Planes and Guns

[Epic Meepo]

This rather entertaining debate began on Gwaihir Windlord's Airborne D&D thread. Essentially, that thread described a word wherein a small, isolated island of Guildsmen possesses WWII aircraft technology, while all other aspects of the world were largely Medeival.

Despite the fact that I seem to be the only one (other than Gwaihir) holding the opinion that such a thing could, in theory, be possible, I was nevertheless having fun arguing my point. The debate proceeds as presented herein. Enjoy.

[Epic Meepo]

I guess this just doesn't feel organic to me.  For one, thing, how have we gotten to a place where the internal combustion engine has been mastered, but people still fight with swords?  Sure, the Guild conspiracy to keep the knowledge from the people and all, but that's an incredible leap of the imagination.  One invention - gunpowder for instance, or Greek Fire, or the printing press - I can see that being invented secretly and being kept that way.  We're not just talking about that here, however.  You are asking your players to believe that the internal combustion engine, aluminum processing, hydrogen synthesis, high explosive ordnance, machine guns, and the simple aerodynamics of flight are all present, as well as the myriad technologies that these technologies depend on - modern steel production, machine tools, replaceable and standardized parts, chemistry, physics - were all not only invented by this guild, but kept secretly.  These are products of an industrial revolution that took societies of millions of people hundreds of years to develop; I just can't wrap my head around a guild that does all these things and still keeps them a secret even when the technology is in common use.


You're going to run into problems with players, too, who will see the glaring and tremendous gap between the Guild and society and wonder, quite reasonably, if it wouldn't be too difficult to cross it.  Would the MGs on the planes simply stop working if taken off the planes?  If not, why is everyone still fighting with swords and spears when there are machine guns?  Sure, Guild property, but planes crash and people blab, especially in a d20 world where a high level adventurer who fancied a machine gun could conk some serious heads to get one. Couldn't the players just strip a Pratt&Whitney out of a plane, make a metal chassis, throw a few MGs in and invent the first tank?  Would stealing a single plane really be that hard?

Maybe some players wouldn't be bothered by all this, but it's a bit too much for me to swallow.  Call me a history purist, but I need my anachronisms to be at least borderline plausible.  It's not that I don't like the idea of Stukas dive-bombing formations of pikemen, but it takes all the fun out of it when there's no plausible rhyme or reason behind it.

Edit: For example, what if the Guild had a total monopoly on oil?  This doesn't really solve the whole machine gun problem, but it creates a reasonable explanation for why they have planes and nobody else can.  It's entirely reasonable that if only one remote area of the globe has oil, the people who live there will be significantly more advanced than others.  That's a far more plausible way to approach the technology gap than to use the idea of an incredibly massive conspiracy.

[Epic Meepo]

Ok, lemme try to defend this.  First off, I'm not going to change the WW2 part, but if you guys argue me down to point where I have to say "It's magic let it be!" so be it.

Ok, I like the idea about the oil.  I think I'll use that, thanks Mithridates for that.

The Guild hasn't taken over the world yet because they simply don't have the manpower.  They've got a few hundred engineers and a few thousand workers, but that pales in comparison to the military of the two other nations.

As for the rest of the world, I'm leaving that alone for now.  Maybe I'll get to it later, but as of right now any other civilizations are more than 3,000 miles away.

The planes are somewhat magical in nature.  The mechanics of it are all mundane, but there are serious magical enchantments on the aircraft.  If two parts of a plane are separated by an inch or more, the smaller piece is destroyed (as if touched by a Sphere of Annihilation).

The Guild doesn't control all air travel.  Lighter than air travel is open, although non guild airships tend to be powered magically instead of mechanically.

[Epic Meepo]

The Guild hasn't taken over the world yet because they simply don't have the manpower.  They've got a few hundred engineers and a few thousand workers, but that pales in comparison to the military of the two other nations.

That's exactly the problem - it seems impossible for a few hundred engineers to singlehandedly accomplish what it took 500 years and in industrial revolution to accomplish on earth.  Even if they magically came up with all that knowledge, which came out of hundreds of years of trial and error in a population of millions on earth, there's no way that a society of a few thousand workers could possibly provide the industrial base to make this stuff unless they ran super-futuristic robot factories or something.

The bigger question, however, is one of comparative intelligence - why could a society of thousands come up with so much technology - effectively 500 years worth - while much larger societies can't?  Are the Guild people just naturally much, much smarter or something?  Unless the other societies had a tremendous dearth of all important resources - oil, iron, aluminum, rubber, coal, and so on - it seems more likely that they, not a few thousand people on a lonely island, would come up with those inventions.

As for the rest of the world, I'm leaving that alone for now.  Maybe I'll get to it later, but as of right now any other civilizations are more than 3,000 miles away.

The planes are somewhat magical in nature.  The mechanics of it are all mundane, but there are serious magical enchantments on the aircraft.  If two parts of a plane are separated by an inch or more, the smaller piece is destroyed (as if touched by a Sphere of Annihilation).

fireballs[/i] are much, much better and already discovered?  Most fantasy settlings deal with this by making magic very scarce - the common people can't shoot fireballs, so they use guns.  P-51 Mustangs, however, are not an item of the "common people," which makes one wonder why a few hundred engineers would seclude themselves on an island and spend hundreds of years single-mindedly pursuing technologies they knew nothing about when magic to accomplish roughly the same thing was already available.  Or did magic develop alongside technology?  If so, why didn't technologies spread more widely before the "sphere of annihilation self-destruct mechanism" was invented?
[/quote]

[Epic Meepo]

The bigger question, however, is one of comparative intelligence - why could a society of thousands come up with so much technology - effectively 500 years worth - while much larger societies can't?

People developed planes because they wanted to fly - so if they already can fly with magical/monstrous means, why did planes come about in the first place?  Why invent muskets when fireballs are much, much better and already discovered?[/quote]In fairness, you previously claimed that any society with a monopoly on planes and guns could conquer the entire world. Now you're saying that existing magic is already better than both planes and guns. So which is it: planes and guns conquer all, or planes and guns accomplish nothing?

[Epic Meepo]

In fairness, you previously claimed that any society with a monopoly on planes and guns could conquer the entire world. Now you're saying that existing magic is already better than both planes and guns. So which is it: planes and guns conquer all, or planes and guns accomplish nothing?

No, he's saying existing magic already exists. If humans had the innate ability to fly, do you honestly think we'd have built airplanes? You need the progression, you're comparing two end-products and removing the chain of events.

What he's saying is that without the desire to build a wright flier, you've got no reason to assume the progression up to Mustangs.

[Epic Meepo]

Simple demographics. Assume each island contains the same number of monsters that need killing. XP earned divided by one thousand is much greater than XP earned divided by one million. So those thousand people on the Guild island are much higher level than those million people on the other islands. :D

In fairness, you previously claimed that any society with a monopoly on planes and guns could conquer the entire world. Now you're saying that existing magic is already better than both planes and guns. So which is it: planes and guns conquer all, or planes and guns accomplish nothing?

contingency[/i] sphere of annihilation effect.  Also, if magic is really that advanced, surely the non-Guild people could replicate any resource they were lacking, including oil, through magic, or dispel the self-destruct effect on planes, right?  Or just wish for a machine gun, or the schematics for one?
[/quote]

[Epic Meepo]

What he's saying is that without the desire to build a wright flier, you've got no reason to assume the progression up to Mustangs.

Exactly.  It's not as if the Engineers would have known what a Mustang was back when they were inventing the steam engine.  If they could already fly with magic long before they had even conceived of the idea of an airplane, why would they devote so much time to "re-inventing the wheel," as it were?  As they say, "necessity is the mother of invention," so if there's no necessity, why the invention?

[Epic Meepo]

You need the progression, you're comparing two end-products and removing the chain of events.

It's not as if the Engineers would have known what a Mustang was back when they were inventing the steam engine.[/quote]See my previous paragraph for my response.

[Epic Meepo]

Yes. We have the innate ability to walk, yet we still have Segue scooters. Name almost any human faculty, and I'm willing to bet there's a product that does the exact same thing, with no added efficiently, for those who are too lazy to do it themselves.

The thing is, the segways are faster than a walking pace. If I came up to you and said, 'look! it's a thing that lets you grab, you stick it on your hand and it slows it down, but five hundred years in the future, people using something based on this will be able to crush titanium!' You'd think I was a nutcase. The invention, in order to catch on, must be superior in its first incarnation than that which already exists.

Plus, flying warrior = less armor than flying warrior surrounded by flying hunk of the heaviest material you can make fly.

I could point out that that is still, by definition, armor...

In a world with divination magic, why not compare end-products? If I can commune with God and He says, "If you build that musket, your grandchildren will have more firepower than an army of warmages in a fort made of fireball scrolls," I'd be apt to listen.

The thing is, that's not true. It's saying 'if you build this musket, and make everyone else use it, then if the mages don't kill you, your offspring will be powerful.'

[Epic Meepo]

The thing is, the technology to build a Segway already existed when what's-his-name invented it.  Electric motors, plastics, metallurgy, gyroscopes, computers - these were already available, and he just threw them together in a novel way.  We're talking about a 500 year jump with a really significant investment of time - even if the original Guild engineers could cast commune to figure out what a P-51 Mustang was, they would have to work in the knowledge that not their children, or their grandchildren, or their great-grandchildren would see the fruits of their labor.  They and their children could spend their lives in drudgery, awaiting a future weapons advantage to come hundreds of years down the line - or they could just hop on board the magic train and be powerful now.  What would you choose?

[Epic Meepo]

We're talking about a 500 year jump with a really significant investment of time...

might[/i] happened. Does the OP need to further justify his inclusion of airplanes? Yes. Does he have to assume that the 500 year course of real-world technological development is the only possible way a society could have invented airplanes? No.

Also, recall that when Germany invaded Poland, the German tanks were fighting against sword-wielding cavalry. Vast technological differences between disparate cultures do exist, even in the real world.

They and their children could spend their lives in drudgery, awaiting a future weapons advantage to come hundreds of years down the line - or they could just hop on board the magic train and be powerful now.  What would you choose?

Additionally, if you're going to let people get the P-51 from communing with the gods, it still begs the question as to why the other cultures haven't done the same thing.  Do the gods only answer the questions of the Guildsmen?[/quote]Perhaps the Guildsmen were the only ones to ask the right questions. The same way Einstein was the only one to ask the right questions when discovering the principles of relativity. He was working with knowledge that the rest of the scientific community had already known for decades when he made his breakthrough.

[Epic Meepo]

I disagree. The first incarnation of the computer was the size of a small house and was less efficient than the several-thousand-year-old abacus. Yet people invested time and effort in developing computers because they knew what computers might look like decades down the line.

Your example is flawed. The computer is the end of a long line of devices built to make calculations; the features we have now were added on as side bonuses. The line principle as laid down still stands.

[Epic Meepo]

That assumption is based on anecdotal evidence; only one example of that technology being developed exists. The entire point of creating an alternate world is to imagine what might happened. Does the OP need to further justify his inclusion of airplanes? Yes. Does he have to assume that the 500 year course of real-world technological development is the only possible way a society could have invented airplanes? No.

something[/i] to make it reasonable.

Also, recall that when Germany invaded Poland, the German tanks were fighting against sword-wielding cavalry. Vast technological differences between disparate cultures do exist, even in the real world.

Of course[/i] there can be fighters attacking swordsmen; think of Amazonian tribal people in the modern day.  What doesn't work is not the gap itself, but that the gap was created by a society of several thousand people.  Barring divine/magical intervention of a massive scale, how is it conceivable?

And keep in mind that the Zulu and other colonized peoples very quickly got a hold of their own guns.  Players will want to know how the Guild can keep their monopoly not just on planes, but on every piece of technology between gunpowder and advanced aviation.

Both! Train mages, then summon a work-force to do the drudgery.

Perhaps the Guildsmen were the only ones to ask the right questions. The same way Einstein was the only one to ask the right questions when discovering the principles of relativity. He was working with knowledge that the rest of the scientific community had already known for decades when he made his breakthrough.

[Epic Meepo]

Your example is flawed. The computer is the end of a long line of devices built to make calculations...

first[/i] in a long line of electronic devices built to make calculations. And the first electronic device built to make calculations was less efficient than existing non-electronic devices that made calculations. By the logic cited in precious posts opposing my viewpoint, no one should ever have built the first electronic calculating device.

Allow me to provide an example that doesn't depend upon drawing an electonic/non-electronic distinction:

Right now, scientists can grow (and have grown!) living, beating, disembodied hearts in labs. But lab-grown hearts are not fit for human transplant, whereas mechanical valves that mimic hearts are fit for transplant. It will likely takes decades, if not centuries, for lab-grown hearts to become more efficient than mechanical valves that mimic living hearts.

But theory tells us that, down the line, lab-grown hearts have the potential to be better for patients and cheaper to produce than mechanical valves used in place of hearts. Does this mean that we should abandon research into lab-grown organic hearts, with their pay-off for generations down the line, just because mechanical valves provide an immediate benefit to our generation?

(And, incidentally, as we speak, fewer than a thousand people in the entire world have the knowhow necessary to grow hearts in laboratories. Had they chosen not to communicate their accomplishments to medical journals, they could very easily have convinced us - well, me at least! - that no human being had ever grown a functional, disembodied organ before.)