Science and Technology in Bel

Being the birthplace of the New Truth movement and one of the first nations to be swept by the Scientific Revolution, Bel is the origin of numerous technological advances, particularly in the realms of transportation and electromagnetism.

Origins of science in Bel
Bel was the birthplace of the New Truth movement of the Year 421, which precipitated a full revolution in philosophies of inquiry worldwide. At the heart of this movement were several interconnected ideas: The most prominent figure of this school of thought was Elode Iris, a philosopher who wrote the defining text of the New Truth. His work as an artist/oil painter whose works, violent and wild in style, was the rawest portrayal of the second New Truth philosophy.
 * The glory of the illogical, and humanity's prerogative to bypass the boundaries of pragmatism in search of a greater but more distant good
 * The fundamental virtue in challenging the absoluteness of any and all blindly-accepted truths, tangible, reproducible evidence as the only reasonable basis of truth

It was the endeavouring spirit of this movement that inspired a wave of scientists, not only in Bel but across the world, to join what soon became a golden age of innovation.

Steam transport
While it was invented in Cin by scientist Lei-Ou, the steam engine was first put into mass public use in Bel. The engine was one of many technologies shared by Bel, Cin and Niro along the great cross-oceanic trade routes.

With the intellectuals in its society becoming interested innovations in steam power and metallurgy as early as the 300s, carriages were soon mechanised, lighter and more efficient.

The first passenger model of the steam carriage appeared in the year 424, designed by Hefer Maynard and largely retaining the structure of the two-horse carriage popular at the time.

Because the burning of coals is resource-efficient compared to the use of horses, steam carriages quickly outmoded horse-drawn carriages and became the predominant road vehicle in Bel, then in the rest of the world.

It was only in 431 that Maynard began to design a rail-based version of his steam carriage. Railroads were already in common use as a means for transporting coal, but this was the first time steam-operated passenger carriages had ever been posited. The very first train ran on the first day of the fifth month in 431, carrying the inventor, his chief engineer and the first President of Bel from Bel City to Blueport.

For the first decade, trains were used to meet the pressing need for cargo transport, and for this reason, only railroads between cities with industrial prominence were maintained. Many “ghost railways” still exist, evidence of past attempts to construct commercial railways that never materialised thanks to campaigns by environmentalists and resulting fears of non-profitability.

It wasn’t until Cerdolian sociologist Hequere a'Fel’s treatise on cultural expansion and technology as a means of drawing the people at the edges of a nation-state closer–and the successful implementation of the passenger steamship in the neighbouring Cerdolia–that the merits of mass transport became too obvious to be ignored.

The first commercial railway company,  Crossrails Co., opened in 436. As predicted, the ease of commutation afforded by the steam train opened to poorer citizens the option of working in the cities.

Railroad maintenance was one of the costliest government-funded services in existence: with hundreds of miles of railroad running across the nation by Year 440, ensuring that every foot of every track was in functioning state was a neverending task. Bel eventually followed in Cerdolia’s footsteps, converting their navy into a steam-powered one.

Problematically, though, the boom in steam engine usage for transport–in addition to manufacturing–led to the production of immense amounts of smog, which massively worsened the air quality in Bel.

Invocable vehicles
As is always the case in Bel, as soon as steam carriages were invented, versions that made use of deity invocation were in the works within a year.

As a form of respect, deities were previously not engaged for menial tasks, but with the New Truth came a renewed sense of scepticism with regards to conventional wisdoms not recorded in holy texts, and people began to experiment with carriages operated by deities.

Early invocable carriages simply replaced horses with requorite and were driven through use of a looping  move []  command. New solutions were found that involved attachment of requorite to wheel axles and  link []  and  revolve []  commands. More complex and efficient versions were created as new trains were designed.

Various deities have been pinpointed for their superior locomotion command execution and are assigned to transport conductors so as to avoid overlaps.

Electricity and magnetism
The discovery of the relationship between electricity, static and magnetism was first codified in the seminal article, On Electricity and Its Intrinsic Relationship with Magnetism, published by scientist Morin Holder in the Year 417. It was Holder who elucidated principles for the generation of electrical potentials, conduction and capacitance.

While remaining less popular than invocation in almost all things, partly because it exists in parallel to--and to some in defiance of--the power of Beghul and Their shepherds, electricity has crept into daily life, as a safer alternative to combustion lamps.

Internal combustion
Understanding of internal combustion of organic fuels is still at its nascent stage, but Bel is, as always, spearheading the research and innovation efforts. Through the refinement of methods previously used to purify lamp kerosene, primitive and inefficient fuels have been distilled. The reinvention of the steam engine for internal combustion is a hot field in science.