AT-ATs (All Terrain Armored Transports) in the Star Wars universe are quadrupedal instead of wheeled.
On Earth, land vehicles are wheeled.
On one continent on the planet Ivanhoe in "The Three-Cornered Wheel" by Poul Anderson, because wheels are the perfect shape, they are believed to be too sacred to be seen or used in public.
In Star Prince Charlie, a kind of vehicle is a single large wheel. See Transports Of Delight.
Another vehicle that comprises a single large wheel is the War Wheel.
6 comments:
The problem with alternatives is that they're more complex -- and most of them involve a need for higher technology -at a lower stage of development-.
It's one of those "how do you get there from here?" problems. You can start with a simple slab cut from a round treetrunk and you have a wheel -- it's probably conceptually a development of using a log roller. The concept is so simple and so universally applicable that nobody can tell where the wheel was invented because it spread so fast from one end of Eurasia to the other.
But legs... how do you do a neolithic leg-walking vehicle?
Also, the "walkers" in Star Wars are cool, but they ignore the reason we put heavy vehicles on treads: ground pressure. The treads distribute the weight over a broader surface, and therefore are less likely to "bog". In fact, modern tanks have lower ground pressures per unit of contact area than a single soldier's boot, even though they weigh 70 tons or so.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Then I have to conclude the yachina was invented on New Lemuria because there were simply no suitable animals analogous to the terrestrial horse the New Lemurians could use for draught animals. Hence the yachina was invented in order for the New Lemurians to have SOME means of wheeled traffic.
Sean
"It seemed like an utterly mad design for a vehicle, before he reflected that New Lemuria had no horses, oxen, or indeed any large and steady-gaited domestic animals." (2, p. 20)
Kaor, Paul!
I thought so! So, before contact with the Interbeing League, it was either something like the yachina or New Lemurians themselves would have to push or pull wheeled vehicles.
Sean
Though for moving burdens, a handcart is still grossly more efficient than carrying things on your back, if you have reasonable roads or even fairly level open country.
You can carry at most 100 lbs. or so any distance -- the standard load for professional safari porters in Africa was around 60 lbs.
In a handcart, you can pull three or four hundred pounds about the same distance daily. Rickshaws are also a quite practical means of urban transport.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That I had not known or realized, how useful hand carts could be, even across fairly rough ground.
Sean
Post a Comment