Guild Wars 2

If the charr invented guns, then why do Ascalonian ghosts, who have been dead and living in a time loop for ages now, have access to “Ghost cannons” when they did not exist during the time when the ascalonians were alive.

charr did not invent the guns

They are most tech advanced but that doesn’t mean they invented cannons. Charr got tanks, zeppelins, helicopters…

But from the charr opening sequence, it says the iron legion invented guns, which leads into cannons.

The Dwarvers invented gunpowder and the Canthans, or Luxons if you prefer, invented cannons. The Charr intro is an exaggeration, they didn’t even kill their “god”. Humans did it. It’s interesting to see that the Canthan invention of artillery spread out to the Tyrian continent before the Charr finally conquered Ascalon.

Dantan.2843:

But from the charr opening sequence, it says the iron legion invented guns, which leads into cannons.

This might not be be up-to-date but it doesn’t say anything about the invention of guns.

As to why the ghosts have them its quite likely they are recomissioning or copying the charr tech. Humans are pretty good at adapting in that fashion and we see the ghosts doing things like rebuilding structures and fixing fortifications.

Just throwing this in here: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Siege_Turtle

Cannon usually predate firearms. Even if the Charr invented “guns” in the sense of hand-held portable firearms, cannon have been in use for at least 250 years.

Charr invented guns.
Cannons existed long before.
Explosives were made by dwarves though.

Why there are ghostly catapults or cannons… Don’t think I’ve seen any explanation to that. How can an immaterial object have a ghost? Same goes for the ghostly kegs of ale seen in The Shattered Keep of Sparkfly Fen (and yet those ghosts use material weapons…).

Konig Des Todes – “Why there are ghostly catapults or cannons… Don’t think I’ve seen any explanation to that. How can an immaterial object have a ghost? Same goes for the ghostly kegs of ale seen in The Shattered Keep of Sparkfly Fen (and yet those ghosts use material weapons…).” [wouldn’t let me use quote]

I agree with Konig. The question posted of this topic is “Why do ascalonian ghosts get cannons?” I wondered this as well on my travels though Charr lands (old Ascalon).

Cannons (catapults, kegs, etc.) are immaterial. They do not have a soul. Traditionally, ghosts are the visible form of the soul/spirit of a dead person (or creature). So, how can cannons and other soulless items have a ghost form?

Ghosts still have their clothing/armor and weapons with them. I presume the same logic that allows for that, allows for them to have siege weapons. The ghosts believe they should have cannons, therefore they have ghostly cannons conjured up by the force of their belief/will.

In other words, a wizard did it.

I think it’s pretty much as Grakor says. A ghost of a regular soldier appears with the equipment they had when they died – a ghost who died serving a siege engine may regard that engine as closely enough tied to their identity that they generate a ghostly copy of that engine when they manifest.

It’s kinda like the mythological concept of a ghost ship, actually (where the ship is also ghostly, rather than the alternate concept of a rotting ship crewed by ghosts). You can subscribe to the theory that often does come up among crews of both ships and siege weapons that the object itself does actually have a soul, or it could simply be that the combined willpower of the crew, and the crew’s identity as the crew of the machine, causes the machine to appear with them.