Negav Development: Firearms

Neko214 wrote:

Thank you Pendragon, your contribution to this topic is noted. However it was ignorant and unnecessary.

Yeesh. I was trying to lighten things up. No need to bite my head off.

We're getting back onto the topic of blades and what's better again. Feel free to go with what you think about them. If you don't like guns, don't use them, but don't dismiss the other side too. We're not saying that its either guns or swords and only one or the other is going to exist in Negav. They both will exist in Negav.

To quote Karbo

Karbo wrote:

To answer the first question of the thread, I think the magiocrats are an obstacle to guns just flooding Negav in truckloads.  Many magiocrats are pretty conservative. And maybe they don't understand gun or find them a bit too dangerous for a mage. After all You can see a guy coming at you while brandishing a sword and you can raise your magical defenses quickly to counter him. With a gun... it's clearly more tricky.
As I see it, Magiocrats would be cautious of guns.  So even if they don't actively oppose them they are not going to make it easier for them to get in Negav. The fact they are distinctly more expensive could be because of some taxes imposed on them.

Then there is indeed a cultural element as to why there is more bladed weapons than guns in Negav. A blade is easy to "understand". You just stick the pointy end into your target. You know how it's made, how it works. And since it's close and personal it could also be considered more "manly".  After all, gladiators in the Jaslow Arena use bladed weapons for the spectacle and many of them are famous among the population.

So indeed we have the reason being that it's because of the Magiocrats, and a cultural element, and each of the two reasons are enough just by themselves, so these two work fine. Also, we all know what he means by a blade is easy to "understand".

I agree with Stabs we move on to Shady's second question, which no one has addressed yet. To recap:

Shady-Knight wrote:

"Since the Magiocrats favor trades with magic-centric, lower tech worlds, how advanced are typical guns sold in the Lower Tier? For example, are they mostly early firearms like the musket and blunderbuss, old west firearms like the revolver and single-shot shotgun, or modern like the AK-47? Alternatively, would they be unique firearms like the Fairy Duster that's situational, but work very well against certain dangers you might encounter in the wild?"

Personally, I think this would be just a preference of Karbo's. I don't see any real way to resolve this by reasoning as it's too opinionated.

I vote that the technology is between Lee-Enfield and AK-47 being common. Anything more would be rare, like someone from the world of the vishmitals or getting sucked into Felarya from a higher tech world. Besides I like rifles like the N1 Garand and Lee-Enfield. They're high quality (at least the way I see it) and the AK-47 is so high quality you could pull it from a swamp - covered in mud, and it'd still work. That sort of quality I think is VERY important to Negavians for a multitude of reasons.

What's everyone else's preference for gun tech level? I do think that a lot of the market would be Negavians who do like guns, trying to make magic-variants of them to suit a more "comfortable" appearance and function.

There is a tad bit of reasoning to it, though. It's true that whatever level of firearms one would find sold on the streets is going to be more of Karbo's jurisdiction, but taking into account the cultural element and the fact the guys in charge of the city are very cautious of firearms, I believe it's safe to assume that sufficiently advanced firearms, whatever general example that would be and beyond, would be considered illegal for civilians to carry. Ways around it would most likely be the Lower Market, or maybe having to go through some proverbial hoops for one person to get its weapon approved. I'm not entirely sure with that last one, but you never know.

That's partly why I argue quality is the deciding factor. As we all know, guns serve a very specific purpose, where as blades can vary depending on their use. So that specific purpose should be the highest quality possible. Most newer guns are very easy to break. So having them, although more dangerous (in Felarya though, a bullet out of one gun is probably the same as any other) and also illegal would mean that security forces would require a knowledge of types of guns so that they might identify them. Of course this means more of a familiarity to guns though, and more of a reason to buy them, which counters partly, the cultural bias making them wary of using/buying guns.

Keep in mind that Negav's security force is mostly manned by the Vishmitals, which doesn't counter the whole cultural bias since they don't seem to mingle with the common folks. It wouldn't surprise me if the tech the military and the walls use come from them. It makes sense cause if Negav falls, their goal to revive their empire goes down with it.