Comment by marcus_holmes

Yeah, but how do the other patricians react to that?

The Industrial Revolution changed British society, moving power from the feudal aristocracy to the new merchant class. It could only happen in a time where the feudal aristocracy were weakened (this is relatively shortly after the English Civil War). And also when the working class was not so powerful - the Luddites also resented the changes created in British society.

I think you could work with this, though - have the Forum discussing the changes, some backstabbing and politics about who gets licenses to use the new technology, who profits from it, who gets their traditional livelihoods destroyed. And introduce the Roman version of the Luddites - peasants deprived of their ancestral livelihoods by the new technologies.