American: Native Empire

The camera caused a huge sensation.

“What? You still haven’t got a camera? Tsk tsk.”

“…They’re sold out everywhere, how do you expect me to get one?”

“You should have bought one as soon as they came out, like me. What have you learned so far? It’s obvious that these things will run out of stock.”

“Sigh. What can I do? I have to wait until they restock the cameras.”

There had been products that had created a huge sensation in the past. 

Penicillin was one of them. 

People had learned from these experiences and developed a tendency to buy popular products as soon as possible.

The camera was no different. 

It was so popular that it was hard to find in the market. 

People even teased those who didn’t have a camera for being out of touch with the trend.

“Please hurry up and restock the cameras, they’re begging us. The prices for second-hand ones are going up too. We need to release more supplies as soon as possible.”

“We have too many orders for developing and printing the photos. At this rate, it will take months for each one… The customers are already very dissatisfied with the delay.”

“We also hear a lot of complaints that the photo studios are too far away.”

“Hmm…”

The Solid Horn invention was scary. 

He had expected the success of the camera, since it was such an innovative product, but he hadn’t anticipated such a huge hit.

But he couldn’t just sit back and relax. 

The Thick Horn did his best to solve the problems.

****

While his father’s space store was screaming with joy, the solid horn who had created the roll film camera received great praise.

“He’s just a middle school student who made this?”

“Huh… Another genius has emerged in the empire.”

“I heard he’s the only son of the space store owner. No wonder, they didn’t get the camera from somewhere else, but from their own store?”

“He hit the jackpot by having a good son. Sigh, I wish my troublemaker kid was half as good as him.”

Every day, the young genius who made the camera was featured in countless newspapers. 

The solid horn became a star overnight.

“Haha! How do you feel? Everyone I meet is talking about you, team leader.”

“Sigh…”

The solid horn sighed deeply at that remark.

To be honest, he wasn’t interested in anything else. 

He was a quiet student who only thought about photography at school.

But he received so much attention that he couldn’t even go to school anymore. 

He was lucky that the school understood his situation, otherwise he would have had more headaches.

But not going to school was good news for the solid horn.

School had been a big obstacle for him while he was developing the camera.

‘I still have a lot of things I want to make.’

Some people might scoff at him, but for Solid Horn, the camera was just a step in his journey.

He had no intention of stopping his development just because he had made a camera.

“Now I can finally start on that.”

Before, he only wished to make it easier for people to take pictures, but as he developed the roll film, he had another goal in mind.

“With the roll film, I can take pictures in an instant. What if I take pictures continuously and then watch them in succession?”

Solid Horn imagined the picture in his head. He felt a surge of excitement and couldn’t sit still.

He went straight to his father.

“Haha. My lucky boy is here.”

“Are you okay? You look very pale…”

“Don’t worry about this old man.”

He said that, but to Solid Horn’s eyes, Thick Horn looked like he could collapse at any moment.

It was understandable, since he had been so busy that he barely slept three hours a day.

“What brings you here? You should rest at home, since you can’t go to school.”

“I get restless staying at home. So I thought I’d do some more research… Is that okay?”

“Research?”

At that word, a flash of horror crossed Thick Horn’s face.

Of course, it was a good thing, but on the other hand, wasn’t it because of the camera that this mess happened? 

And he wasn’t sure when this situation would calm down.

But what if another invention as big as the camera came out of Solid Horn’s hands?

Thick Horn’s body shivered involuntarily.

But he couldn’t tell his son, who had achieved such great results, not to do research.

“Hmm. If you want to, go ahead. But don’t overdo it. Making a camera is already a remarkable feat. Do you have something in mind?”

“Of course. If I finish this, it will attract as much attention as the camera.”

“Is, is that so?”

Thick Horn felt a chill as he heard his son’s confident words.

After getting permission from his father, Solid Horn started his new research right away.

“I’ll start the research on the topic I mentioned last time.”

“What, already…”

The team members also had a similar reaction to Thick Horn. 

But there was no one who ignored Solid Horn like before.

He had already shown them a huge achievement.

And the research he was going to do this time was also a very interesting topic to hear.

The research went very smoothly afterwards, like a train running on a laid track.

It was natural. 

The foundation was already prepared.

‘I can implement it with the performance of the roll film camera.’

This camera had the ability to take one picture in 0.02 seconds. 

That is, it could take 25 pictures in one second.

And according to the experiment results, if 25 pictures taken in one second were connected, it looked like the pictures were moving by themselves.

In other words, it was good enough for video.

All he needed was a technology to make it flow steadily and a way to project the film pictures on the wall.

This was possible with the current technology level, so it didn’t take long for the first product to come out.

Solid Horn’s team gathered in the lab and stared at the wall.

“Then I’ll turn it on!”

After the team member’s words, light formed on the dark wall.

“Oh!”

“It’s moving! It’s moving!”

The team members exclaimed as they saw it. 

The projector was running and showing video on the wall.

It was just a test video they made, but they were happy enough with the fact that it worked properly.

Solid Horn looked at the video playing and spread his wings of imagination.

‘If I add a story like a play to this…’

Theater had been popular in the empire for a long time. 

No matter how he thought about it, it seemed like something that many people would like.

Of course, there were some drawbacks. 

The screen was black and white, unable to reproduce colors like reality, and the quality was not very good either.

Above all,

‘There is no sound.’

The only sounds in the room were the murmurs of the team members and the projector running. 

There was not a speck of sound from the video. 

This was a problem that had to be solved.

Eventually, this new achievement became a huge topic again. 

And Solid Horn was admitted to the Imperial University as a special student.

He was only sixteen years old.

***

Meanwhile, one of Solid Horn’s concerns was already being actively researched.

After the telephone was developed by Gunny Bag, many people thought.

“If we can send human voices to distant areas… can’t we also store sound?”

“If we can store sound, we can listen to music at home.”

Scientists who noticed this soon looked for ways. 

And since the telephone was already out, it didn’t take long for the key idea of the phonograph to emerge.

It was to record sound by changing sound into mechanical vibrations and then carving holes.

Eventually, not long after the telephone became popular, the first phonograph was released to the market. In the future, tube phonographs became the trend, but at this time, it was a tin phonograph that used tin.

People soon showed interest in this.

“Wow. It really plays music.”

“Haha. With this, I can choose and listen to various music whenever I want. And at home too. Don’t you think anyone with culture should have one?”

“That’s right.”

The imperial citizens were generally wealthy. 

Kim Giwoo had been paying attention to wealth distribution for a long time, and this resulted in a solid middle class.

And at this time, the imperial citizens did not skimp on money for leisure activities. 

That’s why the phonograph, which was released at a fairly high price, sold like hotcakes like the camera.

Of course, there were many eyes in the music industry that looked down on the phonograph.

“…If the phonograph spreads widely, people might not come to listen to performances.”

“Science has eaten away at art, and now music has become like this.”

The form of art had already changed a lot by photography.

Before photography came out, realistic paintings and sculptures were popular, but after photography became popular and even recently, thanks to roll film cameras, anyone could take pictures, the form gradually changed.

It became more abstract.

Those who were involved in music worried that the phonograph would play a similar role. 

Especially since music had the characteristic of playing for the audience, they were worried that the audience would decrease because of the phonograph.

The theater also had similar concerns.

Similar to how phonographs were spreading, Ujusangdan built theaters mainly in large cities. 

And they showed short films here.

“There is no sound, so it will be very bland. So you have to act as exaggerated and fun as possible.”

The director who was asked by Ujusangdan to make a movie knew his limits well. 

So he actively used physical comedy such as falling down comically.

Thanks to this, the blandness caused by technical limitations was greatly reduced. 

Here they used phonographs as much as possible and added music at appropriate places as background music.

“Hahaha!”

“I thought it would be boring without dialogue, but it’s quite fun.”

“Theater has a lot of places where you can’t see faces well, but this one looks good everywhere. And there are no mistakes like dialogue or anything.”

“That’s right. I can come here sometimes when I’m bored.”

The audience showed a favorable view of the movie.

Naturally, sparks flew on the backs of theater people.

Movies still had more disadvantages than advantages, so it would take a lot of time to become popular.

There was no dialogue, the quality was bad, and it was black and white screen. 

It was just because of novelty that people visited now, they didn’t think that popularity would last as it is now.

But looking back at the past years, wouldn’t these disadvantages be compensated eventually?

If that happened, it seemed obvious that it would have a strong negative impact on theater as well. 

They could see that movies had very clear advantages over theater.

Once filmed, they could play it over and over again, and the appearance of the characters also looked much better than theater.

“How can we deal with this…”

The worries of those in music and theater grew day by day. 

But they couldn’t stop the changing trends.

In order not to become extinct eventually they had no choice but to change themselves too.