Modern Day Earth vs Final Fantasy 12 armies

[Star Wars 888]

Some sort of portal appears. The Final Fantasy 12 armies are taken over by some crazy dictator that wants to attack modern day Earth. The portal leads to Costa Rica, which FYI has no standing army, but hopefully its allies will come to its aid.

The Final Fantasy bosses and such are allowed, but no divine beings or omnipotents/near omnipotents are allowed.

[Bakustra]

The hell? Do you mean Archadia, or are you doing the idiotic versus thing where the Archadians, Rozarrians, and minor states would all join forces to invade a world they know nothing about? I'll go with a more reasonable variation, if you don't mind.

Either of the large powers would have an advantage in the air- their airships are gigantic and carry enough weaponry to potentially lay a city to waste, and we would have the disadvantage without nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles. Their ground forces are far worse, being limited to flintlock firearms, but that is constrained by local conditions- theoretically, they could equip expeditionary forces with better-than-modern weapons. However, although Archadia was expansionist under the Solidor emperors before the game, the reign of Emperor Larsa saw a withdrawal from their conquered territories. Either way, they wouldn't invade a place they knew nothing about. However, they might try to monopolize contact with Earth to prevent the Rozarrians from gaining any sort of advantage. Given the advantage we would have in ground warfare, at least initially, I think that they would prefer to avoid direct conflict until they were ready to do so.

The Rozarrians are themselves non-expansionist, and would probably prefer to establish diplomatic relations and open trade with modern Earth. They might also seek to monopolize access to the portal to prevent Archadia from gaining any advantage.

The main question is whether the a) the portal allows mimic germinites to pass through and b) whether they could survive on Earth. If so, then Earth would begin to suffer a technological regression as complex devices begin to stop working.

[Star Wars 888]

The hell? Do you mean Archadia, or are you doing the idiotic versus thing where the Archadians, Rozarrians, and minor states would all join forces to invade a world they know nothing about? I'll go with a more reasonable variation, if you don't mind.

It's a hypothetical scenario.

Either of the large powers would have an advantage in the air- their airships are gigantic and carry enough weaponry to potentially lay a city to waste, and we would have the disadvantage without nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles.

I'm not sure about this.

For one, why would there be such a ridiculous difference between their ground forces and their air forces? If their air forces were that powerful air combat would absolutely dominate warfare. You're talking about alternate Modern tech vs a blend of Medieval and Renaissance tech.

Second, although their airships are big, I doubt as to how well they'd fair against modern day jet fighters or SAMs. Final Fantasy 12's fighters and airships look cool, but what about their range and durability? Modern day missiles can fire from beyond the horizon - have we seen Final Fantasy 12 air forces do that?

Their ground forces are far worse, being limited to flintlock firearms, but that is constrained by local conditions- theoretically, they could equip expeditionary forces with better-than-modern weapons.

What? Since when will they have better than modern weapons?

However, although Archadia was expansionist under the Solidor emperors before the game, the reign of Emperor Larsa saw a withdrawal from their conquered territories. Either way, they wouldn't invade a place they knew nothing about. However, they might try to monopolize contact with Earth to prevent the Rozarrians from gaining any sort of advantage. Given the advantage we would have in ground warfare, at least initially, I think that they would prefer to avoid direct conflict until they were ready to do so.

Was there any clarification as to the numbers of the Archadian and Rozarrian armies?

The Rozarrians are themselves non-expansionist, and would probably prefer to establish diplomatic relations and open trade with modern Earth. They might also seek to monopolize access to the portal to prevent Archadia from gaining any advantage.

Trade might be a very big bonus for Archadia and Rozarria. Their magick stuff would be viewed as highly valuable by Earth today.

The main question is whether the a) the portal allows mimic germinites to pass through and b) whether they could survive on Earth. If so, then Earth would begin to suffer a technological regression as complex devices begin to stop working.

Sorry, but what are germinites again? It's been a while since I've played Final Fantasy 12.



What's really rather strange about Final Fantasy 12 (in addition to some of the ridiculous gameplay mechanics such as a gladius being a dagger and there being a "mace" and a "bronze mace" - what's the "mace" made out of? Wood?) is the huge disparity in their air tech and ground tech. In the air they're like ancient sci fi; tech that arguably rivals ours but developed along a very different route. In terms of ground warfare they're still using Renaissance era tactics. In the opening huge battle, why are the soldiers on the ground even relevant? Why can't those huge airships simply blast the ground troops?

Another logic hole is that on the ground they use melee weapons and flintlock firearms, but their fighters and airships have machine guns.

[sirocco]

What's really rather strange about Final Fantasy 12 (in addition to some of the ridiculous gameplay mechanics such as a gladius being a dagger and there being a "mace" and a "bronze mace" - what's the "mace" made out of? Wood?) is the huge disparity in their air tech and ground tech. In the air they're like ancient sci fi; tech that arguably rivals ours but developed along a very different route. In terms of ground warfare they're still using Renaissance era tactics. In the opening huge battle, why are the soldiers on the ground even relevant? Why can't those huge airships simply blast the ground troops?

Another logic hole is that on the ground they use melee weapons and flintlock firearms, but their fighters and airships have machine guns.

Maybe their world was colonized by an advanced scifi race like in BSG. They had advanced space tech and fighters but lacked in personal weaponry. Then they got to that planet and some of them chose to abandon partially technology because it's "bad".

[Bakustra]

Mimic germinites are small lifeforms that coalesce on everything below a certain altitude in Ivalice and eat away at complex mechanisms. This process can be worked against by active repairs on airships, but this limits ground weaponry to simple muskets and leaves traditional melee weaponry viable. So airships can have machine-guns and Mist-powered beam weapons, but extended stays on the ground would eventually disable these weapons.

Better-than-modern weapons would require that the technology behind the main cannon of the Bahamut is understood well enough that smaller Mist-powered weapons could be used, and that they could be miniaturized enough to be used as field artillery and/or squad support weapons. But doing so would take years of work regardless. We do know that they have the ability to turn at least fighter-sized craft invisible, which suggests they are ahead of us in some ways.

The problem is that modern weapons are not designed to fight large, flying ships. Our SAMs and AAMs almost certainly don't have the explosive load necessary to seriously damage the airships beyond lucky hits on the engines. Remember that an airplane is kept up by its airfoil, which is a delicate structure and relatively easy to damage. FFXII airships don't operate by airfoils, but rather through magical antigravity engines. Smaller fighters are vulnerable to missiles, but their main role appears to be conducting strafing runs anyways.

All we know about the armed forces of the two empires is that they are both highly dependent on airship fleets. Archades (I misspelled it earlier) has eleven such fleets. Rozarria and Archades were evenly matched until the fall of Dalmasca, so their numbers are probably similar. Their armies are of unknown size, and all we know about the Archadian navy is that it is mainly coastal since the advent of airships.

Keep in mind that in the opening they were planning to conquer, not destroy. The ground soldiers are essential to entering buildings and to holding the place once they've left. Airships are indicated to dominate warfare almost entirely by the bits of background knowledge we get- note that the final confrontation is one of airships.

[Imperial528]

Do these engines generate any significant amount of heat? As if they do, any heat-seeking missiles will head straight towards them. And a radar or laser-guided missile can be purposefully targeted to the engines, providing the operator can recognize said engines.

And, judging by the size of them, anti-ship missiles could target and destroy them pretty easily.

[Rossum]

Would their magic still work on our side of the portal? If so then their healing, resurrection, protection, and other spells could give them an advantage... at least insofar as they could offer protection from death to whoever decides to defect to their side.

Though, due to gameplay and story segregation then their resurrection magic might not be quite as effective as one thinks since people apparently have a reason to fear injury at least in cutscenes.

Actully... maybe the reason they have large armies of soldiers fighting in ground combat instead of just blasting them from the air is that they actually do gain experience points through combat. They send their soldiers our in droves to fight the enemy in close combat so that their soldiers can gain experience (and they just raise them from the dead afterwards). If their soldiers fail thats when they start bombing the place from the sky.

If those big save crystals actually exist in this scenario then things could get confusing.

[Bakustra]

Do these engines generate any significant amount of heat? As if they do, any heat-seeking missiles will head straight towards them. And a radar or laser-guided missile can be purposefully targeted to the engines, providing the operator can recognize said engines.

And, judging by the size of them, anti-ship missiles could target and destroy them pretty easily.

How do anti-ship missiles sink warships currently? Ones that snap keels won't be particularly effective- no keel to snap. Ones that blow holes would damage the ship but only destroy it by destroying engines. Ones that start fires run into the problem that their fuel is nonflammable. Unless they get a lucky hit on a magazine, then that's also a non-starter.

Recognizing the engines wouldn't take a long time once contact is established, but pure visual identification runs into the problem that they can be any number of shapes and sizes. The unifying factor is that they glow. We don't know whether the engines put out a lot of heat, either.

Would their magic still work on our side of the portal? If so then their healing, resurrection, protection, and other spells could give them an advantage... at least insofar as they could offer protection from death to whoever decides to defect to their side.

Though, due to gameplay and story segregation then their resurrection magic might not be quite as effective as one thinks since people apparently have a reason to fear injury at least in cutscenes.

Actully... maybe the reason they have large armies of soldiers fighting in ground combat instead of just blasting them from the air is that they actually do gain experience points through combat. They send their soldiers our in droves to fight the enemy in close combat so that their soldiers can gain experience (and they just raise them from the dead afterwards). If their soldiers fail thats when they start bombing the place from the sky.

If those big save crystals actually exist in this scenario then things could get confusing.

Revival spells don't actually revive you from death. This has been a part of the series since the fifth game. Yes, I know that they say "Life" and "Death", but they're spells that just revive and knock out/put in a coma, respectively. As for incorporating experience... I think that is not really supportable by anything. Nobody talks about levels as an in-universe concept.

[Gunhead]

Just how big and fast are these airships? Because even if assuming they're somehow immune to SAMs (which I seriously doubt) being large and slow enough means we can target them with ATGMs, Cruise missiles, artillery missiles, AA-guns, Laser guided bombs and a lot of other ordnance I can't recall at the moment. So before discounting something, how about some data on the Airships.

-Gunhead

[Bakustra]

Just how big and fast are these airships? Because even if assuming they're somehow immune to SAMs (which I seriously doubt) being large and slow enough means we can target them with ATGMs, Cruise missiles, artillery missiles, AA-guns, Laser guided bombs and a lot of other ordnance I can't recall at the moment. So before discounting something, how about some data on the Airships.

-Gunhead

I don't know how big exactly, and I'm pretty sure there's not a whole lot for comparison in-game for the larger airships, but fighters, which can be carried in large numbers aboard the largest regular vessels, can be about 15-25 meters in length from a rough estimation on this page's hangar shot at the bottom. There are no shots that compare a fighter to a larger vessel that I can find. As for speed, there aren't good numbers available, but they appear to be closer to modern airplanes than to zeppelins.

[Imperial528]

Unless they violate the rules of thermodynamics, or use LEDs to make their engines look cool, an engine that glows usually is more than hot enough for a heat seeking missile to track.

Now, I don't know the size of the warships exactly, or whatever they are made of, but how would the 488 pound warhead of the AGM-84 Harpoon fare against one? This missile can be carried and launched by bombers, and I'm sure that some modification to the programming could make it Air-to-Air rather than Air-to-Sea or Sea-to-Sea. A single B-52 bomber can carry twelve missiles, and a missile destroyer could carry many more. The F-16 and the F/A-18 can carry the same missile.

[Gunhead]

I was thinking how well are they equipped for missile warfare? Do they have radar? Do they have laser detection systems? Do they have flare/chaff launchers?
What kind of armament they have besides machineguns, someone mentioned beams, how powerful, how are they targeted?
It's pretty obvious they're not expecting ground launched ordnance, as their ground armies do not possess such weapons.

On the ground the battle is so one sided it's not even funny. Unless they have truly gargantuan armies, which I again doubt, the battle won't last long enough for magic bacteria to have any affect.
This assuming it would affect our tech in the first place.
Speaking of which, do we have any hard evidence of said bacteria in action? How fast the corrosive effect? Is there materials unaffected by it? Why is it affected by altitude?
How high do you have to be for this to happen?

-Gunhead

[Star Wars 888]

Mimic germinites are small lifeforms that coalesce on everything below a certain altitude in Ivalice and eat away at complex mechanisms. This process can be worked against by active repairs on airships, but this limits ground weaponry to simple muskets and leaves traditional melee weaponry viable. So airships can have machine-guns and Mist-powered beam weapons, but extended stays on the ground would eventually disable these weapons.

I don't remember germinites being mentioned in Final Fantasy 12. That's among the most ridiculous hand-wave story mechanics that I've been heard of. However, they can't be controlled, can they?

Better-than-modern weapons would require that the technology behind the main cannon of the Bahamut is understood well enough that smaller Mist-powered weapons could be used, and that they could be miniaturized enough to be used as field artillery and/or squad support weapons. But doing so would take years of work regardless. We do know that they have the ability to turn at least fighter-sized craft invisible, which suggests they are ahead of us in some ways.

Lots of Final Fantasy 12's supposed tech is actually magick.

The problem is that modern weapons are not designed to fight large, flying ships. Our SAMs and AAMs almost certainly don't have the explosive load necessary to seriously damage the airships beyond lucky hits on the engines. Remember that an airplane is kept up by its airfoil, which is a delicate structure and relatively easy to damage. FFXII airships don't operate by airfoils, but rather through magical antigravity engines. Smaller fighters are vulnerable to missiles, but their main role appears to be conducting strafing runs anyways.

Are you sure about the magical antigravity engines theory?

Their smaller fighters with machine guns are apparently able to damage airships.

All we know about the armed forces of the two empires is that they are both highly dependent on airship fleets. Archades (I misspelled it earlier) has eleven such fleets. Rozarria and Archades were evenly matched until the fall of Dalmasca, so their numbers are probably similar. Their armies are of unknown size, and all we know about the Archadian navy is that it is mainly coastal since the advent of airships.

Which still begs the question as to why medieval and Renaissance era ground troops are even relevant with there being airships.

Keep in mind that in the opening they were planning to conquer, not destroy. The ground soldiers are essential to entering buildings and to holding the place once they've left. Airships are indicated to dominate warfare almost entirely by the bits of background knowledge we get- note that the final confrontation is one of airships.

But in the huge ground battle outside, why didn't the airships intervene?

[Bakustra]

I was thinking how well are they equipped for missile warfare? Do they have radar? Do they have laser detection systems? Do they have flare/chaff launchers?
What kind of armament they have besides machineguns, someone mentioned beams, how powerful, how are they targeted?
It's pretty obvious they're not expecting ground launched ordnance, as their ground armies do not possess such weapons.

On the ground the battle is so one sided it's not even funny. Unless they have truly gargantuan armies, which I again doubt, the battle won't last long enough for magic bacteria to have any affect.
This assuming it would affect our tech in the first place.
Speaking of which, do we have any hard evidence of said bacteria in action? How fast the corrosive effect? Is there materials unaffected by it? Why is it affected by altitude?
How high do you have to be for this to happen?

-Gunhead

The only materials unaffected by it are either lost technology or specifically sealed against the germinites (which may not be bacteria). They are affected by altitude because they're too heavy to be found up in the sky. The corrosive effect takes an unknown amount of time to happen, but not long enough that airships on the ground are useless within a day. There's no specific altitude given. It affects the machine guns, so we can safely assume that it attacks something as complex as an automatic weapon, or for that matter a percussion-cap firearm. We don't know what sensors they use. It's possible that they use radar, but there's no specific confirmation. There's no particular weapons that we know definitely exist beyond the machine-guns that are turreted on fighters and larger vessels, and the massive cannon on board their gigantic Sky Fortress. There are certainly other weapons, but we don't see them in action very well.

Mimic germinites are small lifeforms that coalesce on everything below a certain altitude in Ivalice and eat away at complex mechanisms. This process can be worked against by active repairs on airships, but this limits ground weaponry to simple muskets and leaves traditional melee weaponry viable. So airships can have machine-guns and Mist-powered beam weapons, but extended stays on the ground would eventually disable these weapons.

I don't remember germinites being mentioned in Final Fantasy 12. That's among the most ridiculous hand-wave story mechanics that I've been heard of. However, they can't be controlled, can they?

Better-than-modern weapons would require that the technology behind the main cannon of the Bahamut is understood well enough that smaller Mist-powered weapons could be used, and that they could be miniaturized enough to be used as field artillery and/or squad support weapons. But doing so would take years of work regardless. We do know that they have the ability to turn at least fighter-sized craft invisible, which suggests they are ahead of us in some ways.

Lots of Final Fantasy 12's supposed tech is actually magick.

The problem is that modern weapons are not designed to fight large, flying ships. Our SAMs and AAMs almost certainly don't have the explosive load necessary to seriously damage the airships beyond lucky hits on the engines. Remember that an airplane is kept up by its airfoil, which is a delicate structure and relatively easy to damage. FFXII airships don't operate by airfoils, but rather through magical antigravity engines. Smaller fighters are vulnerable to missiles, but their main role appears to be conducting strafing runs anyways.

Are you sure about the magical antigravity engines theory?

Their smaller fighters with machine guns are apparently able to damage airships.

Check Sage Knowledge 10 - Terrestrial Conveyances for the germinites.

They still use technology to manipulate the Mist. They didn't have a man in a bad hat waving his arms to explode the Resistance airships, they used a cannon.

The skystone and glossair rings are magical antigravity engines, seeing as they produce no exhaust and provide lift for the airship, and are magical in power-source. The fighters are supposedly able to damage airships, but on the other hand, how do they do so? Do they use sustained fire to clear decks and catwalks, do the attack the engines, do they strafe emplacements? Do they use cannon or other weapons?

[Gunhead]

This germathing sounds like bunch of horse shit. But based on the description it sounds more like well, fine dust that latches on to metal and possibly other materials, causing excessive friction, tear and corrosion.
Again, so far no evidence that lubricants and other protective measures we have wouldn't be able to negate or lessen the effect, assuming the effect is any worse than being subjected to condition like those in western sahara. It also doesn't make sense why it doesn't affect their firearms, as they appear to be flintlocks or worse wheel locks. Compared to modern designs a wheel lock is complex as fuck with gazillion moving parts and spring where as the mechanical action on a 9mm pistol extremely simple. I couldn't determine which method is preferred, but this is not even taking account they might have extremely corrosive powders in use.

There's no evidence that general use metallurgy/equipment is somehow superior, it may well be inferior, to what we produce today.
They appear to be at WWII level when it comes to aerial combat, which doesn't bode well to them. Double plus so considering how fucked they're on the ground.

-Gunhead

[Bakustra]

This germathing sounds like bunch of horse shit. But based on the description it sounds more like well, fine dust that latches on to metal and possibly other materials, causing excessive friction, tear and corrosion.
Again, so far no evidence that lubricants and other protective measures we have wouldn't be able to negate or lessen the effect, assuming the effect is any worse than being subjected to condition like those in western sahara. It also doesn't make sense why it doesn't affect their firearms, as they appear to be flintlocks or worse wheel locks. Compared to modern designs a wheel lock is complex as fuck with gazillion moving parts and spring where as the mechanical action on a 9mm pistol extremely simple. I couldn't determine which method is preferred, but this is not even taking account they might have extremely corrosive powders in use.

There's no evidence that general use metallurgy/equipment is somehow superior, it may well be inferior, to what we produce today.
They appear to be at WWII level when it comes to aerial combat, which doesn't bode well to them. Double plus so considering how fucked they're on the ground.

-Gunhead

They are specifically described as living things. Apparently they only corrode certain metals, too. I'm really pretty sure you can't qualify "magical flying battleships" as WWII in any meaningful sense beyond "did they show off radar screens in the handful of scenes involving combat? No? Prrimitiive!"

It's worth noting that a semiautomatic or automatic firearm requires much better tolerances than a flintlock does. That may well be part of it.

[Vendetta]

There's no evidence that general use metallurgy/equipment is somehow superior, it may well be inferior, to what we produce today.

Except they can build flying megastructures like the Leviathan, Alexander and Bahamut. In order for those things not to tear themselves apart as soon as they tried to move the available metallurgy must be significantly more advanced than Earth's, no matter the principle, technological or magickal, they use to create them.

This germathing sounds like bunch of horse shit. But based on the description it sounds more like well, fine dust that latches on to metal and possibly other materials, causing excessive friction, tear and corrosion.

Germinites are magical living creatures, they don't cause friction, they eat your shit. And they're picky eaters for some reason.

Unless they violate the rules of thermodynamics, or use LEDs to make their engines look cool, an engine that glows usually is more than hot enough for a heat seeking missile to track.

Their engines work using Skystone, which is explicitly magickal. Magick, of which you use and see rather a lot during the game, basically is violation of thermodynamics writ large. Their waste energy could be used to create ice for all we know, that's something that magick in the game is handily capable of.

How do anti-ship missiles sink warships currently?

They don't really. They mission kill them very effectively by setting them on fire, because rocket fuel, which the missile brings a significant quantity of by itself, is very flammable and hard to put out and a lot of the outer structure of modern ships is covered in mission critical and not easily shieldable items like antenna arrays. Against an airship the effectiveness of that type of attack will depend on how much altitude the target can gain, if it can get high enough it can try to mitigate the damage by starving the fire of oxygen in the higher atmosphere.

[Bakustra]

They only use skystones to provide lift- propulsion is provided by either propellers or "glossair engines" which are essentially the same thing. However, glossair engines run on Mist, and so may well not be that hot. For that matter, Mist isn't flammable, and that is the fuel supply for Archadian and Rozarrian warships. So that renders a number of missiles not particularly useful.

[Gunhead]

Well, being described as living thing amounts to about nothing unless there is some proof of this being the case. I mean people believed in all sorts of gremlins back in the day so until I get something more substantial than the apparent fact they have dodgy equipment / no real concept how it works / high technology but really poor equipment to maintain it or any combination of these to more or lesser extent, I'm saying they could be hundreds of far better reasons for their lack of ground technology that do not involve magical tiny gremlins that are somewhat airborne, do not affect people and only attack certain types of metal / material.
So, is there any in universe proof of these gremlins other than the fact people believe they exist? If so what's to say the thing that attracts them is a quality found on materials found on in their planet / plane / whatnot and that's the reason they're stuck with swords and whatnot on the ground.



-Gunhead

[Bakustra]

Well, being described as living thing amounts to about nothing unless there is some proof of this being the case. I mean people believed in all sorts of gremlins back in the day so until I get something more substantial than the apparent fact they have dodgy equipment / no real concept how it works / high technology but really poor equipment to maintain it or any combination of these to more or lesser extent, I'm saying they could be hundreds of far better reasons for their lack of ground technology that do not involve magical tiny gremlins that are somewhat airborne, do not affect people and only attack certain types of metal / material.
So, is there any in universe proof of these gremlins other than the fact people believe they exist? If so what's to say the thing that attracts them is a quality found on materials found on in their planet / plane / whatnot and that's the reason they're stuck with swords and whatnot on the ground.



-Gunhead

They have an excellent understanding of science and technology, yet you're refusing to accept the presence of a Macguffin to ensure a stylistic choice? This isn't like phlogiston or spontaneous generation- this is held by a civilization which builds airships larger than a skyscraper and which has an active scientific community. Yet you assume that they have no idea. This is a particularly blatant agenda.

[Gunhead]

Well if they have all that and these gremlins are accepted part of their understanding of science, then it should be easy to come by examples of how they work and myriad of info on them.
If they're so scientific, somebody must have studied them at least enough to validate their existence. Considering how much trouble these little fuckers cause them, somebody must have an invested interest to do something about them. Or at least there should be an in universe built reason why nobody has done so.
No, I don't take stylistic reasons at face value. Specially ones that are this badly thought out.

Vendetta if you have info on the flyers or any size please put it up. This thread is seriously lacking in numbers.

-Gunhead

[Bakustra]

Well if they have all that and these gremlins are accepted part of their understanding of science, then it should be easy to come by examples of how they work and myriad of info on them.
If they're so scientific, somebody must have studied them at least enough to validate their existence. Considering how much trouble these little fuckers cause them, somebody must have an invested interest to do something about them. Or at least there should be an in universe built reason why nobody has done so.
No, I don't take stylistic reasons at face value. Specially ones that are this badly thought out.

Vendetta if you have info on the flyers or any size please put it up. This thread is seriously lacking in numbers.

-Gunhead

It's a motherfucking video game, where they are mentioned in a specific piece of lore that can be obtained. The only other materials that would have information on these things are all in Japanese. You're being incredibly unreasonable. Would you apply this to the Force in a Star Wars discussion? Would you apply it to a Vulcan's telepathic abilities? To the existence of Sauron in LOTR, or the presence of magic? Those are all stylistic in the same way.

[Gunhead]

We have in universe proof of all of these things so to put it shortly yes. I do. Just because someone in universe talks about it or assumes it exists doesn't make it so. When it comes to magics or psionics I'm triple doubtful. I know psionic powers exist in WH40K, there's proof. I know a power usually referred as the force exists in SW, same thing. I'm not really privy to vulcan psi powers since I pretty much loathe star trek, but without evidence I'd say they're bullshit.

-Gunhead

[Bakustra]

We have in universe proof of all of these things so to put it shortly yes. I do. Just because someone in universe talks about it or assumes it exists doesn't make it so. When it comes to magics or psionics I'm triple doubtful. I know psionic powers exist in WH40K, there's proof. I know a power usually referred as the force exists in SW, same thing. I'm not really privy to vulcan psi powers since I pretty much loathe star trek, but without evidence I'd say they're bullshit.

-Gunhead

And their presence is demonstrated by the lack of technology in ground warfare and transportation, and the immense amounts of technology in air warfare and transportation. Airships are a recent invention, not a piece of lost technology, and the major nations do build new technology and conduct scientific research. So what is there besides accepting it, apart from jumping to "well they're all mentally handicapped", which is frankly bankrupt.

[Gunhead]

Considering I know really little about FF XII I cannot rule out mentally handicapped either. But as to reasons why land warfare is done with sword and shield while in the air they use machineguns. Well the simplest answer that does not involve magic is that they actually learned the lesson Maxim was preaching. With machineguns you can cause untold loss of life.
With their magical healing and low intensity warfare, casualties are pretty limited I would assume and it keeps up the dueling style of warfare. Air combat cannot be done with blade and spear so machineguns are used, but the total number of casualties remains low because of healing and generally the amount of combatants in each battle is fairly low.
See? No pixie magic required.

Btw. Even if they conduct scientific experiments doesn't mean the poor sodding masses are a bastion of independent thought. So why couldn't the powers that be spoon feed them any line of BS that's convenient.

-Gunhead