BCE: Before Common Era
ACE: After Common Era

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“Dictators free themselves, but slave the people.”
-Charlie Chaplin
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Chapter Thirteen: The Steam Engine
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Have you ever wondered how society actually processes forward? Specifically medieval societies? Back then, they didn’t have whole agencies dedicated to the research and development of weapons and machines, just, sole inspiration. Those unique, revolutionary ideas that are able to completely transform the entire of society. For instance, take Nikola Tesla, for example, his simple, yet incredible concepts formed the resemblance of the electric AC power system, it’s argued without him, humans may still be stuck a few hundred years in the past.

Now contemplate another inventor, Thomas Edison, the creator of the modern light bulb. He too was able to conceptualise several notions but proceeded to take it in a different direction.

Tesla and Edison are complete opposites, even though they technically worked in the same field, the science of electricity, and both developed means of improving it, allowing more humans to gain access to this new power source. One, however, implemented in the name of homosapian advancement, a humanist, to give without counting the cost, while the other, wanted money, and to furthermore, improve his social standing.

The question now is, which one triumphs in the end? The part Serbian? Or the born and bread American?

…
A few seconds to contemplate.
…

Alright, fine. I’ll give you a clue, his name starts with T.

Anyway.

This overall conclusion can easily be drawn to a griffon named Erika, she is an innovator, an inventor, and most importantly, she emphasises the value and agency of griffon beings in general. She doesn’t care for money, nor social standing, and prefers to use almost all her time, to develop machines that could potentially increase the overall wellness of the Griffon people. She has formulated many designs, most of which are utilised locally, for unnaturally low prices. One such example is the ‘Plow and Sow.’

To describe this particular being, she is whole-fully white, with dark grey tipped wings and ‘hair.’ You could often find her in a relatively basic brown suit, with an un-illuminated blue undergarment, laced with a comparatively fundamental red tie.

The OC Erika was created, and provided by Arstotzkan Border Patrol, that won the flag feature contest a few months back.

Erika was currently residing in her very own forge, passed on from generation to generation, of family members. Their lineage being of military blacksmiths, but Erika however, decided to flip this tradition on its head, by turning her back from sharp swords, and arrows —tools of murder. To gears, and the brilliant mathematics of engineering.

The place was a relatively moderate singular room, a furnace was situated in the right furthermost corner, the same side resided the large amount of necessary equipment to properly beat metal into shapes. While the other side of the room contained a series of benches, on-top stewed various amounts of tools, and pre-made machine parts.

Her current goal was to somehow transfer heat energy—flames, into physical movement. If this could be achieved, pumps no longer had to rely on moving water bodies, or wind to actually function, this would allow all towns, no matter how small or remote, to have access to plenty of pure water. Pumps, of course, had been invented decades earlier, but the limited rivers and wind speed have left 95% of all towns in the Griffon Empire without the proper water supply.

Sadly, the development of this ‘automatic ingenium’ (ingenium in Latin means inclination, intelligence, and natural capacity). Has been difficult to continue as ‘officially’, her forge was repurposed by the Monarch Government into a military workshop. Which basically just boils down to instead of manufacturing complex devices, she is to provide for the war effort. This was mostly overcome by simplycreating items just within the minimum quota, and of questionable quality, lest she wants to confronted by the authorities.

At this very moment, a half a meter by half a meter boiler was surprisingly, being heated to include a dangerously high amount of pressure. A valve is positioned towards the bottom of this cylinder, which can be opened up on demand. The goal of this experiment is to rotate an extremely heavy gear (located directly next to the boiler), weighing at 0.4 of a tonne, by spiting an intense stream of H20 gas at one spot.

This obviously didn’t work out, as before Erika could even really test this theory, the boiler exploded. She dramatically overestimated the structural integrity of the design, particularly the hastily put together joints, the part responsible for actually clasping the cylinder together.

Water sprouted in all directions, covering a large surface in extremely hot steam and water, the metal casing, launched into the roof, and out into the large, blue sky. Cutting a decently sized hole in the ceiling.

Lucky, she was mostly outside the radius of bast as she was busy in the forging section, only small splashes of fierily hot liquid came in contact with Erika’s skin. Don’t get me wrong, at the time of impact she screamed in utter pain, but fortunately missed the brute of the detonation.

You would think in this situation she would be crying, a helpless little organism that just couldn’t hold back the ferocious pelt up agony. This is, surprisingly, not the case. Instead, at that very moment, inspiration hit her like a brick, a single idea, that could potentially revolutionise the pump, and create a brand new age for the supply and removal of water.

Even though her leg and a few patches of skin were screaming at her to tear up in pain, her mind was instead occupied by this new thought, a singular thought, caused by the sheer force of a pressurised explosion, that will literally adjust her whole entire career for the better.

‘Why don’t I just push with pressure?’

This may seem like a very simple idea, and that’s because it is. All this time, after two years of research, she has been trying to push with steam, to spit a fountain of intense vapour in order to turn, or move objects. Of course, she has always had various degrees of success, but what she found was that it could never push anything too heavy.

But pressure can be changed to her will, so long as the boiler and pipes are strong enough, she could utilise a build up of pressure to thrust an object— no, a piston forward.

And she shall call it—the Steam Engine.

Author's Note

Please comment below if you think this story is a bit hard to follow, if this becomes the case, I'll dial down the number of separate POVs from Atomic Discharge.

UPDATED AUTHORS NOTES - 15/12/2024
This chapter was originally longer, I have removed a portion of it as it contained content that I no longer agree with