Does a car need electricity to run?

As I said before, I don’t think you are ready to write a book!

I can’t wait to read this book! Or maybe I will just watch Sponge Bob!

@MikeInNh
Si Fi I can agree with. But, to ask a question and expect, I suppose, a real answer, then question the answer because it doesn’t fit your fantasy shows me that OP has little interest in the facts.

@texases When Dracular, Frankenstien and other long enduring novels were written, I can easily transport myself to when they were written and suppose the reality the author lived in at the time, made them thought provoking and entertaining reading and, realistic. If the ideas of Carl Sagan are later proven wrong, it will not deminish my opinion of Contact for that same reason. All enduring literature has some quality based in reality…even if you have to look hard for it. Yes, even Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz.

.But, OP has the facts and if he wants to write creative fiction that is long lasting and enduring, then yes, work with the reality of the day. Otherwise, I don’t expect everyone to agree with his idea of reality. But, he has everyone else to fall back on to support his venture, so my disagreement is of little consequence.

Dracula is still a fantasy book. Although extremely well written. It’s one of those books you start to read and just can’t put it down until it’s finished.

Frankenstien is a very hard book to read. I didn’t like it at all. But at least it was short.

I’ve read Contact by Carl Sagan. This is a classic Sci-fi book. Based on much scientific fact…taken to extreme. Obviously Carl Sagan knew the physics since he was a professor of Astrophysicist at Cornell University and worked as an adviser to NASA.

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The book idea seems interesting, and I do hope you’ll share it when you’ve finished. That said, one minor point-electricity ‘worked’ just fine in the 18th century, even if people didn’t know about it. If you lived back then and stuck a rod of copper and a rod of zinc into a lemon for some reason, you would have a battery that would produce electricity. (You would also very likely be shunned from society :slight_smile: ). Even the ancient Egyptians had batteries (granted, only slightly more advanced than the lemon one). Introducing a modern piece of equipment into a bubble where electricity hasn’t been discovered wouldn’t make it stop working.

I’m assuming your ‘bubble’ around the protagonist is a sort of time-shifted reality thing. If I’m misinterpreting, ignore the above.

As an aside, if electricity truly didn’t work, metals would not rust, nor could they be purified from an oxide form. If you could send your main character over to stand by my car (while I’m not driving it, of course), I’d appreciate it-it would really help me get extra life out of it!

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@Cole’s Law, thanks for the post. That is a good clarification. Your “time-shifted reality thing” is spot on.

Hey everyone, back to this thread after a couple years. Book is going well. Wanted to confirm what I learned from you all before about starting and running a Diesel engine car without electricity. The truck I chose was a 1946 Dodge Power Wagon with a Cummins Diesel engine. To start it, the character sticks a blow torch into where the glow plug was. Would that work?

@cdaquila Carolyn, this guy has started another thread on the same subject. Any chance of closing this one?

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No absolutely not. There is a glow plug for each cylinder and with the glow plugs out there would be no compression. And how would you turn the engine over . A lot of diesel engines did not have glow plugs. The Cummins that I drove did not, but without electricity how would you turn the engine over to start it? They did used to use air starters years ago, but not in anything small enough to fit into a Dodge power wagon. Have your protagonist get away on a horse. Or even a cow, I saw a Gunsmoke episode where Festus escaped the bad guys that were trying to track him by riding a cow.

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An engine that does not employ demon electricity

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Well Mr @JoeMario basically nailed it on the first comment. Gasoline engines will not function

Old school Diesels parked on top of a nice steep hill would work fine…

One small thing you may be overlooking with this unfortunate electricity cancelling person is that EVERYONE he came near would also drop dead without electricity being able to function. The human machine is very reliant upon those invisible pixies called electrons and not a one of them can operate without them.

So i dunno who this character is… but tell him to stay far away from me… and my toys.

My .308 Savage doesn’t require any electricity and its range is “adequate” to prevent any face to face meetings with this electricity cancelling bad guy.

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I wonder why this 7 year old thread was reopened .

Aww man… i also wonder why i responded now that you bring it up @VOLVO_V70

Im really bad at looking at dates of threads… if someone previously revives an ancient tome it pops up as if it was a current thing…

Maybe we should ask the wise and all knowing Carolyn @cdaquila and ask her if posts more than x number of months or yrs can have a color coded title?

Time sensitive Titles that change color over time? To indicate to those like me who are missing enough grey cellular matter and are wont to respond to 7 yr old threads?

Titles in an attention grabbing color are the most recent… until time cools off the topic as well as its indicated color as well. For those like me who aren’t dealing with an over abundance of mental processing power

Maybe? Mite be a new thing…

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Thanks for the comments, appreciate the thoughts. Book is being self-published as a serial - see link below. The part that this thread helped with will be coming in the next few chapters. I release 1 to 2 a week.

That is awesome! Thank you for the post.

A one cylinder diesel engine, pile driver. No electronics, deisel is squirted in the cylinder, compresses, explodes and repeats

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Congrats on actually publishing a novel of any type! If I was smart enough to realize how important it is to be able to read I would get that skill under my belt pronto. But alas… im not there yet. I fudge my way through the world as it were…

I would have to assume the comments you were referring to were the ones pertaining to the human machine… Many people dont really think about just how much we are just very fancy, intricate electro mechanical machines. Humans rely on electricity in a major major fashion… at least that is what i have been told… bec i sure didnt read it anywhere. I really should try to learn that skill…

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Hi Honda. I reopened it because @DanCitizen asked me to, because of the book. Since he wanted to let people know how it turned out, let’s not treat this like hot lava just because it’s old. :wink:

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