Humans

[kasoki.5180]

On topic of Airship.

I am 99% sure that if you go to Fort Trinity and talk to NPCs on the Airship, your PC says something along the lines:

"Shouldn't Charr be in charge of the ship since its of Charr design"

 

But I cant find any NPCs from the Airship on the wiki list

 

Edit: found it:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pilot_Wanni

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Captain_Skyfire

 

Also, I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly, quote about all races coming together for the airship refers to Glory of Tyria specifically. Not airships as in general design

[draxynnic.3719]

You are wrong: I even [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/What_the_Eye_Beholds](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/What_the_Eye_Beholds "gave a source") for Trahearne saying that the airships were "a combination of asura, charr, and human technology".

 

The dialogues from Wanni and Skyfire, _when put up against Trahearne's statement,_ I would attribute to unreliable narrator. Skyfire is showing typical charr pride, and in Wanni's case... the airship certainly looks charr from the outside, so it's an easy mistake to make. She does seem to be indicating that it's a charr prototype, but there's no indications in charr territory of it being worked on, let alone reaching a deployable state. Either the original designer was a charr who was already a member of one of the orders, or it's like Kailani's flying machine in that the idea was there, but it wasn't working in practice.

 

On the wiki in general: Quotes from ingame are pretty much always reliable, yes. But for anything that isn't a direct ingame reference or otherwise sourced... my general reaction is that "the wiki said so!" is not a convincing argument in a debate. It's good to see that the admins _are_ apparently now allowing a proper cleanup to occur, but I'd still be inclined to regard any wiki article without citations* as hearsay.

 

*Quoted ingame dialogue has the unspoken citation of the ingame dialogue.

[kasoki.5180]

> @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> You are wrong: I even [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/What_the_Eye_Beholds](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/What_the_Eye_Beholds "gave a source") for Trahearne saying that the airships were "a combination of asura, charr, and human technology".

>

> The dialogues from Wanni and Skyfire, _when put up against Trahearne's statement,_ I would attribute to unreliable narrator. Skyfire is showing typical charr pride, and in Wanni's case... the airship certainly looks charr from the outside, so it's an easy mistake to make. She does seem to be indicating that it's a charr prototype, but there's no indications in charr territory of it being worked on, let alone reaching a deployable state. Either the original designer was a charr who was already a member of one of the orders, or it's like Kailani's flying machine in that the idea was there, but it wasn't working in practice.

>

> On the wiki in general: Quotes from ingame are pretty much always reliable, yes. But for anything that isn't a direct ingame reference or otherwise sourced... my general reaction is that "the wiki said so!" is not a convincing argument in a debate. It's good to see that the admins _are_ apparently now allowing a proper cleanup to occur, but I'd still be inclined to regard any wiki article without citations* as hearsay.

>

> *Quoted ingame dialogue has the unspoken citation of the ingame dialogue.

 

I am definitely not wrong if ingame dialogue confirms what I have said. The fact that game provides contradicting information is something completely different.

 

Second, the two do not necessarily exclude themselves. What Trahearne says and what these NPCs say do not have to exclude one another. Both can be true. As I have said, original design charr and later designs multiracial. These conversations together perfectly support that statement.

 

Also, I don't see how is Trahearne more reliable narrator on airships than people that actually work in those airships.

 

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> You are wrong: I even [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/What_the_Eye_Beholds](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/What_the_Eye_Beholds "gave a source") for Trahearne saying that the airships were "a combination of asura, charr, and human technology".

>

> The dialogues from Wanni and Skyfire, _when put up against Trahearne's statement,_ I would attribute to unreliable narrator. Skyfire is showing typical charr pride, and in Wanni's case... the airship certainly looks charr from the outside, so it's an easy mistake to make. She does seem to be indicating that it's a charr prototype, but there's no indications in charr territory of it being worked on, let alone reaching a deployable state. Either the original designer was a charr who was already a member of one of the orders, or it's like Kailani's flying machine in that the idea was there, but it wasn't working in practice.

>

> On the wiki in general: Quotes from ingame are pretty much always reliable, yes. But for anything that isn't a direct ingame reference or otherwise sourced... my general reaction is that "the wiki said so!" is not a convincing argument in a debate. It's good to see that the admins _are_ apparently now allowing a proper cleanup to occur, but I'd still be inclined to regard any wiki article without citations* as hearsay.

>

> *Quoted ingame dialogue has the unspoken citation of the ingame dialogue.

 

Technically speaking, they're not exactly contradictory...

 

_"This craft may have begun as a charr prototype, but it was improved on by the Pact and it takes a keen mind to pilot it."_

 

Airships "begun as a charr prototype", but the final product that Trahearne introduces was "improved on by the Pact" using "a combination of asura, charr, and human technology."

 

And the flagships had sylvari touches to it too, imo.

 

All that said, however, the original argument of "airships are of charr design so charr would have assaulted norn from the air" is false since airships and choppers are brand new technology.

[draxynnic.3719]

It appears my post got messed up a bit. My fault - the method for inserting URLs in the new forum is one I'm not familiar with and I forgot to preview to make sure it did what I wanted to, and I could have been clearer.

 

I was responding to this:

 

> @"kasoki.5180" said:

> Also, I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly, quote about all races coming together for the airship refers to Glory of Tyria specifically. Not airships as in general design

 

This IS wrong. The "What the Eye Beholds" instance takes place on a regular airship, well before the Glory of Tyria is even hinted at. Trahearne's statement that the airships are "a combination of charr, asura, and human technology" clearly refers to all airships, not just the Glory of Tyria-class.

[Yereton.8647]

Just to put in a few thoughts on a few things that seem to have been overlooked. I will try to categorize this for the sake of simplicity.

 

**Norn Individuality**

A large part of what I've seen in this discussion is the assumption that norn have the capacity to form a cohesive military unit in time to quell an invasion, no matter the population size. As we have seen with both the Great Destroyer and Jormag, the norn are more than happy to fight a numerically superior foe...one at a time. How many norn will need to die before they realise that one norn cannot defeat a maniple on their own? That is anyone guess now, but when Jormag forced the norn south, the norn would have kept going at the icebrood one or two or three at a time until the Spirits of the Wild basically told them to run. So a point against the norn.

 

On the other hand, that same individuality means they have no real concept of settlements. No settelements means nothing to protect, which unsurprisingly gives them an advantage. They could put Hoelbrak to the torch and it would not significantly hurt the norn, and once the conflict is over they would just resettle. Point for the norn.

 

Also the fact that norn don't have a real standing army is both a point for and against. One hand there will be no immediate deployment against an organised industrial age military to counter the initial front. So a unified initial counterattack is non-existent. On the other hand, norn are not subject to taking conventional routes that the charr have to take. At least in game, there is only one real pass that the charr armies can take on their way to Hoelbrak, and thats a fair distance north of the Great Northern Wall. (The separation between Diessa Plateau and the Wayfarer Foothills.) So a small company of norn could just scale the mountains and attack straight into the Ascalon heartland and attack sensitive production posts and the Charr rear.

 

**Shiverpeak topography**

What everyone seems to forget is that the Shiverpeaks are a mountain range with no real infrastructure. Even if there was well maintained roads that the invading force could use, charr artillery and armour are cumbersome and are not suitable for literal uphill battles. Now add the fact that they will literally have to make roads through forests and Cliffsides and avoid geographical bottlenecks, it will make any tanks and cannons and those huge ATVs, that they seem to have ,more of a detriment than a boon. Big point for the norn.

 

**Technological Limitations**

 

Lastly, the copters are unreliable and have no real carrying capacity and Airships can't land in the mountainous areas easily, so supplying by air is more trouble than it is worth, and that is not assuming hazardous weather conditions that likely plague the mountains all year round. So conventional supply lines will have to do. Point for the norn.

 

Back to the tank. In one of the PS stories, the tanks kept getting bogged and broken in Orr due to 'gunk'. I think they would fare similarly in several inches of snow during most of the season, and the undoubtedly in the sloshy, muddy terrain during the spring season. Another point for the norn.

 

**Final thoughts**

 

The terrain of the norn homeland and technological level of the charr show that the norn have a very heavy-handed advantage, if the populations were the same.

 

There is a reason why the mountain nation of Montenegro was never truly conquered, until WW1, where artillery that can quite literally fire over a mountain was employed. The terrain and warrior like culture of the locals prevented Ottoman annexation of the area for centuries, and even in WW1 a significant phyrric victory was achieved against the Austrian-Hungarian invading force (which they had superiority in technology, military tactics and experience, and numbers) at the battle of Mojkovac.

 

I imagine it would be a similar situation with the norn, where instead of a half-starved army with weaponry that was decades behind their opponents', they would be facing a very ready group of giant werepeople, wielding weapons that are still very significant in Tyria...and magic. That is assuming the norn ever manage to form an army.

 

So it would either be a very protracted war, causing the charr to spend more soldiers and resources than any sane invasion force would utilize. At the same time they would leave themselves vulnerable to separatists, the Branded, ghosts, Flame Legion and ogres. Perhaps a blitz-like invasion would work, but unlikely due to the the terrain, lack of real strategic points and norn mentality.

 

The only way the charr could viable win this war without destroying themselves would be if they had the resources and soldiers to basically flood the norn.

 

Just my two cents on the matter.

 

Edit: Typos and few more cents.