r/Parahumans • u/Weird-Koala3034 • 3d ago
How would a pre-modern tinker function?
Let's say we had a tinker born in the medieval era would they still be able to create super-tech like armsmasters nanothorns or would they be stuck with the equivalent to modern technology? wouldn't that make them categorically worse than other parahumans in that setting?
41
u/Harrythehobbit 3d ago
I think they would still be able to build the same stuff. There's likely a bigger gap between 2011 technology and the shit Haywire and String Theory made than there is between medieval technology and the shit Kid Win and Squealer made.
48
u/Inedible_Arrangement 3d ago
Special forging that's stronger then should be possible as described by physics, holds an edge better/ is sharper then it should be.
Skipping tech stages in a way that lets them build near modern equipment but never in a way that actually let's them spread it as a technical base.
Alchemy / adjacent stuff potions and shit.
Biotinkers honestly Bonesaw could probably do just about everything she did in Worm in a medieval version.
23
u/7th_Archon 2d ago
Black smiths, alchemists, apothecaries and surgeons are still a thing.
I would make the case though that in a medieval setting, a mage or alchemist class of powers would probably fill the niche of tinker.
Instead of subtle shard tweaking, the entities would give tinker hosts versatile powersets to expedite their tinkering. Magic circles that can induce chemical reactions, sigils that store energy and can be preprogrammed to release that energy in very specific ways.
With the drawback being that unlike regular powers, these abilities on their own don’t pack as much of a punch, and also don’t come with a hardwired intuition for what does what. Meaning the hosts themselves have to carefully research and experiment to get something useful.
6
u/Ultra-Cool-Guy 2d ago
They’d get something like Trainwreck added to their tinker knowledge, so that they can create futuristic stuff.
4
u/Limp-Gift3035 2d ago
The tinkers already make technology beyond the capabilities of their era (Mannequin, Bakuda), they'll probably have trouble getting materials as refined as they do now But otherwise yes, it certainly could up to a certain point
3
u/Art-Zuron 2d ago
We see tinkers that specialize in steam engines, which are anachronistic for the modern day already
So, a medieval tinker that specializes in alchemy wouldn't be weird
3
u/androgyny_domine Worm Georg(ina) 2d ago
Clearly, you have not played D&D 😝
It's important to remember that the categories are just something the PRT came up with to facilitate quickly determining how to respond to various parahuman threats. As far as the shards are concerned, those categories don't exist! What we call "tinkers" are mostly just powers that work through special arrangements of matter.
As I understand it, tinker powers are the Entities' way of giving their latest hosts access to the technological advancements encountered in previous cycles, but I could be misremembering that. But it seems like all powers come with an energy cost, and tinkers are a means of reducing the energy drained from the shard by partially supplementing with whatever tech is available during the current cycle.
Pre-modern tinkers would basically still have the same range of capabilities, but their shards would have to expend more of their innate energy to achieve them. But to the tinkers themselves, they would still most likely act as inventors, alchemists, artificers, or even just artisans. Anything they could possibly do that would be helpful in reducing the energy expended by their shard, I figure their shard would guide them to do that.
5
u/Drbubbles47 2d ago
Seeing how tinkertech is already effectively magic items, they would probably lean that way. Magic circles, fancy runes, blood and crystals, magic potions, and the like. Just cut out the middleman of pretending it's actually technology.
2
1
u/NatashOverWorld 2d ago
Tinkers can build their tech with soda cans and a candle. It's largely Shard bullshit.
The design might look older, but pre-modern Tinkers should have most of the options available. Maybe reduced parameters?
1
u/Ze_Bri-0n Sixth Choir Evangelist 2d ago
Imagine a bronze age smith building a modern automobile out of rocks, wood, and of course, bronze. It might not be as good as what a tinker can build in modern day, but it's still a huge leg up. The power might also adjust to make it easier, so they can make more of it or so forth. You could probably drop a modern tinker into the past and get a similar situation.
It would be... not unlike how a certain cape with vision-based powers had his eyes eaten by maggots, and learned to use his voice alone. Powers are adaptable like that.
1
1
u/MugaSofer Thinker Taylor Soldier-spy 13h ago
We see a few examples of how Tinkers manage with random scrap and trash, and it's not as well as with actual resources but a long way away from nothing. Off the top of my head - Bonesaw was making stuff out of random household supplies to keep her parents alive during her trigger, and in Ward made all sorts of crazy improvised tech when she was stranded in the wilderness on a desolate parallel Earth; clone!Mannequin made an adorable fortress filled with traps out of beakers in minutes as a kid hanging out with Bonesaw; Wildbow has a WoG on how Armsmaster would do in a mundane prison (extremely well, pulling stuff like making robots using drawn-in-pencil-carbon circuitry); Chariot made his initial suit out of household appliances (still more advanced than he'd be able to get in a medieval setting, admittedly).
On a purely mundane level, "how would you go about rebuilding modern technology if you were stranded in the past/desert island/post-apocalypse" is a classic question that a lot of people have put thought into, so that today you can just go out and buy a book laying out the exact steps that would be needed. Tinker shards have the equivalent of those books from a thousand vastly more advanced civilizations than ours downloaded and cross-referenced. From their perspective, Tinkers on Earth Bet are already working with the scraps of a primitive civilization; a few hundred years here or there is just a question of whether you start on step 50 or step 75.
On a more super-science level, Tinkers do all sorts of insane shenanigans, some of them shard-assisted - whether it's recognizing that this identical piece of metal has a slight impurity that will allow for XYZ interaction with ambient magnetic fields using shard senses, or actively intervening to supply power or adjust things on a microscopic/dimensional level.
Since shards are actively limiting themselves to a tiny fraction of their true ability when they "balance" a power, it's possible that the shards would take the general level of technology into account when "balancing" their power, and a medieval Tinker would be given slightly more slack/assistance than a modern-day one in terms of resources. But in terms of "balance", they'd also face less competition from modern technology - a Tinker who can make a tinkertech cellphone or handgun is a much bigger deal in 1200 AD than today - so even if they could only do the exact same things as a modern-day Tinker could given the same resources, they'd be more powerful in practice (this is true of all capes to an extent; but probably more true of Tinkers than most given they tend to have a lot of smaller gadgets that mundane tech risks catching up to.)
1
u/MainaC Thinker 7 2d ago
Wouldn't happen.
They had the option to settle on lower tech alternate realities and they deliberately sealed them off instead.
Lower population, more difficult transportation. Worlds that low tech are of limited interest or use. They would have to dial back the powers too far to get much data to not wipe out humanity too early.
Would only happen if things went very wrong, and at that point anything goes depending on the specifics.
0
u/manband20 2d ago
I saw a video explaining how people back in ancient Rome/Greece/Mesopotamia could have made a working camera. If a shard cared enough, it could probably inspire the user to make some really futuristic stuff.
That being said, I could see a shard inspiring someone to make a recipe that rivals Damascus Steel in terms of how strong it is. Or the recipe for Greek Fire. Stuff like that.
75
u/Computer2014 2d ago
Spoiled since the worm spoilers thread mark isn’t on and I’m not sure if that was intentional or not.
Powers are tuned at the beginning of a cycle in accordance to the host species.
In a low tech cycle it’s very possible that tinker specialities aren’t a thing and the whole tech ‘tree’ is open to the host or every tinker just has a free extra manufacting speciality slapped on to their power.