» Thu May 03, 2012 12:40 pm
The Middle ages emulated magic with chemicals... Destruction Magic is TES's Universe answer to gunpowder in RL. kinda like parallel evolution in technologies. So, in a sense, there are already "guns" in TES, in the form of weapons enchanted to fire projectiles at range and explosives in the form of enchanted projectiles. Heck spellcasters can be considered walking "guns" in that regard. It is assumed that people gravitate to the more energy efficient methods when it comes to what technologies are learned. Maybe for them it might be easier to teach people to focus their magicka, then point and "shoot" spells than to invent a weapon, invent a projectile, invent a compatible propellant, invent a targeting system, then train the use of said equipment, albeit the Dwemer were probably the closest to devote efforts into researching them.
I would find it funny though, if it turns out to be a conspiracy on the part of spellcasting organizations to purge any research on such inelegant technologies...