What if gunpowder was shunned/ or never developed?

ktotwf

What if gunpowder and more modern explosives had never developed? What if wars today were still fought with spears, swords, and shields, armor, horses, etc...

How would the world be different, if every other development that was not related to gunpowder came about, its just weapons were still primitive?

Is this too ASB? or could it viably have happened?
 

David S Poepoe

Banned
Too ASB. Its too useful. It provides an advantage, or advancement, that no one will willingly give up - especially in frequently warring Europe. It has uses far beyond that of military use only. Anyone dabbling with alchemy will eventually come across it.
 

DominusNovus

David S Poepoe said:
Too ASB. Its too useful. It provides an advantage, or advancement, that no one will willingly give up - especially in frequently warring Europe. It has uses far beyond that of military use only. Anyone dabbling with alchemy will eventually come across it.
Click to expand...
Well, it could be delayed for quite some time. It is a relatively simple invention, gunpowder itself. How long had humanity been dabbling around with various ideas? And how long until someone discovered gunpowder? If we have anything like the modern era, however, with the scientific method and whatnot, it'll be inevitable.
 

aktarian

If Europe doesn't adopt gunpowder for war they are in for nasty surprise when they come across somebody who uses it. Whoever that is.....
 

Susano

Banned
Well, the first gunpowder weapons were very much ineffecient. However, they were en vogue, so to say, so princes and nations used them, and invested in them. I uess that will happen somewhen sooner or later anyways, but I think indeed that it could be delayed for probably centuries...
 

Ar Skoul

The main advantafe of firearms was that they were easy to use (you could turn your average peasant into a shooter in a matter of weeks) but difficult to manufacture (peasnts could not turn them against you), hence their popularity despite their innefficiency (at the beggining at least) and their cost.

Now they could have been delberately suppressed. They were in Japan. Japanese warlords made extensive use of matchlocks (for instance at Nagashino) but the Tokugawa shogunate progressively banned them. This option is only available to an united country with no advanced ennemies, however.
 
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