Exactly 2 months ago I created a thread asking where the origins of the Junker gnome name comes from? It was deduced that it came from:
A comment made by someone at blizzcon calling them junker gnomes.
Datamined names.
Now that Mechagon is out, I thought it would be good to revisit this question. Dispite what has come out so far, I don’t think that these gnomes we meet in Mechagon Island are actually officially called Junker gnomes. Throughout my adventures in Mechagon, I kept seeing them called Mechagnomes. On the other hand though. There was this one gnome that was an obvious Junkrat reference. What do you guys think?
Unofficially they are called Junker Gnomes. This is what Ion and a few other devs (dating back to last year’s Blizzcon) refer to them as, and I’d reckon that, if they ever became an allied race, “Junker Gnome” is what they’d be listed as.
Mechagnome was the ideal they were initially shooting for. The gnomes that began modifying their “fleshy bits” called themselves Mechagnomes because they wanted to be exactly like the mechagnomes that exist today, free from the curse of flesh.
It would probably be accurate to call people like King Mechagon himself and his fully mechanized followers “Mechagnomes,” as even Erazmin himself thinks there isn’t any “gnome” left after the transference.
Those that are only halfway converted, e.g. the Rustbolt Resistance, are Junker Gnomes.
They are junker gnomes, mechagnomes are ones that serve King Mechagon, fully or near fully mechanical ones. Junker gnomes just got robot legs and arms. If they had full mecha customizations, I’d be on board for calling them mechagnomes, but otherwise they remain junker gnomes indefinitely.
This seems like a very good point. I didn’t think about that. Perhaps what I have been seeing is the npcs referencing the nearly fully converted gnomes.
I call them Junker Gnomes because Mechagnomes refers to a very specific group; the literal Titan creations that are the ancestors to the gnomish people.
Mechagon Gnomes might cut an arm off and replace it with a robot limb, but that doesn’t make them a Mechagnome. They are still A) partially organic and B) Gnome tech != Titan tech. Try all they want, they can imitate the Titans but they aren’t the titans, just as making a replica of the Mona Lisa doesn’t make one da Vinci. A dwarf using stoneform doesn’t make them an Earthen.
A mechagnome is a Titan creation using Titan technology and is fully mechanical. Mechazod is a mechagnome. King Mechagon is a Bionicle.
The Mechagnomes we work with are junkers. They live in a pile of scrap metal. They work with pieces of machinery that were discarded as garbage by the city.
If you had a car, and a squid turned your car into a meatcar. And you started replacing the meat back with car parts. Wouldn’t that go back into being a car?
Besides, we see in the comic that they also use lazors to simply reverse the curse of flesh and turn the gnomes back into robots. The reversed Gnome looks exactly the same as other “false” mechagnomes.
It would go back into being a car, but it wouldn’t be the same car. If you had a Ferrari, and a squid turns it into a meat car, and you slowly begin fashioning custom parts to replace the meat bits, you don’t get a Ferrari.
Now, take this squidcar, fast forward it a thousand generations of squidcars, and now the sentient squidcars begin to try and rebuild themselves back as cars. The end result isn’t your original Ferrari.
It can be a close replica, but it’s not the same. It would never be a true Ferrari. The same can be said with the Junker Gnomes. They are trying to replicate the original Mechagnomes using their understanding of what a mechagnome is - and even King Mechagon’s forces aren’t perfect. IIRC it even says this in Mechagon, that even with all their augments, there’s still a little bit of gnome left in that they can’t remove.
Hell, even the laser device is imperfect. It doesn’t create a mechagnome, but a gnome’s idea of what a mechagnome is. The device itself is flawed, as it turned the victim braindead, whereas when this plot literally occurred in the Borean Tundra, it was a perfect transition.
Shoot, this imperfect understanding is further highlighted with the Alternative Timeline where King Mechagon wins. His device fails entirely, not turning gnomes into Mechagnomes - in fact, the Junker Gnomes are untouched - while literally everyone else is obliterated.
Ok. But a Mechagnome is a type of machine, not a brand. They are “car”, nor “Ferrari”. So those guys are Mechagnomes. They just aren’t Mimiron brand Mechagnomes.
Mechagnomes is a very specific machine, as it is the progenitor race created by the titans that evolved into gnomes.
An imitation mechagnome might be a robotic gnome, but it’s not a mechagnome as they are a very specific subset of robot.
Using the term interchangeably is also problematic, as it creates unnecessary narrative confusion. Look no further than the High Elves.
Canonically, a Quel’dorei refers to two specific races - the upper caste of the Kaldorei Empire and the High Elves of Quel’thelas. However you very rarely see the former referee to as Quel’dorei and are instead referred to as Highborn, despite Highborn being the English translation of Quel’dorei.
They have different terms because it clears up unnecessary confusion between the two subsets.
And your point being? I’ll still call them Junker Gnomes because it makes much more sense from a lore and narrative standpoint for the reasons I’ve outlined already.
Mechagnomes are a specific subcategory and yes, even Blizzard, shouldn’t call two categorically different races the same thing. Just as there is the distinction between Quel’dorei and Highborn, there should be a distinction here.
![:rofl:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/rofl.png?v=6" ":rofl:")