Guild Wars 2

I recently came across this line from the GW2W that said that Humans possessed superior knowledge in both History and Agriculture compared to the other races of Tyria. This statement seems to hold a lot of sense, and I was wondering if this also applied to Astrophysics. The Asura were underground until recently (250 years, which is about only 2-3 generations considering their lifespan), and I’d doubt they had any interest for the Astral bodies until then.
We know the Jotun were precursors of Astronomy, which is both shown through the Astralaria legendary egg-hunt and Arah Explorable Mode. However, all their advancement came to a halt because of their downfall.
The Humans picked up on it, and were pretty advanced, which is shown in Nahpui Quarters of GW Factions and The Astralarium of GW Nightfall.

TL;DR: Do you think Humans still hold supremacy over the subject of astrophysics or did the Asura surpass them in those 250 years?

P.S.: I’m interested in that because of my character’s RP, in which I made him a Ranger but also a mathematician and an astrophysicist, which in turn he managed to apply to Nature Magic and that’s how he became a Druid

i think humans may have a better understanding. im not sure if most asura have even looked into that yet there is a possibility that the inquest may be far along in astrophysics tho (and possibly asura who are in the priory)

neer First Haven Waypoint in Gendarran Fields ontop of the fort there is a sleeping asura who has a funny theory of the sun xD

Logic would dictate that they do, given the overall lack of asura studying the stars throughout the entire game. Same goes towards charr – only sylvari and norn hold an interest in the stars beyond humanity (among modern, major races), and in that only by the handfuls instead of dozens/hundreds.

However, apparently the humans are so stupid as to realize their calendar is 5 days short – the asura, as it would be, have realized this error and fixed it. Despite the fact that a 5 days miscalculation would result in the calendar being an entire season (90 days) off, cumulatively, every 45 years (less than a lifetime!).

But hey, nonsensical retcon it is!

I’d also add that we have a modern example of human’s continuing interest- the Upper City of Divinity’s Reach is shaded by a massive orrery, after all. The problem would be that astrophysics, as such, is exceedingly unlikely to exist in human culture- first, because the tools and scientific sophistication are unlikely to exist at Kryta’s current state, but moreover because the field very well might not apply to Tyria. Between the Mists, constellations being able to embody themselves as avatars in the world, and the fact that the stars are able to predict and deliver warnings about the future, astronomy in Tyria would turn much more towards the lines of astrology than astrophysics.

Krytan society seems to be at a roughly Renaissance/Early Modern level, so it’s possible that they have taken some of the beginning steps. I’d guess their understanding is at about the level of Newton at best, though.

Asurans did have knowledge of stars and constellations— at least one Golemancer did: Blimm.

In GoA, Kranxx states the Golem’s Eye is discharged because it needs to be updated to the astral configuration of nowadays (or some other techno-magical babble).

As a fun little fact, in the creation of Astralaria when you go out starwatching, there are Human, Norn and Charr constellations, but no Sylvari or Asura constellations. Charr and Norn interest in the stars may be moreso as a means of navigation though.

Another thing to think about is that Humans have been on Tyria for the least amount of time. The Norn and Charr have been on the planet for longer than any Tyrian history we know of. Although both Norn and Charr have been around much longer than Humans, their societies back during GW1 days don’t necessarily seem to be the best for retaining historical knowledge… so who knows perhaps even without being around that long, humans may still have good historical records in comparison to other races, even if many of their kingdoms (from the parts of the world we have access to in GW2) were destroyed, presumably with much of their libraries and historical knowledge.

@Rhaegar: That’s just one asura, who was an oddball and was on the surface. I’m not sure you can say that asura have astronomical knowledge because of Blimm. I mean, he forsake the Eternal Alchemy – that should show how odd of a ball he was.

@Surbrus: It was a pretty big thing in pre-release lore statements that humans were the “go to” race when it came to historical records and facts about the past.

Ironic, it is, that this is rarely brought up directly in game and most of GW1’s historical lore was altered under the pretense of “human inaccuracies”.

No, Konig, I’m saying that Blimm had enough knowledge to put it into consideration when creating the Golem’s Eye, and THEN, Kranxx also has similar knowledge to fine-tune the gemstone (As it is shown fully charged up later on). Plus, when he says the gemstone needs to update its constellation configuration, he says so very matter-of-fact, it looks like it is a common assumption among his race.

A Red Post would clear this up.

The problem is that an Asura would likely say it matter of factly whether or not it was common knowledge just so that others continue to assume they are inferior for not having automatically known what was necessary.

As Narcemus says, asura pretty much say everything in a matter-of-fact notion. Just because three asura have good astrological knowledge (the third being Mecha from SoS), hardly means all do.

Furthermore, any astrological knowledge would be less than 250 years – as we saw in SoS itself Mecha was learned about those things during the course of the novel, so it wasn’t common knowledge 150-70 years prior to GW2, and at that she only improved old designs based off of human and charr knowledge (mostly human).

Blimm no doubt learned astrology himself after surfacing, given the lack of star watching underground.

Any knowledge Kranxx and others have on astrology or astronomy likely originates from human knowledge (though you can bet none would ever say such), if not self-taught. There is a class in the pre-college school in Metrica which is dedicated to star gazing (even during the daytime) – though the students there seem to prefer dozing rather than gazing – so it’s become more common knowledge, but they would hardly be experts on the subject given that they wouldn’t even have a full 300 years of study on the subject.