Making a world with small amounts of modern technology

[Feil]

I want to write a world (probably the product of a colonization program that lost contact with Earth) that has the majority of the technological level siting around the level of 14th century, with firearms existing, but being fairly rare and expensive (and less effective than longbows and crossbows for most applications).

So that arming a troop of pikemen with muskets would be akin to giving them all maille hauberks and horses and calling them knights, and increasing in rarity and expense with the quality of the weapon, so that muzzle-loading rifles would be far too expensive for anyone short of a particularly wealthy noble or merchant, breach loaders would be roughly equivalent to magic swords, and automatic rifles would be sacred relics of ancient wisdom long since lost to man, with individual bullets being master-crafted by the best alchemists in the world.

How would I go about making this believable and feasible?

[neoolong]

In the book Helm, there was a colony on a world after Earth was screwed up where some rebellion of anti-tech guys destroyed all the high tech stuff except for very limited stuff. It takes place like centuries after the rebellion though and it's all bows and arrows and swords. Though one person is able to make a chemical battery. A few science books survived, but only available to the elite.

[General Zod]

I want to write a world (probably the product of a colonization program that lost contact with Earth) that has the majority of the technological level siting around the level of 14th century, with firearms existing, but being fairly rare and expensive (and less effective than longbows and crossbows for most applications).

So that arming a troop of pikemen with muskets would be akin to giving them all maille hauberks and horses and calling them knights, and increasing in rarity and expense with the quality of the weapon, so that muzzle-loading rifles would be far too expensive for anyone short of a particularly wealthy noble or merchant, breach loaders would be roughly equivalent to magic swords, and automatic rifles would be sacred relics of ancient wisdom long since lost to man, with individual bullets being master-crafted by the best alchemists in the world.

How would I go about making this believable and feasible?

So basically like the Dark Tower but a more high fantasy feel?

[PeZook]

Reasons, reasons, reasons.

Your "progression" list seems to be a bit screwy ; For example, weapons are relatively fragile things. How do you expect to keep automatic weapons working for centuries? (I presume you want them to be seen from time to time, hence the whole "Alchemists making bullets" thing)

Even an AK will fall apart eventually if not properly maintained, and a century of use (even occasional) will pretty much be unsurviveable for any automatic gun.

Why can't they make rifles cheaply? Technological progress is a strange thing in that simple innovations spread like wildfire. Making a basic rifled barrel is tricky, but not particulalry difficult if you have the skills, and if you know about mass-production and economies of scale (and have the infrastructure, obviously) then making large numbers of relatively advanced weapons is quite simple. Hell, country blacksmiths can make Stens with simple tools, given access to good enough steel.

What I'm getting at is that you shouldn't use Earth history to model technological progress on a forgotten colony of Man ; Technology the natives have would be a strange amalgation of preserved science and local innovations added on top of decayed infrastructure, the function of which was long forgotten. So, for example, they may know the principles behind the flintlock, rifling of the barrel, iron sights etc. but have no idea how to make smokeless gunpowder, or refine brass for ammunition - especially if there is no established system of scientific research or infrastructure.

Basically, there should be a reason beyond "It was more advanced on Earth, therefore - more expensive" for why technology looks like it looks. Think what knowledge the colonists retained, what they've lost, what kind of political system they have and what infrastructure is in place, and then decide what tech they can have based on that.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Your "progression" list seems to be a bit screwy ; For example, weapons are relatively fragile things. How do you expect to keep automatic weapons working for centuries? (I presume you want them to be seen from time to time, hence the whole "Alchemists making bullets" thing)

Even an AK will fall apart eventually if not properly maintained, and a century of use (even occasional) will pretty much be unsurviveable for any automatic gun.

Why can't they make rifles cheaply? Technological progress is a strange thing in that simple innovations spread like wildfire. Making a basic rifled barrel is tricky, but not particulalry difficult if you have the skills, and if you know about mass-production and economies of scale (and have the infrastructure, obviously) then making large numbers of relatively advanced weapons is quite simple. Hell, country blacksmiths can make Stens with simple tools, given access to good enough steel.

If he's going for guns as ancient relics of power, one way to get around your objections is to make them more advanced than what we have. For example, it could be made of something tough enough to last, but just flimsy enough to be destroyed by technophobes. Or, it could have limited self-repair nanotech that negates normal wear, but can't do anything if it's broken to bits or burned. As for rifling, perhaps it uses grooves to small to see ( would that work ? ), or funky molecular level engineering to spin the bullet -something can't be seen. Or perhaps it's a coilgun that charges itself via solar energy or even microfusion using atmospheric hydrogen.

Or both, in different weapons. A solar powered rifle, ( with long charge times of course ) could be a left over hunting weapon, solar powered so you don't need to worry about batteries, just bullet molds. The fusion powered one could be left over military, and a king's personal "magic weapon"; perhaps with higher velocity settings designed to attack vehicles ( if suitably braced for the recoil ). A guy on a primitive planet with a weapon like that and a few allies would have a good chance to make himself a king.

The point being, if it's advanced enough, they simply won't be able to properly analyze it, much less learn much from it. They could figure out rifling, but not electromagnetic coils integrated invisibly into the barrel, say.

[Darth Ruinus]

If you want to keep the idea of the colonists using flintlock "knights" while there are automatic weapons available for nobles, then a "realistic" way to have that sort of weaponry on a human ship (that was presumably able to cross a good portion of space to reach an out-of-the-way planet, and is also presumably technologically advanced, with better stuff than automatics maybe?) then you could say that the original ship that held the people was some kind of "museum ship"? Maybe some kind of sleeper ship that had a museum in it to preserve the knowledge of human history and knowledge (which would make it very ironic that it ends up concealing scientific knowledge from these colonists.)

Though it seems like it would make more sense that the "knights" have automatic weapons, and the nobles have some kind of directed energy weapon. It would make it seems more magical to the common man.

Then agian, I have come up with some stupid ideas before, maybe this wont help you...?

[Kon_El]

With the story taking place on another planet perhaps the planet dosen't have very good ore, or they dont have very good methodes of purefing the ore. Only the Nobles can afford the good guns because the only source of metal that is strong enough to be made into a fully automatic weapon comes from reforgeing the high grade steel they started out with that hasn't been lost.

[Darth Raptor]

I really liked Final Fantasy XII's explanation. In that game, firearms exist but the models in common use are relatively simple. The reason for this being that the planet's surface is covered by tiny microscopic organisms (they're actually micromachines but I digress) that are extremely corrosive to complex machinery for some reason. The technology exists, but is only widely applied by airships which fly above the germinite clouds. The guns used by infantry are mostly things like muskets and black powder rifles- the easiest to clean and maintain. As far as land warfare goes, the spearman, swordsman and mounted knight (beast mounted, the germinites nix most ground vehicles) still reign supreme. That said, wars are pretty much decided in the air.