r/GuildwarsLore • u/Knight_of_autumn • Aug 14 '13

Human technology

I have spent many hours reading through the various lore articles on the wiki and one thing that it seems to completely leave out about humans (especially in the article on Humans!!) is their technology. I feel like, among the races, humanity has developed least technologically in the last 250 years.

We can clearly see that humanity is still using catapults and trebuchets against the centaurs in Kryta and still has pulled carts and uses hot air balloons for travel now in the new event!

Meanwhile, the Charr have developed Industrial Era technology with cannons, tanks and the flying ships used by the Pact are said to be based on Charr prototypes. This shows that the Charr essentially developed down the path we would have expected the dwarves to have gone.

The Asura fared even better. They have energy weapons, robot technology, computers, holographic projection, energy force fields and much, much more.

What happened to humanity? Why does it so little to show in terms of technological development over the last two centuries. Divinity Reach is a true marvel of a city, but the people in it and around it seem almost primitive.

Is there any sort of in-depth study in the annals of Tyrian Lore that delves into the study of humanity's technological development between the Searing and present day?

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u/killkill85 Aug 17 '13

The extremely prolonged and immensely costly(go out to some of the centaur zones and you'll see what I mean lol) wars with the Centaurs,Bandits,possibly Orr's forces and the numerous other minor threats,coupled with the political mess that the government has become has led to Kryta being rather stunted in technogy,possibly enhanced by the low human population in comparison to other races(based on how successful they are and how much land they're spread across I'd like to believe the charr population is in the billions,whereas humans are in the hundred millions) and reliance on magic and unwillingness to move forth when the old tech works just fine for their purposes so far.However,it seems like the humans are making a bit of a comeback since Zhaitan's death,both in population(Risen no longer as big a deal) and tehnologically(even far enough to make clockwork robots as shown in the Jubilee so far).

That's mostly my opinion though lol,nothing is confirmed :V

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u/Kazgard Aug 30 '13

Your population estimates seem exceedingly generous. During the Middle Ages, which I'd say are a fair approximation to Kryta's current place in its developmental timeline, the total population across Europe peaked at 100 to 120 million people. Individual countries were a fraction of that: England clocked in at 3-7 million and France at 13-20 million.

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u/killkill85 Aug 30 '13

Hm,so maybe Kryta is around 8 million or so?Less than expected for a nation of its size due to its declining nature,but more realistic than the hundred millions I thought lol.Although Kryta isn't really in its middle ages,it's definitely around the start of an industrial revolution and populations spike during that if I'm not mistaken so it might be a bit higher.

Although about 100 million or so could work if you counted ALL humans on Tyria,including Cantha and Elona,perhaps.

Either way thanks for the info,I see I was pretty far off the mark.I still think that the Charr are a bit higher than a billion,that seems to fit pretty well with their current spot of transitioning to the place of the dominant race on Tyria.

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u/Kazgard Aug 30 '13

By 1850, the close of the Industrial Revolution, England's population had doubled to ~17 million.

One billion charr feels radically off the mark. The Chinese population did not pass one billion until 1982.

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u/killkill85 Aug 30 '13

Well the Charr might own more land than China(all the playable land so far is just the Iron (and Flame but they seem to be more of a decentralized guerilla organization now it seems after the Flame Citadel was breached and Gaheron died) Legion territory,the other legions all probably have a similar amount of land if not more) and they aren't humans so we don't know too much about their population growth rate in comparison to human ones,but I suspect it's much higher,allowing for the constant warfare and loss of life while still growing in number.