There's a few points I want to address here and yes I'm going to engage in the whole 'Basing my fantasy off of RL concepts' thought crime (which I might also address if I can be arsed).
The first thing is "Do gun blades exist and are they functional in FF14", obviously yes, the Garlean Empire is the go-to for this in general. On that topic, though, I'd point out that the development of such things as well as all their magitek advances have come about as a direct result of not having ready access to Aether; i.e. they needed to level the playing field since Aether is kind of a big deal. It literally allows one person to act as a walking artillery emplacement, field surgeon, bulwark, building demolishing with fists person, or leaping direct strike attacker. It is crazy powerful and crazy advantageous, hence why the Garleans conscript as many Eorzeans as they can.
On the point of technology, you develop technology to make up for societal problems such as sanitation, medicine, construction, and so on. When those societal problems don't exist because you have 'magic' to take care of many problems for you then technological advancement almost by definition would take a backseat; why would you wish to solve a problem that no one has? Garleans have no magic but through 'magitek' they can solve most of their problems.
Do guns exist in Eorzea? Of course. You see rifle racks all over in Limsa Lominsa as well as people in the Marauder's guild practicing with what look like black powder pistols (despite the rifles looking like bolt action magazine-loaded rifles...). As was as Merlwyb who uses a pair of double-barreled pistols that she can apparently rapid fire.
So why are gunblades not more prevalent in both the Garlean ranks (you only ever see a few people actually using them and even their robots barely use guns) and in Eorzea because if it's such an obvious advantage it would overtake modern 'fantasy' weaponry just as it did in the real world; the advent of black powder and cannons/rifles completely changed how war was fought. Well that's a pretty easy explanation, believe it or not. The answer is still -Aether-. This stuff allows Eorzeans to be on par with guns and artillery which, while still devestating, barely puts them on even ground with your average Eorzean fighter who can run faster, hit harder, heal quicker, shrug of damage better, and do any number of things better than their Garlean opponents.Â
I did state that I engage in the thought crime of basing my fantasy off of reality and so I have but I'll go further. Medieval armor, for example, was actually really poor at stopping black powder weaponry. It was great at stopping hand weapons, yes, save for specific weapons meant to mess up someone in armor (like a warhammer or mace) yet somehow Eorzeans still manage to stand up against their weapons. IRL a gun would make short work of someone in a suit of plate, in Eorzea through various quest text and so on you see blurbs of Paladins using aether to augment their strikes as well as their defenses which seems to indicate that the aforementioned 'plot armor' being able to stop bullets is now a reality.Â
Also quick note: you only see Garleans of 'rank' using any kind of projectile weaponry which might indicate the gun blade to be a symbol of rank or status while other forms of projectile weaponry are modified for the individual, also of suitable rank. Normally though you wouldn't attach a gun to a blade, you would just carry a sword and a gun as they serve two entirely different roles and are made in two entirely different ways with entirely different processes.Â
tl;dr if guns exist it stands to reason that they would dominate the battlefield unless something else were being used that was just as effective if not more effective: i.e. Aether-enhanced soldiers.
Probably have more on this later as really the advent of firearms when confronted with something as ambiguously powerful as 'magic' is practically an entire anthropological and sociological essay by itself. Such are the things I think of, though. lol
The first thing is "Do gun blades exist and are they functional in FF14", obviously yes, the Garlean Empire is the go-to for this in general. On that topic, though, I'd point out that the development of such things as well as all their magitek advances have come about as a direct result of not having ready access to Aether; i.e. they needed to level the playing field since Aether is kind of a big deal. It literally allows one person to act as a walking artillery emplacement, field surgeon, bulwark, building demolishing with fists person, or leaping direct strike attacker. It is crazy powerful and crazy advantageous, hence why the Garleans conscript as many Eorzeans as they can.
On the point of technology, you develop technology to make up for societal problems such as sanitation, medicine, construction, and so on. When those societal problems don't exist because you have 'magic' to take care of many problems for you then technological advancement almost by definition would take a backseat; why would you wish to solve a problem that no one has? Garleans have no magic but through 'magitek' they can solve most of their problems.
Do guns exist in Eorzea? Of course. You see rifle racks all over in Limsa Lominsa as well as people in the Marauder's guild practicing with what look like black powder pistols (despite the rifles looking like bolt action magazine-loaded rifles...). As was as Merlwyb who uses a pair of double-barreled pistols that she can apparently rapid fire.
So why are gunblades not more prevalent in both the Garlean ranks (you only ever see a few people actually using them and even their robots barely use guns) and in Eorzea because if it's such an obvious advantage it would overtake modern 'fantasy' weaponry just as it did in the real world; the advent of black powder and cannons/rifles completely changed how war was fought. Well that's a pretty easy explanation, believe it or not. The answer is still -Aether-. This stuff allows Eorzeans to be on par with guns and artillery which, while still devestating, barely puts them on even ground with your average Eorzean fighter who can run faster, hit harder, heal quicker, shrug of damage better, and do any number of things better than their Garlean opponents.Â
I did state that I engage in the thought crime of basing my fantasy off of reality and so I have but I'll go further. Medieval armor, for example, was actually really poor at stopping black powder weaponry. It was great at stopping hand weapons, yes, save for specific weapons meant to mess up someone in armor (like a warhammer or mace) yet somehow Eorzeans still manage to stand up against their weapons. IRL a gun would make short work of someone in a suit of plate, in Eorzea through various quest text and so on you see blurbs of Paladins using aether to augment their strikes as well as their defenses which seems to indicate that the aforementioned 'plot armor' being able to stop bullets is now a reality.Â
Also quick note: you only see Garleans of 'rank' using any kind of projectile weaponry which might indicate the gun blade to be a symbol of rank or status while other forms of projectile weaponry are modified for the individual, also of suitable rank. Normally though you wouldn't attach a gun to a blade, you would just carry a sword and a gun as they serve two entirely different roles and are made in two entirely different ways with entirely different processes.Â
tl;dr if guns exist it stands to reason that they would dominate the battlefield unless something else were being used that was just as effective if not more effective: i.e. Aether-enhanced soldiers.
Probably have more on this later as really the advent of firearms when confronted with something as ambiguously powerful as 'magic' is practically an entire anthropological and sociological essay by itself. Such are the things I think of, though. lol
