#honestly sometimes TEK worldbuilding/lore makes my brain hurt

[ryeun]

I totally forgot that detail about the crystal sea!! Thank you for bringing it up! So even if a device did exist it would have to be a mix between both utilities. I didn’t get too into the color printing aspect of magazines, but if they have something for pictures and chewing gum for the common people, I’m sure they’ve figured out some sort of color printing press.

I’d have to reread Gilgamesh for any hint of electricity, but I doubt there will be one. In the United States, the electrification of homes occurred in the late 19th century, which is somewhat close to the invention of commercial chewing gum. However, as I previously mentioned, it’s hard to draw a connection between timelines of technological advances of our world and that of a fantasy world.

Plus, in one of the last chapters of Gilgamesh (spoilers ahead), we see a flashback to when Kandentia met Tludia roughly 8 years before the events of Gilgamesh. There, Kandentia makes a comment about a wad of magical papers for starting (camp)fires that are supplied to the knights. The way she says it implies that this is also not a commercial item for the common people, which seems to be expected of magical items in general. Of course, a lot can change technologically in 8 years! Our age of technology in the real world is proof of this, as well as the work of geniuses like Regia greatly accelerating and changing the world of magic.

About the topic of magazines and interviews, though—I want to discuss this in a separate post!! When I have time!

Rereading is wonderful because why did I forget about this little detail. Apparently they have chewing gum in the TEK world! A quick google search tells me the first chewing gum was patented in the late 1860s, which is interesting. Since TEK takes place in a fictional world and not on Earth, it’s hard to compare technological advances and eras.

On the same note, the reason why I went back to the earlier chapters in the first place was because I remembered that Nagyunn bought a magazine of Najin:

Which is interesting because having Najin’s picture on the cover and such (as magazines are) implies the existence of technology able to capture a person’s likeness and print it out. Either that or it is hand drawn and then printed, which is viable (unlike the possibility of every copy being hand drawn, because that is simply not plausible and entirely impractical/not cost efficient).

The extent to which the technology in TEK has advanced is unclear; there are magical scrolls distributed among the knights that are used for communication, and they seem to work like a messaging app or social platform on a phone (not sure if they have other applications or uses because we’ve only seen knights scrolling through chat logs or receiving an announcement/message).

But the question is… how long have they been around? They clearly don’t have actual scientifically made cell phones, as is common in fantasy worlds with the existence of magic, but Wild Dog Fidorance seems inept at communicating through the scrolls (I don’t have the screenshot sorry) as if they’re something new. Of course, it might just be because they don’t seem to be in the use of the common people, which would mean that those who become knights would not be accustomed to them growing up, but… I don’t know. Sure, Qilin and other knights, as well as Nagyunn, get the hang of it quickly, but that doesn’t mean it’s been around for a long time. In Nagyunn’s case, he didn’t even know they existed until he met the magician.

So, we know there must be a device used for printing copies of something, there is a magical device that is used by knights to communicate, and that somehow magazines with pictures are printed in color. Is there some device, likely magical, used to take pictures? Is someone meeting with people like Najin and having them pose for hours to capture their likeness? Who knows.

If you were looking for a crazy theory with an answer, I sincerely apologize… but I only bring questions, not answers!! Maybe you can think about it and come up with something, with these details presented to you. (And if you do, please share!! I’d love to talk about the TEK world more! I’m slowly in the process of rereading TEK and taking note of details whenever I have time, which is not too often. Originally I started rereading from chapter 20 and onward—the latest chapter I was working on was 66—but I came back to the first chapters to refresher my knowledge.)