Tossrock wrote:
No matter how superior they think they are, guns kill them dead, and guns are apparently fairly widespread. They have to realize the risks, especially when their last war party was dropped by one dude with a gun and an angry kid.
You wrong.
Guns are a "relative" new discovery for human society, few generation or something like that. And the reason of why they make them that "good" it because they didn't have to discovert everything about it: remembert, they had discovert dwarve city and technology (who had more like canon than gun, according to kawai), and they did reverse-ingeneering, it made the devellopment of the gun technology and buisness much faster than in our world.
What that's mean? That mean than elf, except the rangers and the ambassador have never seen guns of their life, they heard about from some elf weird enought to go outside of the city in duty, but even with thoise repport, guns are just boomstick that any elf with a bit of magic power can stop or out-class easly.
Remember, civilisation as we know it is just 2500/3500 years old, imagine a race than have seen more that 100 generation of men from birth to death by so many sickness, climacs change, natural catastrophy... So weak that every new thing in the world can wipe-out several thousand of them, when you are not even affected.
Imagine this race leaving the world of men like 300 years after B.C.
and Imagine now that group of them have to be sent to our worldto find and exterminate a couple of guys.
Most parents have the hardest time to fairly act fairly with they're child(to considere them as fully independant adult).
Even if some of them had demonstrate that humanity have strongly evolve and increasetheir deadness potential, most of the race, specially those in power, will still see them as an underdevelopped race, with some few new trick, but not much different that what they were when this race had left. (Like adult seeing their child as 12 instaed of 10, when the child is, in fact 17.)
Remember specialy this point: when elves had discovered humanity, they were sauvage tribe (form elfs point of vew), and that's THEM, THE ELVES, who had teach human how to read, count, be civilise, work their environment, teach magic, teach to fight, teach of work metals, etc...
From the elf point of vew, humanity have nothing from themseves, everything that make them better come from the elves!
After the elves had left, since they were no-one to guide them, to teach them how to devellop and evolve, human societies are just those weaked parody/copy of the elves sociaty at the better, or had regress/return to a basic, barbaric and uncivilised state for the worst (In the common elves mind, from a common elves point of view.)