# Elves Toting Rayguns **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 27, 2004, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308 "2004-04-27T17:37:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308/21 "2004-04-28T15:02:30Z")
> [@Fiver](#): > > When I first read Lord of the Rings back in middle school, I was blown away. It instantly became my favorite novel. > > However, even as a twelve-year-old a certain fact stuck in my brain: Middle-Earth was at about a 12th-century AD level of technology, and had been for several thousand years. These people had water mills, steel forges and sailing ships, but somehow movable type and steam engines remained beyond their reach. > > Yeah, yeah, I know I’m not supposed to think about that, but I couldn’t help imagining a future Middle-Earth of the 20th century, where Minas Tirith has gleaming _mithril_-and-glass skyscrapers, Bag End has central a/c and the dwarves do their mining with diesel backhoes. > > And of course that just took me further, to imagine a genre-crossing world where elves join men in starships when they strike out to colonize the galaxy. > > Or, back in the present day, a rumpled fairy PI in a double-breasted suit and fedora, investigating a murder at a neon-nightmare fleabag hotel. > > Or hobbits fighting vampires. > > I don’t consider myself terribly well-read in science fiction and I actively avoid fantasy; has this sort of genre-blending been done before? It seems impossible to think that it hasn’t. Actually yes it has, in a television series that was WAAAAY ahead of the curve and died in one or two seasons. It was called “Special Unit 2” and was about a group of Chicago cops whose job it was to deal with supernatural entities. The two lead cops had a gnome as an informant. One of the cases involved staking out a foul-mouthed fairy to catch a monster that dined on them. It was a hugely fun, hugely funny series so of course it was cancelled in short order. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308/22 "2004-04-28T15:02:40Z")
> [@Fiver](#): > > “Mod cons?” Modern conveniences. Is that a UK/Ireland term, then? No, wasn’t commenting on the Mods of the board. This time. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308/23 "2004-04-28T19:31:03Z")
> [@](#): > > You do bring up an interesting point re Tolkien’s overwhelming conceit in LOTR that mankind would stand around stagnating, more or less in place technologically, at a quasi-medieval level for thousands of years. I think it’s more that technology was transparent or hidden. They did have clocks and pocketwatches, for instance (Bilbo has both, in _The Hobbit_, but such things seem to generally not be worthy of mention. It’s hard to say what other sorts of similar conveniences they may have had, somewhere in the background. And there were also secret technologies: Gandalf was renowned as a maker of fireworks, and his may have been partly magical, but he was not the only pyrotechnician in Middle Earth, so there must have been others using more prosaic means. And craftsmen in Gondor’s golden age were able to make things like the tower of Orthanc, which is impervious to tree roots. So I’d say they had plenty of technology ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308/24 "2004-04-28T22:38:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think it’s more that technology was transparent or hidden. They did have clocks and pocketwatches, for instance (Bilbo has both, in _The Hobbit_, but such things seem to generally not be worthy of mention. It’s hard to say what other sorts of similar conveniences they may have had, somewhere in the background. And there were also secret technologies: Gandalf was renowned as a maker of fireworks, and his may have been partly magical, but he was not the only pyrotechnician in Middle Earth, so there must have been others using more prosaic means. And craftsmen in Gondor’s golden age were able to make things like the tower of Orthanc, which is impervious to tree roots. So I’d say they had plenty of technology You make some fair points, but in the end I think Tolkien gave extreme short shrift to man’s main advantage in the real world (his aggressive intellect) WRT to the relative technological stagnation of people in LOTR. Including “pocketwatches”, but leaving out scienfitically co-terminous things like cannons and Man O’ Wars etc is more than bit “luddistic”. Granted, it’s a fantasy story, but in any halfway realtistic scenario of competition between men and the other races or “fell beasts”, men would have been kicking ass and taking names in short order in a few hundred years, not a few thousand. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308/25 "2004-04-28T22:51:52Z")
Well, it’s pretty well implied that in the Fourth Age, the Age of Man, the future outcome for the unspoiled places in Middle-Earth was pretty dim. Aragorn was unusually enlightened by his decades of education and upbringing by the Elves, and I’m sure that his son would be similarly inclined with Arwen as his mother, but after that, without Elves to protect the natural world, the outlook was pessimistic at best. And note that even during the events of the War of the Ring, Treebeard lamented the loss of the leagues and leagues of forest that used to stretch from the the west of Beleriand to where Mirkwood now stands. ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2004, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308/26 "2004-04-29T22:57:58Z")
The OP (and others) may be interested in reading the “Doc Sidhe” series of novels by Aaron Allston. The first one is available online, gratis, at the [Baen Free Library](http://www.baen.com/library/aallston.htm). ---
**Author:** ![lokij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5e9695/32.png) [@lokij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lokij)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308/27 "2004-04-30T05:15:23Z")
I give to you the huge money and time sucking monstrosity (but in a good way) that is Warhammer 40,000. [http://us.games-workshop.com/games/40K/default.htm](http://us.games-workshop.com/games/40K/default.htm) The ray gun shooting elves are called ‘Eldar’ and they actually shoot monomolecular disks at super high velocities… usually. I hate them. They actually got rid of the space dwarves some years ago, but they WERE called ‘Squats’. The hobbits are called ‘Ratlings’ and are skilled cooks and snipers. Not playable as a race on their own, only attached to Imperial Guard armies. The superior race of men (Numenor-esque) are genetically enhanced Space Marines, of which there are many chapters including the Rohan like Space Wolves. Humans worship a mummy kept in stasis as a God-Emperor and technology is like magic tended to by an elite priesthood… they can replicate stuff… repair it… but have really no clue as to how or why it works alot of the time. Oh, and they’re rabidly xenophobic much to the rest of the Universe’s delight. The bad humans (as if the good humans weren’t bad enough) are demonically posessed mutant Space Marines that live to ruin just about everybody’s day. They are by far the most popular group of armies played right now, everybody loves a bad boy. Then there are the pop culture add ons grafted onto this Tolkien/Herbert kludge which include the Tyranids which are not at all just like the monsters in the ‘Aliens’ movies, the Necrons which aren’t quite like Terminator/Undead/Borg robots from Hell and the Mecha/Anime inspired Tau which are the closest thing to a real “Good Guy” army in this entire Universe. I myself play Tau and Spacewolves. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308/28 "2004-04-30T10:07:01Z")
Would elves with submachine guns do? [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312855451/ref=ase\_rambles/102-9040466-2288954?v=glance&s=books](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312855451/ref=ase_rambles/102-9040466-2288954?v=glance&s=books) John M Ford’s “Last Hot Time” is set on Earth after the return fo the elves. It’s been compared to the “Borderlands” series–which I haven’t read. It’s an annoyingly slender book that leaves you wanting more. Good antidote to those endless “Tolkien ripoff” series of bulky volume after bulky volume. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308/29 "2004-04-30T10:43:12Z")
Since we’ve gotten into the realm of games (although Shadowrun has novels for it and I’m pretty sure Warhammer does, too…), I’ll throw in the d20 Modern setting Urban Arcana - typical fantasy creatures have been crossing through ‘Shadow’ for thousands of years, and living among us - usually passing for Humans, since few Humans are willing to believe they exist, so they ignore the oddness - assuming it’s a race that can’t look EXACTLY like a Human. There’s also Dragonstar which is a Space Opera with Dragons, Drow, Dwarves, Orcs, Elves, Gnomes, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308/30 "2004-04-30T11:20:28Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Seems to me elves + ray guns = Vulcans. > > Of course, you could always muse on T-Rexes flying F-16s. There was [Dinosaucers](http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/cartoon.cgi?film=21144&cartoon=Chariots%20Of%20The%20Dinosaucers). Let us not forget [The Terrible Thunderlizards](http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/cartoon.cgi?film=33461&cartoon=Meat%20the%20Thunderlizards) either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elves-toting-rayguns/242308.md?page=1)