Don’t confuse me with the Russians. I consider myself a mestizo. Yes, this is not a nationality, but a race. Most likely I look like a European. I don’t know, I don’t know how to distinguish. I don’t know the history of the territory of Russia, I didn’t read the books of Russian classics outside of school, what I read, I forgot or did not understand.
Don’t use nationality. It worries me. I do not know why.
There are a few options for that. It is possible they have been scavenging from their ruined kingdom over time, or they may of been trading with the Dwarves or even the neutral goblin cartels for materials and whatnot.
Gilneans were never a magical people, really, even compared to other human kingdoms. They were grounded in technology. It make sense they would see attempting to set up what they saw as proper defenses to some degree as vital I guess.
The more I really consider it the more I see the symbiosis of the two almost totally inverted cultures as sort of neat.
Fair enough, but you aren’t the only one I’m thinking of. I’ve encountered several, particularly in Discord or through my observation of the EU forums.
Warcraft is at its best when it’s playing with old fantasy tropes and turning them on their head. With respect to the Night Elves, their willingness to adapt to technologies always made me ask what would happen if they combined druidism and technological progress, or at least combined their ability to mend wood (which we see with their ships) with pan-Alliance weaponry.
Sadly, this was turned down in favor of the “Army of Archers” nonsense so that Blizzard could beat down on them repeatedly, which strikes me as a travesty on the level of M. Night Shyamalan’s depiction of Earthbending.
What is “industrial low grade”? Industrial slag?
“Dirty technology”? I mean, foul-smelling, coal and all that?
On one hand, yes, on the other hand I’d question just how far the Gilneans could go outside of war time before they get told to stop.
Dwarven archaeological digs near Mulgore were enough to mess up the elementals and it seems like it goes even further to me.
Also demanding the kaldorei to function at a borderline industrial level instead of restoring their role as master of guerilla seems, again, to me, misguided. Kaldorei lore isn’t going to get fixed because the druids start greenlighting Ironforge’s notoriously garbage environmental practices. It would also be incredibly silly to put things in a position where the sin’dorei are functionally closer to nature than the kaldorei.
I mean,
A) the Night Elves have never commented on how other nations use their resources. I think they’re more concerned with their own territories.
B) druidism, particularly in the wisp-extraction and molding of both ores and woods, offers a way out of a lot of the byproducts. Why would you for instance build a coal burning engine when something resembling a treant could move your vehicles for you? Why bother forging steel when you can get similar results with Ironwood? I would imagine that this would have to be balanced by something like an obsession for perfection in components where it’s really not needed - but there are a ton of possibilities here waiting to be explored.
There is no need for elves to disdain coal technologies. Elves have always preferred magic.
Perhaps the elves will not perceive the dirty industry as damaging the forests. Probably. Until the forests are used for coal. On the other hand, they have eternal reserves of wood, the main thing is not to cut it down.
Oh I don’t see the Kaldorei themselves as adopting such measures tbh. Guerilla warfare has always been their jam; they are a nocturnal predator species, so ambush is a very natural strategy to evolve for them. The Kaldorei would embrace formal arcane magic practices before they formally become an industrial power.
In fact that is exactly what they did.
Wisps only solve the clear cutting problem
I don’t see where you get the idea that treants would be used for harvesting wood in other Alliance territories. I had other applications in mind. The Night Elves have traditionally not used logging. Wisps are able to extract resources directly from trees without felling them.
So what about the Iron Horde? Absurd speed of assimilation of technology or something else?
“We care about nature, nature cares about us.” Pulls out a whip. “Into the battle, the ancients! Into the battle!”
I mean, frankly, if the Night Elves are going to have symbiotic relationship with the forest to protect the forest, I see no reason for why the forest wouldn’t want to get with the program on technological advancement so long as you manage the byproducts.
Let’s go, artillery aimed with entangling roots.
Hmm.
"I propose a deal - we put this powder in specially grown hollows. We put this iron ball there. We set fire to the powder with the help of this dry vine. Perhaps you will be torn apart. But he, he and that orc will remain with a hole in the chest. Orcs in iron armor. Yes, there will be holes for sure. Treebeard, do you agree to explode for the sake of the sacred groves? "
I don’t know about you but when I get into things like the Northrend gnome oil spill, I start questioning the wisdom of their approach to technology almost as much as I do when I see a goblin shredder.
Also notably, again, if we’re going to do the thing where wisps are perfect for mass deployment of tech, the tech symbiotism in WC3 didn’t extent to mining. So I’m still dubious about heavy handed technological deployments especially in situations where it’s largely inspired by one of the more notoriously ecologically destructive races in the game.
What does oil have to do with it? No gasoline engines.
Possibly from Felwood, after clearing the Goblins out of the Irontree Woods. Kalimdor is actually shown to be rather rich in fossil fuels.
I suddenly have to wonder how that is… the Titans plastered over the Black Empire so is Azerothian oil made out of long dead old god minions?
Better - the Old Gods and their offspring are oil! After all, how else to explain that there is so much oil, but millions of years have not passed?
…
Millions of years have not passed, have they? How many years is between the ordering of Azeroth and our time?
That is, the Abyss is a liquid, oily to the touch space. And they acquire flesh only in reality.
And at some point we will meet a civilization that enslaved the Old God and pumps oil from him. Yes.
It’s not really strange that the night elves would have maintained a navy throughout the past 10,000 years. They fought other wars during the Long Vigil, and when your territory spans the breadth of half a continent, it’s a good idea to be able to quickly move armies from one end of it to the other without having to walk the entire way.
Just things like being able to land troops from Ashenvale and Darkshore down in Feralas or Tanaris for deployment into southern Kalimdor during the War of the Shifting Sands could have readily justified the continued existence of a navy.
Their cultural “job” was essentially standing guard over Hyjal and the surrounding regions against intrusion for ten millennia. It’d make sense that such a thing would include having ships to rapidly move around the Sentinel Army’s forces in the event of an invasion.
This is actually spectacularly cringe (and old god remnants aren’t a thing you enslave, the quel’dorei left Tirisfal for a reason).
IDK I feel like yet more story developments that paint the kaldorei as gigantic hypocrites are not a good thing but you do you.
That said the navy thing makes sense.