• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Power source for clockwork automaton

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I have an automaton that is the size of a small dog. I need a power source for it. I don't want to use a winding mechanism or something that would have to be actuated on a regular basis to keep the thing "alive." Options I'm considering thus far are:

1) ancient technology (which exists in this world, though it isn't understood) that provides a "lifetime" of power to the creature; or

2) some more complicated system that requires the creature to eat (not sure what this would look like yet; might involve principles seen in this world as alchemy).

Tech level of the world is odd--think maybe 15th or 16th century as the closest earth equivalent, on the whole, but with the odd bit of more advanced technology left over from a now-defunct civilization.

If you guys were going to power such an automaton in a way that didn't require it to be wound, but enabled it essentially to be self-sustaining, what would you use?
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
If you guys were going to power such an automaton in a way that didn't require it to be wound, but enabled it essentially to be self-sustaining, what would you use?

"Magic"

If you don't want to use magic, which I'm guessing, you could go with a small piece of radioactive material that generates heat and powers the clockwork dog in much the same way a steam engine does. This would also let you have the dog consume water in order to replenish cooling water that escapes the system.

Maybe? :)


Edit: having a heat source also gives you the option to have the dog overheat when it gets excited, potentially setting fire to anything flammable around it.
 
Last edited:
A small internal combustion engine. The creature can drink oil. The creature can be equipped with a device that process coal and or food and produce the needed oil.
Or electric motor and batteries. The batteries can be recharget with magic/lightnings/solar light/etc.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
"Magic"

If you don't want to use magic, which I'm guessing, you could go with a small piece of radioactive material that generates heat and powers the clockwork dog in much the same way a steam engine does. This would also let you have the dog consume water in order to replenish cooling water that escapes the system.

Maybe? :)

I do like the idea that the creature needs water to maintain cooling. That gives it a vulnerability that could play into the story. Right now, it has no such limitation.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
A small internal combustion engine. The creature can drink oil. The creature can be equipped with a device that process coal and or food and produce the needed oil.
Or electric motor and batteries. The batteries can be recharget with magic/lightnings/solar light/etc.

The combustion engine idea is cool, but there are no fossil fuels in this world, so I'd have to come up with another source. Electric/batteries could work as a remnant of ancient tech. I'll have to think on that further. Something atomic powered like Svrtnsse suggested actually fits into this setting pretty well. Now I have a few ideas to bat around. Thanks!
 
Not to be too cliche, but you could always go with the magic crystal or soul crystal energy source. Can run out of energy and in time, might even have trouble finding the batteries. Or the cost of said batteries is just too high to keep it running.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Not too be too cliche, but you could always go with the magic crystal or soul crystal energy source. Can run out of energy and in time, might even have trouble finding the batteries. Or the cost of said batteries is just too high to keep it running.

I do like the crystal idea--so much so that the creature already incorporates crystals for another purpose. I didn't want to use the same thing for an energy source, but this is exactly what I had first envisioned :)
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Steerpikes world, especially with regard to the tech level and lack of fossil fuels, sounds an awful lot like my world(s). I even have bits of semi-functional 'ancient alien' technology laying around.

That aid, the folks on my worlds needed to be able to smelt metal. Kind of hard without coal. I came up with two solutions (both in use, one used in the real world).

The first was solar forges - sun-power concentrated by mirrors or special lenses. Concept goes back to antiquity. A old buddy of mine got to screwing around wit Fresnel lenses a few years ago; he gave me a demonstration - on a moderately cloudy day, he lined up the lens and ignited a chunk of wood with the dang thing. Took all of half a second. Solar forges on my world are basically inferior copies of ancient alien tech. Probably not portable enough for Steerpike.

The other method was via 'Fumar Trees,' a creation of the ancient aliens. These are strangely straight trees that grow in heavily mineralized (contaminated) soil. Their bark is metallic, properly treated it makes a sort of woven metal sheet. The interior of these trees is a thick pulp that burns extremely hot - or extremely long, depending on how its cut. One fumar log can keep a modest sized forge going for several days - or keep a peasant cottage warm through the winter. Plus, they're almost smokeless. The big disadvantages are they need that heavily mineralized dirt in which to grow, and almost nothing else will grow near them.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
@ThinkerX I like that they're called "fumar" trees but don't produce smoke :)

What I've done for metals relies on ancient tech that is still functional. It is limiting, in terms of availability metals. Also, there are plenty of trees on the world, so charcoal can be produced.
 

Vaporo

Inkling
The combustion engine idea is cool, but there are no fossil fuels in this world, so I'd have to come up with another source. Electric/batteries could work as a remnant of ancient tech. I'll have to think on that further. Something atomic powered like Svrtnsse suggested actually fits into this setting pretty well. Now I have a few ideas to bat around. Thanks!

It doesn't necessary have to be petroleum oil. There are infinite kinds of plant and animal-based oils that have been used throughout antiquity. Castor oil, olive oil, peanut oil, whale oil... You get the idea. You could also make it run on alcohol. (Obligatory reference) Since you're dealing with unknown ancient technology, you could say that it can run on any flammable liquid.

Perhaps wood or coal power? Might be hard to keep something that small up to temperature, though. I like the nuclear power idea. However, it would still eventually run out and need to be replenished, and judging by what you've said about your setting that may be difficult. Perhaps a small nuclear fusion reactor? It's something beyond even our modern technology, but it would allow your automaton to basically run on water vapor.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I like how Bancroft handled it in Arm of the Sphinx. A wee pinch of science (the source of the power can fade) with a large dollop of magic (it just works; explanations not needed). Also relevant, he lets us learn about this power gradually, at least in part through action as well as description.

It's easy to over-complicate this stuff. Especially when we stand outside the story and kick it around as an abstract idea.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I like how Bancroft handled it in Arm of the Sphinx. A wee pinch of science (the source of the power can fade) with a large dollop of magic (it just works; explanations not needed). Also relevant, he lets us learn about this power gradually, at least in part through action as well as description.

It's easy to over-complicate this stuff. Especially when we stand outside the story and kick it around as an abstract idea.

Yes. And this is middle grade fiction, so the amount of explanation explicitly provided in the narrative may be more limited (although I will be providing more technical details for things than you might normally get in a children's book, for story reasons). I want to know how the creature operates, or at least have some rules that constrain it, for my own purposes in writing the story. The creature is important to the plot, and I'd like to have some consistent logic governing it, and providing strengths and weaknesses, to keep it in check a bit.

I won't share everything about my own rules for the creature with the reader, but I want the reader to get a sense that the creature operates according to some (pseudo)scientific principles. Also for story reasons, and because this is important to the MC.

I do like the idea of the explanation unfolding over time. This would work well for me because the MC is gaining an understanding of the creature as the story progresses.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Just to promote Bancroft a bit more: Arm of the Sphinx is the second volume, so you'd be dropping into the middle. In the first volume, Senlin Ascends, we see some other clockwork stuff. One thing I've noticed is that we encounter new things in the middle of action. So as a reader, I'm more focused on will we escape, will we reach the next stage, or some other immediate concern. The new machine enters as something fabulous, but we can't take time to talk about that right now. He delivers later, with enough explanation to let the reader say "oh, cool" and keep going.

Whether we are introducing a new beastie, a bit of machinery, kewl magic, or a Mysterious Stranger, it seems to me this is a good technique. Not the only one, certainly, but pretty reliable.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Now that I think about it, while my world doesn't have coal (trees didn't exist until a few tens of thousands of years ago), it does have minor deposits of oil (the world had single cell life for a long, long while prior to being terraformed). This gets mentioned in one of the stories; when wartime demands threatened to wipe out the fumar groves, some of the more adept tech types tapped into a couple of these deposits as substitutes and instituted a crude refining process. They regarded the oil as dangerously finite, not as hot-burning as the fumar trees, and dangerous to boot - especially after one of the refineries exploded. They've also done some experimentation with distilling oil of sorts from plant material (biofuel).

Something like this might work for a power source with Steerpikes story. It'd give the automation reason to go certain places. However, internal combustion engines do require maintenance.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Just to promote Bancroft a bit more: Arm of the Sphinx is the second volume, so you'd be dropping into the middle. In the first volume, Senlin Ascends, we see some other clockwork stuff. One thing I've noticed is that we encounter new things in the middle of action. So as a reader, I'm more focused on will we escape, will we reach the next stage, or some other immediate concern. The new machine enters as something fabulous, but we can't take time to talk about that right now. He delivers later, with enough explanation to let the reader say "oh, cool" and keep going.

Whether we are introducing a new beastie, a bit of machinery, kewl magic, or a Mysterious Stranger, it seems to me this is a good technique. Not the only one, certainly, but pretty reliable.

I will have add that tale to the 'to be read' pile.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Just to promote Bancroft a bit more: Arm of the Sphinx is the second volume, so you'd be dropping into the middle. In the first volume, Senlin Ascends, we see some other clockwork stuff. One thing I've noticed is that we encounter new things in the middle of action. So as a reader, I'm more focused on will we escape, will we reach the next stage, or some other immediate concern. The new machine enters as something fabulous, but we can't take time to talk about that right now. He delivers later, with enough explanation to let the reader say "oh, cool" and keep going.

Whether we are introducing a new beastie, a bit of machinery, kewl magic, or a Mysterious Stranger, it seems to me this is a good technique. Not the only one, certainly, but pretty reliable.

Bought the first one :)
 
Hi,

It sounds steampunkish to me, which sort of makes me think you need steam. But it's a small creature, about the size of a dog, and miniaturised steam engines are fairly advanced tech. Maybe instead you use steam in a different way. Your creature drinks water then finds a heat source eg an open fire. After that it walks into it - its metal doesn't melt, and the water is turned to steam which as it escapes winds up the coil spring. It means that all day it's looking for heat sources and open water. It also means that perhaps every day it simply walks into a fire startling people. As an alternative there are metals that bend in precise ways when they're heated. You could use one of them to power the winder.

Cheers, Greg.
 
Top