(no subject)
It wasn't until the 1920s that sentries began to be electrical, and you could still find engineers clinging to the old clockwork-and-coilspring designs well into the '40s. Dispensers, being little more than prestocked ammo caches with a canister of Unspecified Liquid bolted on, took even longer to advance technologically; the earliest known electrically-powered dispenser (which had an automated Unspec release valve, taking advantage of the recent invention of a new method of storing Unspec as a pressurized gas) was made by S. H. Eppstein in 1934. This was not, of course, due to any laxity on the part of the Engineers of the time; the state of the art was far from stagnant, and multiple variants on existing machines were produced over this period, but there was simply very little that could meaningfully be done to change or improve them in any significant way until the discovery of teleportational technology in 1949. By 1952 teleportation had been perfected enough to be used for restocking Dispensers, essentially turning them into bottomless ammo caches with a canister of Unspec bolted on. The final piece of the Engineering trifecta was in place by September of 1958, when the first teleporters capable of more-or-less-reliably transporting living people were introduced (although it took quite a few years after that for the scale to start skewing towards "more" rather than "less").
Early Spies, therefore, had a range of equipment quite different from their modern counterparts'. For many decades the best, most useful, and most reliable piece of equipment any Spy could carry was simply a pair of strong wire-cutters, and a good wrench was so useful for so long that there are many adult Spies today who can remember working with or studying under an older member who kept a captured Uhlman on him at all times. (This custom remains in some circles to this day; however, it is now commonly regarded as a sort of good luck charm, and rarely if ever does the wrench get used.)
Even as electrical sentries came into play, the wire-cutters remained the primary weapon against technology. Sappers, designed to disrupt or overload the circuitry of the machine, existed as early as 1924 (the first design was patented merely days after the debut of the earliest known electrical sentry), but few Spies bothered to use them; they were heavy to carry and could take dangerously long to set up, besides the necessary delay until the vacuum tubes that powered most early models warmed up and the sentry went down. Simply knowing which wires to cut - or even not knowing, and snipping wildly - was far more efficient.
Obviously, a Spy who needed to manually disarm sentry guns and dispensers required a certain amount of technical knowledge and training. In the early days through most of the inter-War period, this was generally gained "on the job" through liaison (personal or professional) with the Engineer on the team. As IBAE became more exclusionary and withdrawn, particularly during and after the Second World War, this method of instruction became unavailable to the majority of Spies.
This social factor combined with the ever-increasing pace of technological advance to quickly and heavily increase Spies' dependence upon sappers, which were now far more efficient and, thanks to the advent of transistors in 1947, small enough to easily carry - even conceal - on the person. The formation of UIEEI and founding of l'Université de l'Espionage in the post-war years helped to fill the gap in Spies' educations, providing classroom training and further instruction to make up for the increasing hostility of the Engineers who had once been unofficially responsible for the spread of such information.
In a circular fashion, of course, the increasing insularity of Engineers led to the increasing insularity of Spies and thus exacerbated the ever-present, ever-growing tensions between the two classes. It is difficult for any historian to compare the Spy and Engineer of the Roaring '20s, both dusty and oil-coated as they bend together over the incapacitated shell of an enemy sentry gun, with the Spy and Engineer of today, glaring at each other and exuding enmity regardless of their status as teammates; or even the Spies alone, one so familiar with the objects he destroys that he could very likely rebuild them again and one with neither training nor interest - without feeling that something has been lost.
Early Spies, therefore, had a range of equipment quite different from their modern counterparts'. For many decades the best, most useful, and most reliable piece of equipment any Spy could carry was simply a pair of strong wire-cutters, and a good wrench was so useful for so long that there are many adult Spies today who can remember working with or studying under an older member who kept a captured Uhlman on him at all times. (This custom remains in some circles to this day; however, it is now commonly regarded as a sort of good luck charm, and rarely if ever does the wrench get used.)
Even as electrical sentries came into play, the wire-cutters remained the primary weapon against technology. Sappers, designed to disrupt or overload the circuitry of the machine, existed as early as 1924 (the first design was patented merely days after the debut of the earliest known electrical sentry), but few Spies bothered to use them; they were heavy to carry and could take dangerously long to set up, besides the necessary delay until the vacuum tubes that powered most early models warmed up and the sentry went down. Simply knowing which wires to cut - or even not knowing, and snipping wildly - was far more efficient.
Obviously, a Spy who needed to manually disarm sentry guns and dispensers required a certain amount of technical knowledge and training. In the early days through most of the inter-War period, this was generally gained "on the job" through liaison (personal or professional) with the Engineer on the team. As IBAE became more exclusionary and withdrawn, particularly during and after the Second World War, this method of instruction became unavailable to the majority of Spies.
This social factor combined with the ever-increasing pace of technological advance to quickly and heavily increase Spies' dependence upon sappers, which were now far more efficient and, thanks to the advent of transistors in 1947, small enough to easily carry - even conceal - on the person. The formation of UIEEI and founding of l'Université de l'Espionage in the post-war years helped to fill the gap in Spies' educations, providing classroom training and further instruction to make up for the increasing hostility of the Engineers who had once been unofficially responsible for the spread of such information.
In a circular fashion, of course, the increasing insularity of Engineers led to the increasing insularity of Spies and thus exacerbated the ever-present, ever-growing tensions between the two classes. It is difficult for any historian to compare the Spy and Engineer of the Roaring '20s, both dusty and oil-coated as they bend together over the incapacitated shell of an enemy sentry gun, with the Spy and Engineer of today, glaring at each other and exuding enmity regardless of their status as teammates; or even the Spies alone, one so familiar with the objects he destroys that he could very likely rebuild them again and one with neither training nor interest - without feeling that something has been lost.