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How Did the Charr get so Advanced?


Mars Balearicus.7138

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Based upon the GW2 wiki, there is no lore about how the Charr got so advanced, or why they even went steampunk mode. The history section mentions the Khan-Ur, the release of titans across Tyria, the surrender of the Flame Legion on the Plains of Golghein, and even who brokered the deal between Charr and Humans and such. The only thing it really misses in all that is what this discussion post is about though.

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I think there is a few mentions in game stating how when the female charr rebellion led by Kalla Scorchrazor ended and they had less of a Fanatical relgion based culture since the flame legion no longer held the most power. That in turn allowed the more science based culture to come threw even more so since most of the humans were wiped out by other things over time leading to only 2 places of them. Norn and charr never really fought each other in wars, and asura were still coming to the surface they had free time to focus on other things for once. I would assume them trading with the Asura and Dredge helped them improve also https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ecology_of_the_Charr has some more info also.

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What happened is they had their own Industrial Revolution without Flame Legion or the need of gods holding them back. With their need for weapons for war (since they have largely been a war-centric race), it was only natural they would innovate and industrialize eventually, similar to how humans have done so in the real world in the past. Higher efficiency, better quality, and pretty much an arms race to keep them ahead of the other races should war with them ever occur.

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There is stuff floating around, although I can't remember where it all is - some of it is in interviews and things, which are hard to find nowadays.

Broadly speaking, it's a combination of need and opportunity.

The opportunity is that after the dwarfs left, and before the dredge had really started expanding and trying to lock down everything the dwarfs had left behind, the charr were able to get into some of the dwarf outposts, fortifications, and mines close to the territory the charr now occupied (which, after the fall of most of Ascalon, included most of the eastern Shiverpeaks). So they were able to recover gunpowder and other dwarf technology and figure out how to use it themselves - and being more militaristic than the dwarfs, were faster to come up with the most efficient military uses for it (for instance, dwarfs in GW1 put explosives on ballistae, charr developed actual guns).

The need is that in the aftermath of overthrowing the Flame Legion, the charr wanted to minimise their reliance on magic, so they started actively looking for alternative means to achieve some of the firepower that they would otherwise rely on magic for.

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It's briefly covered in the Wiki article on the charr: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charr

"The charr are highly industrious, their forging superior to even the dwarves, and are renowned and feared for their military technology – weapon development, war machines and mass production, having pioneered the creation of airships and submarines. Their rifles and pistols are particularly finely made. However, not all of their advancements involve weapons – they also make some of the finest clockwork and spring-driven devices in Tyria. Their development in technology eventually led to the printing press, which in turn propagated the widespread use of the New Krytan language. While the average charr is willing to embrace technology, many view the use of magic as a sign of weakness and will distrust magic-users as a whole."

It also comes up in dialogue throughout the game. IMO this is both a strength and a weakness of GW2. It makes exploring the world more fun because you can learn little bits of info from different places and piece it all together to learn about the world, but it also makes it difficult to point to an official source for something or to get a summary, especially if you can't remember who says what. I know there's NPCs throughout Ascalon who will talk about specific charr developments, especially submarines, and Pact NPCs around Fort Trinity, and in the story, will explain that the airships were initially pioneered by the charr and then refined with the addition of human and asuran magic. (That's one reason the Pact like using them, they're a good example of everyone working together.)

But the short version is that the charr have always been an agressive, warlike race. Until shortly after GW1 they were ruled by sharmans who worshipped the titans (and later destroyers) as gods and relied heavily on magic, fire magic especially, to give them power. Then they had a revolution, overthrew the sharmans and exciled the Flame Legion. But they still needed, and wanted, something to give them an edge in battle so they turned to technology, focusing on equipment and war machines. That lead to an industrial revolution and their tech jumped ahead of other races who were happy using magic to acomplish lots of things.

(Incidentally it's a bit of a redundant seperation, because in Tyria everything is magical, including the technology. Charr tech may look more like real-life machines, and it may not glow and float the way asuran tech does, but that's an aesthetic choice. There's no line between the two in this world, technology runs on magic because magic is the laws of physics and the energy in Tyria. It's a different type of magic, self-contained enchantments which don't require the user to cast spells directly, but it's still magic. Not that I'd tell the charr that.)

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I would note that it is fair to say that the use of magic in charr technology is mostly incidental. It's based on chemistry and, well, engineering, and while some of their inventions work better than a similar invention would in the real world due to magical properties of the materials used. However, the charr aren't deliberately using magic, they're just using the most effective materials they have access to, and the fact that they're so effective because of magic is incidental.

It's worth noting that the capabilities of Engineer as a profession, even core Engineer, aren't entirely derived from charr technology.

Broadly speaking, charr technology is probably better regarded as steampunk (clockwork-punk according to Arenanet) - Tyria's magic is just the explanation for why the steampunk tropes work.

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The war economy son.

You have to remember that in effect, the iron legion is an entire state focused 100% on technological advancements.

Now in our own history times of war seem to be the greatest motivators for technological advances.(e.g. walkie talkies and the internet)

Now consider the iron legion has been doing this none stop since at least the end of the charr civil war. 1 + 1 = 2

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It's because the Charr you see in Gw1 were kinda living under a Dark Age.

The Flame Legion were a fanatical, religious regime that had more or less total control over the Charr at that point and they didn't care for Technology all that much.They cared about magic, power and Gods.

After the Flame Legion was depowered/overthrown, Charr culture was free to grow and evolve in other ways and technology was a big part of that in the Legions.The Olmakhan is another faction that escaped the Flame Legion and formed it's own culture seperate from the Legions as well.

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@"White Kitsunee.4620" said:The war economy son.

You have to remember that in effect, the iron legion is an entire state focused 100% on technological advancements.

Now in our own history times of war seem to be the greatest motivators for technological advances.(e.g. walkie talkies and the internet)

Now consider the iron legion has been doing this none stop since at least the end of the charr civil war. 1 + 1 = 2

It is worth noting that the "war accelerates technological development" trope is a bit of a misunderstanding of what's actually going on.

If anything, war actually slows it down. However, what usually happens is that during times of peace, you have the 'blue sky' research that doesn't have any immediate payoff, but which sets the stage for future payoffs. Wartime, however, tends to cause a shift in priorities towards things which have the prospect of delivering a result in time to make a difference in the war. So you tend to see a lot of new technologies being introduced in wartime, but these are usually culminations of projects which had been being worked on during years of peace, while projects that don't offer the prospect of a war-relevant payoff get put on hold. The net result is actually to slow scientific development, as people who aren't working on immediate payoff projects get sent elsewhere, sometimes even onto the front lines where they end up dead (Karl Schwarzschild being one example I can think of off the top of my head).

Jet aircraft, which WW2 is often credited for, is one example. Germany flew a prototype jet before the war, and had a prototype fighter in '41 - but they chose not to develop the He280 at the time because they thought the war would be over in a year because at the time they expected the war to be over in a German victory before enough of them could be deployed to make a difference. It was only when it became clear that wasn't the case that they started taking jets seriously.

Now, in the case of the Iron Legion... they're in a bit of an interesting position in that they've been at war pretty much constantly, but from their perspective it's been more of a long-term, low -intensity conflict that mostly doesn't present a clear existential threat, so they're probably practical enough to keep their blue-sky development going. The foundation of the Pact resulted in a few breakthroughs, but that's mostly a matter of bringing the different technologies and ideas of multiple races together. (Apart from the Iron Legion tanks and armoured cars, most of what we see in Orr is stuff that might have started from Charr prototypes, but required input from other races to actually make it work.)

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I like this thread.

I've always wondered how Charr have such impressive mechanized units at the Citadel then we rarely if ever see them in full ass-kicking mode. I'm mean they have HUGE looking war machines.SOME little things were even used in the original story pursuing zhaitan (I'm not sure what choices or factions you have to follow to use them but you don't need to be a Charr).

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Wait, scratch that though. How do the Pact helicopters work also? (Asking here since the choppers do seem to be made from the Charr based on style, unless it is just me that thinks that.) They only got 1 propeller, which means that the helicopters should should not be able to fly, and if they get into a small bit too much wind, would go sideways, then fall.

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The Pact tech is mostly a mix of Asura,Human and Charr tech working together. Norn don't usally do tech and Slyvari are mostly plant/organic tech. Now for Charr choppers i assume its some type of stabilizer/ Gryro to keep it centered. Kinda like the engineer mini drones.

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@"Mars Balearicus.7138" said:Wait, scratch that though. How do the Pact helicopters work also? (Asking here since the choppers do seem to be made from the Charr based on style, unless it is just me that thinks that.) They only got 1 propeller, which means that the helicopters should should not be able to fly, and if they get into a small bit too much wind, would go sideways, then fall.

To quote myself:

An "aesthetic choice" that didnt really work until vastly more intelligent Asura with actual engineering skills helped the Charr fix it.

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@"Torn Fierceslash.6375" said:The Pact tech is mostly a mix of Asura,Human and Charr tech working together. Norn don't usally do tech and Slyvari are mostly plant/organic tech. Now for Charr choppers i assume its some type of stabilizer/ Gryro to keep it centered. Kinda like the engineer mini drones.

I second this opinion, as that is technology that we already have. Check out NOTAR, @Mars Balearicus.7138

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@CETheLucid.3964 said:

@"draxynnic.3719" said:It's worth noting that the capabilities of Engineer as a profession, even core Engineer, aren't entirely derived from charr technology.

It's also worth noting Charr pioneered the Engineer class.

Yes, and your point is? That's well known. The point is that just because an Engineer does something doesn't mean that what they're doing was invented by the charr. A lot of it is, to be sure, but if you're looking at something that logically requires golem parts (drones and most automated turrets) or some other deliberate use of magic, there's a good chance you're looking at some other race's contribution. The charr pioneered the profession (in its current form, anyway - there were engineers back in GW1 that were probably more advanced than the charr at the time, but back then it was more of a "someone who builds and maintains machines" rather than the GW2 concept of the engineer), but that doesn't mean that everything the profession uses was invented by the charr.

Which is the point I was making: just because something appears in the Engineer's list of gadgets, explosives, and potions doesn't mean it was invented by a charr, and, by extension, the use of magic in some engineer skills does not mean that use of magic is commonplace in charr technology.

(Yes, scrappers have drones and the original scrappers were charr salvage specialists, but what they were salvaging from included a lot of asura tech.)

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@draxynnic.3719 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:It's worth noting that the capabilities of Engineer as a profession, even core Engineer, aren't entirely derived from charr technology.

It's also worth noting Charr pioneered the Engineer class.

Yes, and your point is? That's well known. The point is that just because an Engineer does something doesn't mean that what they're doing was invented by the charr. A lot of it is, to be sure, but if you're looking at something that logically requires golem parts (drones and most automated turrets) or some other deliberate use of magic, there's a good chance you're looking at some other race's contribution. The charr pioneered the profession (in its current form, anyway - there were engineers back in GW1 that were probably more advanced than the charr at the time, but back then it was more of a "someone who builds and maintains machines" rather than the GW2 concept of the engineer), but that doesn't mean that everything the profession uses was invented by the charr.

Which is the point I was making: just because something appears in the Engineer's list of gadgets, explosives, and potions doesn't mean it was invented by a charr, and, by extension, the use of magic in some engineer skills does not mean that use of magic is commonplace in charr technology.

(Yes, scrappers have drones and the original scrappers were charr salvage specialists, but what they were salvaging from included a lot of asura tech.)

Charr have been master engineers from the core game (or thats how its presented) which is likely why the original splash art of the profession was charr from the start. The whole way they presented the profession more or less screamed charr thematically and while the comment of "Charr pioneered the Engineer class" may not be factual in any wiki its certainly screams it based on almost everything in core engineer's kit. and how anet presented it. There is tons of charr engineer splash art for a reason and why they continue to do engi elite splash art as charr as well. Charr are certainly smarter in anets head cannon than i think most people want to give them credit for.

Its fair to say that the charr possibly could have pushed any engineering from what it was in gw1 to what it is now in gw2 as their civilization stabilized more. I also want to imagine that charr learn from other races when they deem its necessary to do so and only then at that. Anet has never presented them as the type to actively seek help especially if they are part of the legions. As a charr one of the story paths takes you on a mini quest where you more or less build your own design of a gun that disperses ghost so i mean if they can build that im sure they can build all kinds of things.

I think when people think of charr tech they only consider the clock work and mechanical stuff but im sure some charr are good with chemicals and other things too which can be combined with the mechanical side of things after all charr were / are very agaist magic and at best consider it a tool but nothing to be trusted.

We also know charr copters existed long before HoT and scrapper so if a charr can make those gyros based on similar stuff to their own tech out of junk then thats more impressive but the tech was there long before scrapper concepts came around.

Considering we dont need an understanding and control of some magical force in the real world to make mechanical devices fly i dont see why the charr couldnt have made choppers all on their own ;) even without help from say the asura. Im not saying you're wrong but im not saying you're right either.

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@"ZDragon.3046" said:

Charr have been master engineers from the core game (or thats how its presented) which is likely why the original splash art of the profession was charr from the start. The whole way they presented the profession more or less screamed charr thematically and while the comment of "Charr pioneered the Engineer class" may not be factual in any wiki its certainly screams it based on almost everything in core engineer's kit. and how anet presented it. There is tons of charr engineer splash art for a reason and why they continue to do engi elite splash art as charr as well. Charr are certainly smarter in anets head cannon than i think most people want to give them credit for.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't put too much stock in that splash art. Some of them match up well- charr engineer, norn warrior, sylvari ranger- but others... well, we don't exactly see many norn mesmers. Or asura necros, for that matter.

And it is 100%, confirmed-as-fact, stated by the devs that charr pioneered the playable Engineer class. Nobody's saying otherwise. What drax said above is that other races already had engineers as we use the term in the real world- people who build and work on machines, which in GW1 meant things like trebuchets and pump systems.

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@"RyuDragnier.9476" said:[...] warlike [...]

I disagree with the idea of them being warlike in general, though. I know you're one of the charr proponenets so I'm not trying to bait you with this but rather suggest a different perspective.

The post-Flame charr became a species of protectors. The most obvious touchstone here is Almorra herself, her famous quote that guides the Vigil of "Some must fight, so that all may be free." comes to mind, but it goes deeper.

I mean, there's the Olmakhan for one thing. They were a great addition, there are many lines in the Olmakhan villager talking about protectors, protectorship, and even the Olmakhan being hot for the Commander because they seem like they'd be a good protector for the cubs, understanding that a protector sometimes needs a gentle hand.

Next, compare The Black Citadel with Rata Sum. You can fall to your death in so many places in Rata Sum, which is a fair look at how many asura view the perils of science what with madcap inventions ruling the day over the iterative prototyping of grounded engineering. The Black Citadel has guard rails everywhere, everywhere! The charr are of the perspective that the other races visiting there are to be protected. There's actually a line between a charr law officer and some humans where said officer stepped in between them and a rowdy, drunken charr to protect the humans.

Then there's Ebonhawke, which fascinates me. I find it really hard to believe that WW2 era tanks and mortars wouldn't be able to breach a medieval castle, no matter how fortified it is. Those Bartman-esque battlecars can pretty much drive up mountains anyway, can't they? The charr parked a military force there just to make a point because their goal isn't war any more. It was a show of force to tell Ebonhawke that the charr are ready to protect their own should they get any funny ideas.

I'm fascinated by charr history too because even at their worst they haven't been genocidal like the other races have. When Flame enslaved the other legions and committed the Searing, I remember noticing in Prophecies that all of the NPCs were still there. The Searing didn't actually kill anyone, it was just a scare tactic meant to strike terror into the humans so that they'd flee. The one who committed genocide against the humans was Adelbern with his Foefire. Oh, also the vizier of Orr with his city-sinking madness.

It seems that whilst the humans were warring with one another and trying to wipe out each other's nations and any other race that got in the way, the charr were quietly developing in the background. First with the magicks of the Flame Legion, then when that didn't work out the technologies that followed. I mean, I think a big part of why they took to technology in the first place was because they were enslaved by magicks, magicks were used to strike fear into their hearts and keep them in line so they turned from it. Honestly, to the charr magicks must look like the root of all evil at this point and a corruptive force with its own will bent on entropy.

Though, I mean... I might see that too. It seems that if you're using the arcane magicks to do anything destructive (the stock market, war golems, death rays) it'll cooperate, but if you try to use it for anything good it throws a hissy-fit and becomes madly destructive. Power plants explode into massive elementals, golems rebel, weather machines open portals to other realities ruled by hostile forces, and so on. So I can see why the charr might come to that conclusion. Sometimes I wonder if the arcane magicks are driven by pathos and suffering.

Then there's Kralky's torment too... I'm getting off track, though.

The point is is that I think the charr developed technologies to be better protectors rather than better warlords. Wasn't it Smodur who reached out to create the alliance of the five races? Wasn't The Black Citadel the first to open its doors to other races? I may be wrong but I recall reading about that. My perspective here is that if you can make everyone else "us," then that drive to protect can be used for a very diverse population. Smodur's clever.

I always had this feeling about the charr that they were more focused upon protection rather than war but it was the Olmakhan who really drove that point home for me. The legions are just a somewhat distorted mirror of an almost instinctive need to protect, one that's been twisted by the torment of attempted genocide and war brought to their doorstep. At the end of the day though, talking to contemporary charr NPCs I feel that the primary drive they have is to protect above all else. Sometimes they can't agree on who deserves to be protected but that does seem to be their core ethos. To guard, to save, to preserve, to protect.

That's why I have that theory about Ebonhawke. The charr just wanted their ancestral burial and hunting grounds back, they wanted to protect the lands of their forefathers from invaders. Once they had that they didn't feel any need to push beyond that, so they were happy to let the humans have Ebonhawke so long as they didn't get any funny ideas about invading again.

It's especially funny because were I a betting man I'd say that even Bangar is a protector, a very, very, very clever protector. No, hear me out. Spoilers here, of course, so caveat lector. What I found interesting with Bangar is that he shot the Commander when they were about to be taken over by Jormag, yes? That's really interesting! He's the Imperator of the Blood Legion, if he wanted that shot to be lethal he likely could've. So here's an interesting supposition.

What if Bangar realises that Jormag is trying to brainwash him and he can't fully resist it? Instead he's using a little misdirection. "See, Jormag? I'm definitly under your control. You want me to see the Commander as a charr-hating racist/race traitor, so I shot them! That's absolutely what you'd want me to do, isn't it? I'm a good, obedient brainwashed charr. I absolutely have no plans to betray you."

I smell the misdirection here. A case of the paying attention to the right hand with the wiggling finger so that the left hand performing the trick is ignored.

I may be entirely off base but it would make for an interesting story and it'd fit this behavioural model for the charr overall. Bangar isn't above playing his opponent like this, especially if he has no other means with which to fight. Jormag's in his head, influencing him, so the more he plays along the more he's able to resist in the shadows. Again, I could be off base but it would add an interesting layer to his character.

That's just how I see the charr anyhow. If a race is that driven to protect then they'd want the means to do so. For the Olmakhan those means are magicks and their magicks are pretty potent. For the legions those means are technology. A drive that strong would easily push them through their own industrial revolution.

Footnote: Also, some just hate the charr. It's to be expected. I think it comes from a weird place of applying ethno-superiority and privilege to a game where the assumed supreme race of our reality wasn't always successful there. It's an untenable slight and a horrific insult to them that their chosen race didn't stand unchallenged in ArenaNet's fiction. I don't agree with their distaste of course as I'm not a fan of any kind of supremacy whether it's expressed in fiction or reality. The charr are equals with many other races now and I appreciate that that's the case, though I have to admit that the aforementioned contingent has made me like the race they represent less.

I'm as much of a fan of the norn as I always was, though. I absolutely won't let them ruin the norn for me. Thankfully the norn—apparently due to their strange, somewhat inhuman proportions—don't represent traditional beauty and thus don't click with the ethno-superiority that drives these aggressions.

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@Hypnowulf.7403 said:

@"RyuDragnier.9476" said:[...] warlike [...]

I disagree with the idea of them being warlike in general, though. I know you're one of the charr proponenets so I'm not trying to bait you with this but rather suggest a different perspective.

The post-Flame charr became a species of protectors. The most obvious touchstone here is Almorra herself, her famous quote that guides the Vigil of "Some must fight, so that all may be free." comes to mind, but it goes deeper.I... would disagree with this, pretty heavily. Unlike, say, the human armies, where the Seraph and Ebon Vanguard are throwing their bodies into the meat grinder to keep the killing away from a vulnerable civilian population, the charr legions don't really have anything
to
protect. The soldiers care deeply about protecting the other members of their warband, of course, but on the higher level, charr discuss battles in terms of conquest and nationalism. Their warcry is 'For the legions!'. You earn a promotion for killing your superior, so long as
their
superior can be convinced that you are the better soldier.
These aren't the hallmarks of a civilization that values life.

I mean, there's the Olmakhan for one thing. They were a great addition, there are many lines in the Olmakhan villager talking about protectors, protectorship, and even the Olmakhan being hot for the Commander because they seem like they'd be a good protector for the cubs, understanding that a protector sometimes needs a gentle hand.The Olmakhan aren't a great example of Legion charr, though. Remember- the Olmakhan
, as much as they did from the Flame. They held
both
societies to be irrevocably violent. And when we get down there to meet them? They condemn the legions as they stand today, as well. They're more like the charr's version of the hippies-a reaction to a warlike culture, but by no means an indication that the culture is turning away from war.

Next, compare The Black Citadel with Rata Sum. You can fall to your death in so many places in Rata Sum, which is a fair look at how many asura view the perils of science what with madcap inventions ruling the day over the iterative prototyping of grounded engineering. The Black Citadel has guard rails everywhere, everywhere!To be fair, taking safety precautions is very military-minded... not out of a protective instinct, exactly, but because every fool soldier who manages to hurt themselves is a liability that the medical corp is going to need to get back into healthy condition.The charr are of the perspective that the other races visiting there are to be protected. There's actually a line between a charr law officer and some humans where said officer stepped in between them and a rowdy, drunken charr to protect the humans.This is true, although again, not entirely to the charr's credit. It is good of the officer to save the humans from being assaulted... but that still means that a random charr was willing to assault random humans. You don't see that happening in Rata Sum.

Then there's Ebonhawke, which fascinates me. I find it really hard to believe that WW2 era tanks and mortars wouldn't be able to breach a medieval castle, no matter how fortified it is. Those Bartman-esque battlecars can pretty much drive up mountains anyway, can't they? The charr parked a military force there just to make a point because their goal isn't war any more. It was a show of force to tell Ebonhawke that the charr are ready to protect their own should they get any funny ideas.Ebonhawke has fortifications on an order of magnitude greater than anything I've heard of in history. For example (according to a quick google), the largest of Constantinople's famous walls was 'only' about 16 feet thick and 40 feet high, and it still took months of bombardment paired with traditional siege tactics to get through.

That said? In north-east Ebonhawke, you can find a scar from where a charr siege shot did make it over the wall. Two city blocks, wiped out. There's plenty of reason to believe that Ebonhawke hadn't been high on the Legions' priorities for a long time, but they never truly stopped the killing until within a year of the game's beginning.

I'm fascinated by charr history too because even at their worst they haven't been genocidal like the other races have. When Flame enslaved the other legions and committed the Searing, I remember noticing in Prophecies that all of the NPCs were still there. The Searing didn't actually kill anyone, it was just a scare tactic meant to strike terror into the humans so that they'd flee.Actually, not true. The majority of the kingdom's population is believed to have died in the Searing and its immediate aftermath, and the GW1 wiki has a whole project page tracking NPCs who aren't still around post-Searing.The one who committed genocide against the humans was Adelbern with his Foefire. Oh, also the vizier of Orr with his city-sinking madness.Also true, at the end, anyway. Adelbern's kill count was still lower than the Searing, but he gets some pretty heavy points deducted for damning his own subjects to an eternal madness.

It seems that whilst the humans were warring with one another and trying to wipe out each other's nations and any other race that got in the way, the charr were quietly developing in the background. First with the magicks of the Flame Legion, then when that didn't work out the technologies that followed.True, but only in their later history. From what we're told, the charr were even bigger on killing each other than the humans until sometime after ~870, when the shamans/Flame Legion managed to conquer the entire race.

I mean, I think a big part of why they took to technology in the first place was because they were enslaved by magicks, magicks were used to strike fear into their hearts and keep them in line so they turned from it. Honestly, to the charr magicks must look like the root of all evil at this point and a corruptive force with its own will bent on entropy.Pretty true. They may be pragmatic enough to still use magic, but they definitely aren't happy about it, by and large.

The point is is that I think the charr developed technologies to be better protectors rather than better warlords.I don't know. They developed guns- not fortifications, not medicines, but weapons.Wasn't it Smodur who reached out to create the alliance of the five races?Nope. That was the player in S2, and the alliance only extended to Mordremoth, although it seems like Logan got something similar together for Kralkatorrik.Wasn't The Black Citadel the first to open its doors to other races? I may be wrong but I recall reading about that.First charr city, yes. Speaking overall, though? Lion's Arch was the first city to try the whole 'different races living together' thing on a large scale, and most cities adopted it on a smaller scale afterwards. We have no reason to believe the Black Citadel did so earlier than, say, Divinity's Reach, which was cooperating with asura from its earliest days.My perspective here is that if you can make everyone else "us," then that drive to protect can be used for a very diverse population. Smodur's clever.Agreed on this, but we don't know if that's what Smodur is doing, yet. Remember, other races in the Black Citadel are forced to live in the same slum as the gladium, the charr that other charr spit on, the charr who don't count as 'us'.

I always had this feeling about the charr that they were more focused upon protection rather than war but it was the Olmakhan who really drove that point home for me. The legions are just a somewhat distorted mirror of an almost instinctive need to protect, one that's been twisted by the torment of attempted genocide and war brought to their doorstep.Besides my earlier point about the Olmakhan, it should be noted that this is the very earliest mention of charr history that we have:

The Charr were once a primitive people, filled with rage and a primal drive to dominate and control. They fought everything that threatened them—even one another—only surviving this brutal period by evolving into a strict hierarchical society. Disparate, fierce, and independent warbands unified under a single leader, the Khan-Ur, for the good of the race, and a golden age of Charr dominance began.

No longer clamoring over the same territories, the unified Charr spread throughout the northern reaches of their homeland, and down into the lands east of the Shiverpeak Mountains. The Charr subjugated or destroyed any and all who dared defy them within their territories; they were masters of all they surveyed.

Also, this:

The earliest mention of them is found in early charr military tributes that predate the arrival of humans in the area. In these annals, the charr are always portrayed as victors with the defeated grawl pulling the charr commanders in great chariots. The charr dominated the grawl, forcing them into the Shiverpeak and Blazeridge Mountains and beyond, where they lived at a subsistence level.

The charr had established themselves as an empire of cruel conquers long before the humans began killing them like monsters.

At the end of the day though, talking to contemporary charr NPCs I feel that the primary drive they have is to protect above all else. Sometimes they can't agree on who deserves to be protected but that does seem to be their core ethos. To guard, to save, to preserve, to protect.Certainly depends on the NPC, but I do agree that charr society is undergoing a shift. I just think all of the evidence points to this being a fairly recent development.

That's why I have that theory about Ebonhawke. The charr just wanted their ancestral burial and hunting grounds back, they wanted to protect the lands of their forefathers from invaders. Once they had that they didn't feel any need to push beyond that, so they were happy to let the humans have Ebonhawke so long as they didn't get any funny ideas about invading again.I will point out that in Sea of Sorrows, the main charr character says his generation was being groomed for an unprovoked invasion of Kryta. Granted, in the same book, the charr tried to send the humans a peace offering, so who can say? By Ghosts of Ascalon, there definitely seems to be some sense that the Legions have bigger concerns than Ebonhawke... but that doesn't stop the charr from shooting at every opportunity until the ceasefire actually becomes public.

It's especially funny because were I a betting man I'd say that even Bangar is a protector, a very, very, very clever protector. No, hear me out. Spoilers here, of course, so caveat lector. What I found interesting with Bangar is that he shot the Commander when they were about to be taken over by Jormag, yes? That's really interesting! He's the Imperator of the Blood Legion, if he wanted that shot to be lethal he likely could've. So here's an interesting supposition.

What if Bangar realises that Jormag is trying to brainwash him and he can't fully resist it? Instead he's using a little misdirection. "See, Jormag? I'm definitly under your control. You want me to see the Commander as a charr-hating racist/race traitor, so I shot them! That's absolutely what you'd want me to do, isn't it? I'm a good, obedient brainwashed charr. I absolutely have no plans to betray you."

I smell the misdirection here. A case of the paying attention to the right hand with the wiggling finger so that the left hand performing the trick is ignored.

I may be entirely off base but it would make for an interesting story and it'd fit this behavioural model for the charr overall. Bangar isn't above playing his opponent like this, especially if he has no other means with which to fight. Jormag's in his head, influencing him, so the more he plays along the more he's able to resist in the shadows. Again, I could be off base but it would add an interesting layer to his character.We should find out here soon, if we're going back to the charr next patch.

Footnote: Also, some just hate the charr. It's to be expected. I think it comes from a weird place of applying ethno-superiority and privilege to a game where the assumed supreme race of our reality wasn't always successful there. It's an untenable slight and a horrific insult to them that their chosen race didn't stand unchallenged in ArenaNet's fiction. I don't agree with their distaste of course as I'm not a fan of any kind of supremacy whether it's expressed in fiction or reality. The charr are equals with many other races now and I appreciate that that's the case, though I have to admit that the aforementioned contingent has made me like the race they represent less.I think more of it comes from which narrative a given player took to heart- remember, in GW1, charr burned captives alive, enslaved children, and ate people- but for my part, I see the charr and humans as being comparably savage and warmongering. Neither race has a good track record of leaving their neighbors in peace, or treating their enemies with basic dignity, but both have improved markedly in the last century or two, and are almost ready to live peacefully with others.I'm as much of a fan of the norn as I always was, though. I absolutely won't let them ruin the norn for me. Thankfully the norn—apparently due to their strange, somewhat inhuman proportions—don't represent traditional beauty and thus don't click with the ethno-superiority that drives these aggressions.I'd argue norn females are definitely sexualized along traditional standards of attractiveness, but full credit to the race for being indisputably the most chill of the five!

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@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@"ZDragon.3046" said:

Charr have been master engineers from the core game (or thats how its presented) which is likely why the original splash art of the profession was charr from the start. The whole way they presented the profession more or less screamed charr thematically and while the comment of "Charr pioneered the Engineer class" may not be factual in any wiki its certainly screams it based on almost everything in core engineer's kit. and how anet presented it. There is tons of charr engineer splash art for a reason and why they continue to do engi elite splash art as charr as well. Charr are certainly smarter in anets head cannon than i think most people want to give them credit for.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't put too much stock in that splash art. Some of them match up well- charr engineer, norn warrior, sylvari ranger- but others... well, we don't exactly see many norn mesmers. Or asura necros, for that matter.

And it is 100%, confirmed-as-fact, stated by the devs that charr pioneered the playable Engineer class. Nobody's saying otherwise. What drax said above is that other races already had engineers as we use the term in the real world- people who build and work on machines, which in GW1 meant things like trebuchets and pump systems.

This. There are even some primitive cannons around in GW1.

There's no doubt that the charr pioneered the playable engineer profession and have made the largest contribution to it, but they haven't made the only contributions. The original holosmiths were humans figuring out that they could use Zephyrite crystals to power holographic magitech, while holographic magitech in general originated from the asura. The original scrappers were members of a charr caste (often a punishment detail) specialising in scavenging and repurposing scrap, employing their skills to make what they could out of the crashed Pact ships... which, in the words of Trahearne, are a combination of charr, human, and asura technology. I'm pretty sure there was also mention of elixirs coming from the asura in prerelease interviews and the like, but that's going back a way and a lot of them are no longer available.

Ultimately, the statement that the charr generally avoid using magic in their technology (while asura magitech is pretty much entirely fuelled by magic) is not incompatible with the observation that some parts of the engineer's kit is obviously using magic, since not everything in the engineer profession was invented by a charr - and when it comes to PCs, PCs of all races are portrayed as being more open-minded than is typical for their race. The charr (non-Flame) aversion to magic helps make their technology more grounded - it's not as spectacular as asura magitech tends to be, but it's more practical, more mass-producible, and less prone to catastrophic malfunction.

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:Ebonhawke has fortifications on an order of magnitude greater than anything I've heard of in history. For example (according to a quick google), the largest of Constantinople's famous walls was 'only' about 16 feet thick and 40 feet high, and it still took months of bombardment paired with traditional siege tactics to get through.

That said? In north-east Ebonhawke, you can find a scar from where a charr siege shot did make it over the wall. Two city blocks, wiped out. There's plenty of reason to believe that Ebonhawke hadn't been high on the Legions' priorities for a long time, but they never truly stopped the killing until within a year of the game's beginning.

You've covered a lot of what I would have said, but to expand on this specifically, I'd also note that it's mentioned a few times that the Ebon Vanguard got very good at sneaking out and destroying anything that got a clear shot at the walls before it could do too much damage. I think it gets referenced in Ghosts of Ascalon, and one of the Citadel of Flame paths is essentially an ex-Vanguard saboteur rescuing the engineer whose machines she made a habit of destroying during the war.

Ebonhawke's magical defences might also be being underestimated here. I recall that there used to be discussions about how weak the defences of Divinity's Reach were, and then when somebody does try besieging it there's suddenly a giant magical dome protecting it (started by Queen Jennah, but when you look at the dome from Lake Doric, the colours suggest that it might be a mix of mesmer and guardian magic). Ebonhawke doesn't have DR's magical resources, but the Vanguard probably has some ability to reinforce the physical defences of the citadel with magical ones.

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