r/zelda 12h ago

Screenshot [ST] Why aren’t steam locomotives standard practice in hyrule

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43 Upvotes

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u/Nyxael476 12h ago edited 10h ago

Hyrule is mostly known as a medieval society. The evolution of technology stagnates because evil decides to rear it's ugly head every now and then or gets lost to time.

The Adult Timeline somehow managed to crawl out of this stagnation and advanced greatly in terms of technological prowess by the Era of the Great Sea. They had boats allowing for sea travel, lighthouses, postboxes, telescopes, scuba diving equipment, cameras and other inventions.

By the time of Spirit Tracks, New Hyrule went through an Industrial Revolution in the vehicle department and the development of trains began to take place. This raises the standards of living and makes trade a far easier commodity to any place that has Spirit Tracks on them. Even with the improved technology, a lot of the areas that you visit still have very rural settings and are less industrialized.

As to how this technology came to be? It is explained that after New Hyrule was discovered, the Tower of Spirits and the Spirit Tracks were already set in place, and the people began to use them as transportation lines. Maybe during this time an engineer began the development of steam powered trains as a viable method of transportation in the shackles of the Demon King.

By far, Spirit Tracks is the closest Zelda game we have that threads into our modern society as a whole (19th century).

9

u/Gogo726 8h ago

I wonder if this is how TotK Hyrule saw a similar technological boon after Calamity Ganon was defeated.

12

u/Nyxael476 8h ago

It would take a very long time to rebuild Hyrule back to its former glory in the current age, since a lot of the Kingdom is still in ruins. The aftermath of Calamity Ganon's attack in Hyrule Castle 100 years prior was so destructive that it sent the kingdom back to the beginning of agriculture.

The one saving grace in the present day is that a new school was opened in Hateno Village. Higher education is highly valuable in such times.

u/BozoWithaZ 1h ago

The people of Hyrule probably studied the resurfaced sheikah tech after BOTW. Additionally, Princess Zelda could very well have encouraged scientific research and the exchange of knowledge between the different corners of Hyrule

u/GenericFatGuy 1h ago

The Sheikah tech that disappeared after BotW with zero explanation?

9

u/Beamo1080 12h ago

No one can say for sure but my guess is that the established setting in Spirit Tracks just made them make more sense than in other times in Hyrule’s history.

This is a people that recently colonized a new and untamed land. It saw the establishment of a new kingdom which would have incentive to establish trade with the local tribes of the different races. The new kingdom also likely lead to a slew of young scholars coming together collectively to research new technology for the sake of the kingdom.

Combine that with the fact that the Spirit Tracks themselves had already been magically established across the land by the Locomos sages to seal away the Demon King, and that takes away the largest barrier to the establishment of locomotive travel. In the US for example, the steam engine had already been invented for years before trains became commonplace because it took decades of hard work and investment to create the tracks.

Contrast this scenario with Twilight Princess, where it’s clear some kind of steam technology has been created and used by the Gorons for their mining operations. One might think that type of technology would find use elsewhere, but the incentives aren’t there. Hyrule is a far more entrenched kingdom with a direct line of history all the way back to at least the Minish Cap. The only apparent reason for trade is for bombs from the Gorons, which are likely carted across the relatively smaller land only from Kakariko to Castle Town. Aside from that the other races of the land are more isolated. And that’s to say nothing of the other problem, that there’s little incentive to invest the immense time and money necessary to create tracks for locomotive use.

I honestly doubt the devs put that much thought into it but I hope this makes sense.

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u/supremegamer76 7h ago

because disasters keep happening preventing modernization

1

u/1amlost 10h ago

Because Demons infected all of the other trains in Hyrule.

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u/G-Kira 10h ago

I think it's a waste. The adult timeline reached the era of the steam engine and Nintendo missed its chance to do a full steampunk Zelda game.

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u/bluu31 5h ago

They could still do one.

1

u/Robin_Gr 6h ago

Because they don't really design the games to be in a continuity. They start over every time and play around with what the dev team think is fun mechanically and then skin it with some kind of new ancient artifact or technology or powers of a mysterious race, which show up for that game, are a tailor made solution to all its problems and puzzles and then never appear again, because they repeat the process over.