKs and very large magazine automatics aren’t very common, but burst fire and semi auto are okay. Examples: Arya and Brom both carry pistols and occasionally a long gun or combat rifle of some sort, while Murtagh has a specialized rifle he uses. Fäolin was a trained sniper. It’s sort of up in the air really. I add them when I feel like it. 

Large Weapons: As mentioned in my MIC Dwarves post (LINKED), dwarves developed some artillery type weapons and small tanks (WW2 levels at the highest), run on magic energy. This energy is usually stored in mid to low quality minerals and crystals and can be replenished either via putting your life energy into it, or (and this is something new, I’m not sure if it’s going to stay or not) channeling the resulting energy release from basic exothermic chemical reactions into the crystals, though this is only a thing that dwarves know how to do and they are NOT sharing that information.

Armor: Oddly enough, Kevlar isn’t really prevalent. There’s still enough of a focus on hand to hand sword fighting that there’s mixes of other materials that could deflect sword blows with materials that can dissipate the impact of projectiles. Dwarves are the best to look to for their lightweight metal alloys for this purpose, and Saphira’s armor is the pinnacle of that technological achievement. I’m rusty (HA!) on my metallurgy and aramid fiber applications info, so you’ve sparked my urge to do some research. I’ve not figured out a good dragon armor design yet, but when I do I’ll definitely draw some up!

Oh, more armor! Elves have perfected spidersilk armor, and when properly mixed with metals or aramid weaves it creates fantastically resistant cloth and plating. Arya’s jacket, mentioned plenty of times in MIC stories, is made of this spidersilk cloth mixture. It’s stopped bullets before, and is pretty resistant to cutting from nearly everything but a Rider’s sword or other crazy rule breaking/bending magic. Arya’s armor in my original ‘The Soldier’ drawing is also spidersilk, though it’s more spidersilk alloy plate. If you see anything that’s a mottled texture, mottled blue or blue grey in my MIC art, that’s had spidersilk added to it. Elvish armor (and even some weapons) relies on it heavily. 

Elves tend to have the ‘highest’ level of tech, but it’s mostly due to an abundance of magic, time, and knowledge in other fields that lead to strange new inventions. They don’t develop it often, as it’s mostly a fleeting hobby, but when they do implement it with their magic it can be pretty dang cool. Glenwing studied, among his mental health and medical training, electrical engineering type things and thus knows how to rewire both nerves and devices. Rhunön is quite adept at working magic into her forging, as well as mechanical and electrical (sort of) work. When Glen loses his arm in the ambush, Rhunön is the one that makes a prosthetic for him that sort of ends up being like Fullmetal Alchemist Automail, but without the painful surgical requirements. It requires only the same amount of energy that movement and actions with muscle and tissue would require with his real arm, so it is linked to his own energy. Arya, meanwhile, picks up a lot of mechanical engineering from bothering Rhunön as a kid and gets even more experience with it via dwarvish tech, weapons sabotage, and ‘use everything till it falls apart’ forced rationing with the Varden, leading to a combination of her and Glen’s skills to create their squad’s special radios that are mentioned in a few of the MIC stories.

Dwarves are the most mechanically inclined and, again, use energy storing crystals very frequently in their creations. I think it’s mentioned in my dwarf post that many many households have items and tools that house these crystals. I go more in depth with the post I mentioned so that’s probably where you’ll get the most info.

Humans are kinda stuck. Galbatorix tends to draw from things reported on/seen while fighting against other forces and has his people develop from those. Military weapons have been the main focus, so there’s not much in the way of computers or that kind of stuff. Those old box computers are usually only used in businesses that can afford them for finances and the like. As for artillery, the Broddring Empire has developed ‘cannonbombs,’ artillery shells that are clusterbombs inside an outer shell that can be on a timed fuse for detonation before impact or explode on impact and releases several more explosives (If you want a better explanation, check out MIRV grenades from from the Borderlands games). They’re the bane of trench fighters.

Meanwhile, in Surda, computers are a little smaller! Due to the hot climate, Surdans learned to make more efficient cooling systems and were able to make them smaller and more compact, leading to an explosion of research into making the rest of the equipment smaller as well. They’ve moved on to tower+flat monitor type computers. Surda is more interested in chemical engineering and tech towards the center of the kingdom, while defensive tech and development takes precedence along the border for obvious reasons. 

Even though humans seem to have gotten the short end of the stick, I always want to mention that in MIC, humans are the most ingenious, able to use, reuse and repurpose due to their ‘limitations’ when side by side with other races. They think outside and all over the box, occasionally cutting the material of the box to see if they can make something out of that. It’s something that most dwarves and elves just don’t understand, and thus often overlook or underestimate. 

That’s...all I’ve got at the moment. I hope that helped a bit! Please, if you have any more questions, ask! :D I love world building!!

[earthstory]

Of Mars and Australia's opal fields...

We already covered the formation of Aussie opal in our article on opalised fossils (at http://tinyurl.com/nms2zmd), but new research published last month by Patrice Rey of the University of Sydney in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences provides with our clearest view of the geological events that gave us this lovely glimmering stone, along with evidence that the Big Red in the island continent's centre is the closet Earth analogue to the red landscape of Mars. The opal fields extend through a vast area of the centre, the Great Artesian Basin, the largest intra-continental basin on Earth. It was once occupied by the Eromanga, a shallow, cold and muddy inland sea covering some 60% of the country. Fossils such as Eric the plesiosaur and Australia's famous precious opal shells attest to the marine environment. Rey, who has been studying the basin for 30 years started off by asking himself what was special about the geological history of the area that made the gems he loves. They formed in horizons close to the old land surface, and are now overlain by later sediments.

Australia and Antarctica were the last chunks of Gondwana to rift apart, and the red continent started to drift northwards towards the warmer climes that it now lives under. As it drifted, the inland sea began to dry out and retreat as the whole continent dried up, heading towards the warmer conditions of today, which led to a very specific type of chemical weathering that is very similar to that undergone by Mars. The Eromanga sediments were of the right type to allow these reactions.

The weathering was of a similar type to acid mine drainage (covered at http://tinyurl.com/kvtv9oo). as the sea retreated between 100 and 97 million years ago, and the marine mudstones it had deposited were exposed, the pyrite within them began to react with rain and groundwater producing sulphuric acid. This produced a strong episode of acidic and oxidising chemical erosion, that turned Australia into the red continent (by oxidising the iron in sandstones) and dissolved silica from quartz rich sandstones that later precipitated as precious opal.

The underlying rock helped, as there were few carbonate rocks such as limestone, which would have neutralised the acid. Once the acid was used up, the conditions switched to alkaline, which allowed the precipitation of the opal. This process of chemical erosion is thought to be similar to that revealed by the Mars rovers currently trundling around the planet.

This implies that conditions in the Artesian Basin are good proxies for Martian environments, where non precious opal was found in 2008, along with iron oxides (the Red Planet) and similar clays to those found Down Under.

It also implies that the bacterial ecosystems in central Australia may be studied in order to explore the shape that possible Martian ecosystems may have had. Some primitive bacteria in Australia live in acidic conditions and feed off iron chemical energy gradients, and were present during the time of opalisation. They survived similar conditions to those any bacteria on Mars would have gone through, and exploring the shape they have evolved into today may give us a clue of what to look for on the next planet outwards.

Loz

Image credit: Gemology online

http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/5521/precious-opals-shine-a-light-on-mars

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/uncovered-the-truth-about-opal-formation.htm

http://www.asianscientist.com/in-the-lab/australias-opal-rich-red-center-shows-similar-geology-red-planet-2013/

http://www.sci-news.com/geology/article01128-australia-opal.html

http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=11678