So rampaging through Undermine on a few alts, trying to decide if I should stop maining Shaman and try other classes to avoid burnout in WoW and I noticed a few things:
1) GobTube.
Goblins in Undermine apparently have the internet and streaming services. The Internet is canon on Azeroth now. How long until this becomes a craze? And how long until the Gnomes make a better version because rivalry is fun and silly little races slap-fighting over who can make the better toaster is funny, what do you mean, they have nukes and mechs and plasma-based artillery? What do you mean, they’re only playing along because its profitable and/or they have no interest in world domination?
But a couple of the quests we do, or world quests if you prefer, has Trade Princes and NPCs mentioning GobTube, there’s impersonators, there’s screens in a few of the buildings in the richer parts of Undermine, and again, this is only ‘Downtown’ Undermine, there’s apparently at least another level ‘above’ the sector we’re in, but the food is worse up there.
The Alliance and the Horde are still running around with criers and war-callers, the Goblin Cartels likely have streamers and other, ah, ‘online entertainers’ at this point, at least in Undermine itself. Imagine the luxury of being able to just order takeout rather than having to go out and get it yourself, and it costs pennies on-top of what the food would actually cost to get it delivered directly to you. A live feed of what traffic is like before you head to work so you can plan alternate routes. Radio stations that play various types of music so you can vibe out where-ever you are.
We’ve had radio as a thing in WoW since Vanilla, but it was specifically a Gnomish invention that was never really implemented wide-scale for some reason. But if we are heading towards a technological revolution thanks to the Earthen and the CEASE-FIRE (we do not have a truce or a peace-treaty) between the Alliance and Horde would push the technological envelope between the Mega-Factions, as messengers can be intercepted and take a long time to get from A to B, magical messages can be scrambled or re-directed, so broadcasting towers or cable systems would be a game-changer, at least at first before the inevitable cat-and-mouse between invasive and protective systems started to kick off.
Imagine PA systems in capitals warning people of curfews, enemy attacks, generic civic announcements? Imagine an out-door cinema or open-air theatre playing recordings of plays or scenes from the adventurers in actions? National Geographic-like shows of the footage we’re taking from the Dragon Isles and Dornogal? If it could even be live-streamed as GobTubers in Undermine seem to suggest during combat or idle commentary, that’s a whole other scene to consider.
2) Same-Day Delivery
The Rocket-Mole Trains can take us all the way from Undermine to Zuldazar in a day. Admittedly, this is Game Mechanics 
at work, but the concept still stands to a point. Goblin Rocket-Mole Trains can transport a huge amount of resources, workers or supplies, they’re absurdly fast, they can both clear rubble and roadblocks on their own rails, and presumably, a similar model with tracks or legs bored out the original passageway to Zuldazar.
Direct transportation to a location, next to no threat of banditry or monster attack, and can travel almost in a straight line, bypassing issues like mountains, bodies of water, pre-existing structures and combat zones. We’ve seen this before with Dark Iron Mole Machines, but those were incredibly small and only were capable of comfortably, and I’m using the word loosely four or five Dwarves at a time.
And we’re talking BULK transport, at speed, and we can assume that so long as a certain distance is kept between them, a ‘convoy’ of these Rocket-Mole Trains could not be sent down the line, and funneled into a ring-shaped array so that they all move in, nose to boosters, load up, and then fire back up the tube one at a time to form a return convoy.
We’ve had the Deeprun Tram for a long time. We saw the Iron Horde’s train system in Warlords of Draenor that served both as transportation for troops and supplies and a mobile artillery platform. Imagine that linking every capital within a Megafaction together, where feasible, underground and overland train routes funneling workers, soldiers, goods and supplies through a network that speeds up the transferal from a matter of months to days, or weeks at worst.
- Fast Food Franchise Fight
We see a lot of cola, both Kaja-Cola and other, less brain-altering skin-greening types, noodle boxes, burgers, kebab skewers, hotdogs and corndogs in the part of Undermine we can access. Now, a lot of this is ‘repurposed’ food, a lot of bulk, salt, sugars and fats to make the absolute G A R B A G E ingredients actually palatable, but still, it does make me wonder if we’re going to see franchises step out of Undermine into the wider world?
We’ve joked about Goblin street-food vendors competing with Pandaren food-carts, but what if that becomes a thing? Junk food isn’t just relatively cheap and so much easier to acquire than properly cooked food, but it is also addictive, because the large amounts of salts, fats and sugars lights up parts of our brains that generate or control responses to decision-making, impulses and reward-vs-risk mechanisms.
Something something this Sprite would kill a 16th century peasant something something.
It is also risky as the kind of fats and cooking oils used in the production of fast food are the dangerous kind, the kind that stays in the body, and is not easily digestible or to pass out of the body. But because fast food is so readily available, often much cheaper than healthier options, causes the brain to light up in a big way which can cause addiction to the point people have been known to keep eating despite knowing they are full because the sensation they get from eating these foods gives them pleasure, to the point of burst stomachs and becoming so obese they cannot move under their own power.
They know what’s causing it, they know it will kill them, they know they don’t need it, but the addiction and the resulting endorphin release is so strong that they will do it anyways.
What happens when Goblin fast food manages to hit the wider market? Horde first probably, given the Cease-Fire and the nature of Goblin/Gnome relations, but eventually it would hit the Alliance’s streets, again, probably in a Gnomish twist because the rivalry between Goblins and Gnomes will still be in full tilt at the heat death of the Warcraft universe. And considering how long, and how easy, fast food components are to keep refrigerated and how easy it would be to assemble meals for soldiers and labourers using pre-cooked, pre-prepared ingredients, and in labour-intensive environments, a load of salt, sugar and fat is actually a benefit because the body will metabolize it all, while sedentary or physically inactive jobs will instead turn these packets of hyper-condensed salts, sugars and fats into body-fat very quickly.
Alternatively, if a canny entrepreneur was to take Goblin food ‘repurposing’ technology and apply it to actual food, not just the garbage or reprocessed material the Goblins in the Undermine are forced to use, this could be a culinary revolution. Refrigerators were a thing back in Gnomeragon and both Undermine and Kezan, and it wouldn’t be too hard to ‘retrofit’ existing cold-houses with the technology.
A sealed environment, insulating panels, air circulation device and the actual refrigerant gas to be forced through an appropriately-sized compressor, condenser and evaporator system. Hell, most of Azeroth already uses cool rooms, which are underground to help keep the room cold, so half the problem is already dealt with, now it would just be a case of rendering the cool room safe for sub-zero temperatures and the resulting build up of ice from ambient moisture.
We already have magic that is used, presumably, to preserve food for longer periods of time, if we could apply that to the machinery, taking the place of toxic refrigerant gasses, that suddenly makes the whole system so much more cheaper and easier to implement on a faction-sized scale. Crops can be kept longer, and fresher, without risk of infection, mold or pests, meat harvested from livestock doesn’t need to be smoked, salted or preserved in brine for lean times during the year, eggs and delicate food sources like fish and poultry can be kept for multiple weeks, not merely days, the list goes on.
And lets talk about the cola. Sealed, cold, fizzy drinks. A bust of energy and flavour no less addictive than the most greasy, fat-dripping, sugar-infused-into-the-bun, cheese-loaded B O R G O R you could buy from the array of Goblin food-carts in Undermine. Add in stimulants like caffeine, chocolate, guarana and similar, and you have a product that is going to fly off the shelves as fast as you can produce it. Peons slamming down cans of Monster and then just tearing through their tasks, then being too stimulated to stop.
I want you to remember Senior Peon II from Draenor and imagine that thing fueled by nothing but Kaja’mite-infused Monster and junk food, and he is vibrating so fast he’s creating after-images at this point.
What happens if we added the kind of potions Player Characters have access to into the mix? Caffeinated healing potions, carbonated mana-potions, guarana-infused thistle tea? Like we’re not already crazed enough?
What are your thoughts?
