Better Living Through Etheric Exploits: Technology Brainstorming/Discussion

[Quantus]

Crystals can create and emitt heat and energy, another application is inverse gravity, can crystals absorb/transfer/store heat? Heat management is always useful.

They can certainly project/create it, but I think it's similar enough to electricity (and is literally electricity in certain parts of the technology) that it would still be significantly easier to create heat than to move it or to Cool anything.  Heat waste seems a major concern in the Engine Room, and active cooling systems would indeed be a great thing, Barring tactical issued with the Core energy rationing having the spare power and still run the lifts/shroud/guns/etc.

[Heir of the Void]

Probably correct, though it may be possible to use them to build a heat pump, using etheric energy to move thermal energy against a temperature gradient.

[Quantus]

Probably correct, though it may be possible to use them to build a heat pump, using etheric energy to move thermal energy against a temperature gradient.

Oh, certainly.  I just dont see anything specific yet in the crystal side of things that would make it any easier than a purely mechanical one like we use, in the sense that they cannot so far move thermal energy directly (the way furycraft allowed for Cold-stones, for example).  But a society that has large scale functioning steam power should have everything they need to make a carnot-cycle heat pump, at least in terms of technological capability.

[kazimmoinuddin]

They might not be able to store heat, but could they channel it to be used else where, for continuous lighting and possibly something like jet engines or thrusters. Those crystals remind me of uni beams and repulsars from Iron Man. It could lead to something like the Hellicarriers. I wonder what the silk could be used in hand glider, parachutes and other similar

[Heir of the Void]

Boarding Rigs are a thing; ethersilk arrangements that fly using the same mechanics as an airship's web and are used by Marines to fly onto enemy ships for boarding assaults. The Auroran Marines used them to land in the ventilation shafts of Albion when they were first infiltrating. Given that ethersilk needs an electric charge to be used for propulsion, this implies that there are power crystals small enough to be used on mass-produced personal gear.

I think the biggest impediment to any radical developments in ether crystal engineering, actually, is that Etherealists are all crazy. Based on what we see of Folly using her powers, and Grimm's description of how they work, the crystals are solidified containers for the same pathways that the Etherealists use to do things. I would guess it's entirely possible that the crystals are artificial recreations of the power used by the Etheralists, like how Silimatic technology is the same thing as the magic Occulators use via their Lenses.

If this is the case, then the reason that most crystals decay over time might be the same effect that causes SAN loss in humans. The fact that core crystals don't would imply that there's something fundamentally different about them.

[kazimmoinuddin]

Crystal can be grown, and these were harvested. If the crystals can be kept alive, they might not experience a loss of power.

[nervousenergy]

The bigger limitation on etheric improvements may be cultural.  We don't have enough history yet, but this world seems to be in a typical medieval innovative rut.  Things work the way they work, and there's not much pressure to improve them.  The obvious conclusion is a colony world where the original tech base has been forgotten, but where the original efforts to build the spires has led to a largely comfortable existence for the population. 

One specific exploit that looks possibly like a plot hole is the power of Etherialists to control/subvert etheric weaponry.  This seems pretty axiomatic so far in the story.  But given that, why can't they affect naval weapons?  I kept expecting Ferrus to alter the course of the engagement at the end by turning the weapons of the Auroran BC back on her.