Factory's / Industrial buildings??

[Dr.Dorkness]

Hi all,

I have a question. Like I said in a previous post the gnomes in my novel are in an industrial age. Now they use the seeds of the tree which the stoy revolves around. they use the seeds to make cores for the forged (a kind of robots) and Make walking sticks with the ability to be used as swords (they are consious and have a telepahic bond with the user.) now I do not know much about factory's and industrialism (trying to research it but for some reason this still does not get me any further) Do you guys have any ideas on how I should descripe the proces would work. for the MC sneaks into such a facility and gets one of those evil walking sticks.

As a Side note I should add that the proces sould be cruel and painfull. perhaps some magical radiation or some kind of different "torture"

 

[Ravana]

Well, "factory" was originally a contraction of "manufactory"–that is, a place where things are manufactured (which itself means "make by hand"). As such, it can refer to anything from a single craftsman on upward, though in most cases it would have referred to a place where several people worked together: a master and several assistants, say. It gradually evolved into meaning a place where workers were concentrated, largely in pursuit of greater efficiency, as populations rose, demand for all items increased, and bulk shipping of resources to the point of manufacture and product away from it replaced scattered, piecemeal production. None of which specifically involves an industrial age: factories could and did exist in a wide variety of times and places.

What you're probably thinking of is a combination of two related items. The first, mechanization–machine-based production–is pretty much the defining characteristic of the Industrial Revolution. Even then, though, one has to be specific, since throwing a pot on a wheel is also "machine-based." The "revolutionary" part was largely that of powered (especially steam-powered) machine-based production, and in particular the flexibility of power divorced from location… you no longer needed to set your machinery up next to flowing water (or on a windy plain) in order to turn your wheels. While steam engines can be run using wood, charcoal, peat, dung, or anything else that burns, keeping them adequately supplied didn't become realistic until the widespread use of coal began.

The second item is the assembly line. This also does not specifically involve industrialization, only a division of labor… along with sufficient demand for product to make it worth dividing the labor in question to the point where you're paying someone to perform a single step repeatedly for ten or twelve (or more) hours per day. Which was a big enough hurdle that it wasn't until well after the Industrial Revolution was underway before this became the standard for manufacture. Assembly lines themselves tend to rely heavily on a third item: interchangeable parts. Most people wouldn't think twice about this today, but even well into the 20th century mechanical parts were often custom fitted to the device they were being installed into.

So there are three more terms to start searching on: mechanization, assembly line, interchangeable parts. "Division of labor" could be a fourth; might throw in "machine tools" as well.

Whether that'll help you any in working out your process, I don't know; at least it should help you dig into "factories" a bit better.

[P.S. Technically, this is a "world-building" question, not a "writing" one. ]

 

[Amanita]

Did I understand that correctly? You have factories where gnomes make robots and walking sticks that can be used for fighting using some sort of magical seed? And you want the process of making them to be unpleasant for the people working there?

Some of the most unpleasant things in early factories where great heat, toxic fumes or dust, flying sparks or getting body parts into the machinges. The work itself used to be very demanding as well, especially when the workers weren't even well-nourished.

If you have the opportunity to do so it might be helpful to visit a real factory, some companies offer this from time to time. I've been at a car factory with school and the most impressive things there were the loud noises and the sparks flying around when they were working with the metal. We had to put on protective clothes even though we were only watching from a distance. If you imagine something like that with neither protective clothes nor robots doing part of the work you might get an impression on what this used to be like in the past.

I'm not sure how the production of the magical walking sticks is supposed to work in your world, so I can't tell you what kind of factory you should visit but you surely know that yourself.
If radiation causes pain right away it's already likely to be deadly though. Therefore you might want to use something else even though magical radiation can be different of course. Heat might work well and could easily be generated by the magic. Maybe your workers have to touch some of the hot stuff, to make it work...
Or there are toxic fumes that are always unpleasant but only kill if someone is exposed to them for a very long time.

This could get really interesting. I like industrial setting fantasies.

 

[Dr.Dorkness]

Well, the idea is that from the seeds the cores are made for the forged (the robots). not the forged themself. though the cores are the most important part. as for the walking sticks they have a sort of bloodlust because they are tormented through the proces of creating them. the seeds where origanaly used by the sea elves to grow living ships trough blood sacrifice. The idea is that from the seeds comes somthing good (the ships), something evil (the walking sticks), and something that can go both way to make it easy I call it neutral (the forged). Although I do not believe in good and evils as being so black and white as i just described it.

the story revolves around the seeds and what happens to them, and the war of new versus old (technology versus magic for example)

the industrial/factory idea is that the seeds are delivered there and the gnomes (who for some reason not developed yet can't touch them) use other machines to put them in the two procesing machines and the core and sticks come out of the other end. (lets say 20 gnomes are needed to run the factory) power is generated from a steam powered generator. so I have an idea on how it is done but not how I should describe it. that is also the reason why I did not post it in world building. but here.

 

[Black Dragon]

This thread will probably get more of a response in World Building, so I moved it there.