Questions about planes and technology on Haixing

[likealeafonthewind]

Do planes exist? I don't remember seeing any in the background of any of the episodes, and while in the novel, there's a scene where they're traveling to Kunlun's mountain via plane, there's no such scene in the show (the one time they do go to the mountain, they drive there). 

Also, there doesn't seem to be cars or any kind of vehicle in Dixing, right? Does everyone just get around by walking? If they have to go somewhere far, do they find someone with teleportation powers and pay them to take them somewhere? (On a side note, if Zhu Jiu's teleportation can only be done when there's sunlight present, how did his powers ever get activated in Dixing?)

Technology development seems much slower on Haixing in general than in our world, especially given the fact that an alien spaceship landed on their planet 10,000 years ago and introduced aliens into their civilization. With that, I would have expected them to be much further along by now, like exploring space already.

Comments

[trobadora]

I would assume planes exist, because I see no reason why they wouldn't, given the general 21st-century-Earth level tech.

Yeah, Dixing doesn't appear to have any vehicles. Or maybe all we see of it is the pedestrian zone, LOL.

For Zhu Jiu, as far as I can tell, any light will do - so he can use it in Dixing, but only a VERY little bit. That must have been a source of endless frustration to him.

Technology development seems much slower on Haixing in general than in our world, especially given the fact that an alien spaceship landed on their planet 10,000 years ago and introduced aliens into their civilization. With that, I would have expected them to be much further along by now, like exploring space already.

That's a good point, and a very strange fact! I speculated at one point that there's actually very little continuity between the civilisation 10,000 years ago and today - that there was some other disaster in between that set everything back considerably. (The presence of continuity in form of the Ma Gui portrait doesn't have to mean anything, considering Ma Gui's student Zhang Shi is still alive today.)

[asya_ana]

I see you distracting us with BEARS! :D

I think the civilization 10k years ago was very advanced indeed in relation to earth, but yeah, I guess not according to people with spaceships. Still, wouldn't the break have had to been between the spaceship and bb!Shen Wei's time? Because they're basically living in caves.

[trobadora]

I read the living in caves bit as reflecting the devastation the meteor wreaked. Their tech level is difficult to define - I mean, that healing salve they use on Zhao Yunlan's hands is beyond present-day medicine, and certainly no one knows how to even understand the Hallows, much less create them.

Given how casually young Da Qing talks about the spaceship, there does seem to be at least a cultural continuity there, which gets disrupted later - in the present, most people don't know Dixingren exist, and I doubt they know anything about a spaceship having been around back then. *g*

[likealeafonthewind]

That's a very good point!

Haixingren don't seem to know about Yashou in the present day either - Guo Changcheng was completely shocked and terrified to find out that Zhu Hong and Da Qing could turn into animals.

[trobadora]

Oh yeah, that's true!

Another datapoint for tech level in the past: they have paper - see that portrait of ZYL they give Da Qing to identify him!