Editing Firearm

[[image:Teppo.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Some Tanegashima Matchlocks]]
About thousand years ago in China, some people figured out that certain chemicals mixed together (such as potassium nitrate, carbon and sulphur) exploded when brought to spark, which became known as "Black Powder". After some toying with this little tidbit of information, they discovered that a tube sealed off at one end could be used to focus said explosion to propel an object at high speeds. After a few centuries of refinement they managed to take that mechanical principle and apply it as a weapon of warfare which changed the game, the Arquebus. Cheap, Easy to make, easy to learn to use and capable of penetrating all but the heaviest armor, this marked a transition away from close quarters to ranged warfare.

In modern times, firearms are the staple weapons of any nation, normally using futuristic weapons that doesn't even fire solid projectiles like [[lasgun|lasers]].

==A Brief History of Firearms==
'''1200s:''' The Chinese realize they can make barbarians shit their pants by shooting hollowed arrows packed with powder and bamboo tubes filled with powder and pebbles at them.

'''1300s:''' Various gunpowder weapons begin to proliferate westward along the silk road. Crude versions of hand cannons, grenades, rockets, and flamethrowers all see use. Despite considerable psychological effect and good armor penetration, most of these weapons are only marginally more likely to kill the target than the user, and their use is not widespread.

'''1400s''': Hand cannons see continued and expanded use. The first "true" firearms are invented with the advent of the matchlock. By clamping a lighted wick into a flashpan via a trigger the shooter is able to aim ''and'' fire at the same time, making him markedly less likely to blow his own jimmies off. Despite advances the matchlock was unwieldy, unreliable, and generally inferior to a good bowman. This didn't stop some inventive commanders from seeing their potential, particularly with poorly trained conscript soldiers. [[Weeaboo|Some forces]] made a go of it by carrying two or three guns at a time and just throwing the spent ones away like a really shitty Matrix movie.

'''1500s:''' Guns continue to evolve with the invention of spring loaded firing mechanisms. The wheel-lock spins a steel plate against sulfide rocks to produce sparking (think cigarette lighters) which ignites a flash pan. This was revolutionary in that soldiers could prime their weapon in a matter of seconds instead of fucking around with a lit wick. It also means that for the first time guns weren't completely fucked in the rain, just mostly fucked. They also cost a lot to make so only wealthy people could afford them. Japan was particularly notable in the history of firearms for their heavy transition from blades to guns after discovering the novelty of matchlock guns, more so that any country during that time. Infact by the end of the 1500s, they had more trained riflemen in their armies and produced more matchlocks than any other country to date during that period.

'''1600s''' The wheellock is refined into the simpler and more reliable flintlock. Muzzle loading is simplified with the creation of paper cartridges, essentially the pre-measured cake mix of murder. Some German dudes came up with the idea of cutting spirals which they called "rifling" so that they wouldn't have to walk up right next to their targets to hit them, but this required a barrel tighter than a nun's cunt and a hammer to ram the ball in.

'''1700s''': The French invent the bayonet, allowing their troops to be [[choppa|choppy]] while they were [[dakka|shooty]]. This is the point where gun infantry tactics become the dominant (though still not only) form of fighting. This marks the point when guns go from one a few common infantry weapons to the primary weapon used by most infantry.

'''1800s''': Pretty much everything that makes up a modern firearm is invented here. Some fool came up with an explosive that would go off if you slam a hammer into it, which led to the first explosive primers. This basically involves putting explosives in ur explosives to explode your explosives. Cartridges that contain a primer, propellant and slug, similar to modern-day bullets, are developed. By this time, wars were largely fought using firearms rather than meele weapons. 

People now realize that slotting in bullets from the rear and using a mechanism to load it into the chamber is much simpler than spending about half a minute to ram it down a long barrel, giving birth to the concept of "breach-loading" and later, "magazines", and simpler mechanized feeding systems like tubes, slides, cylinders, and bolt-actions. The likes of pump-action shotguns, bolt-action rifles and level-action rifles, and revolver and semi-automatic pistols, are developed and/or developed upon, giving a glimpse on how weapons in the future would function.

'''1900-early 1930s''': The hey-day of guns because of the advent of WW1. The idea of bolt-action rifles are popularized, along with semi-automatic and fully-automatic weapons. Bolt-action rifles meant that riflemen no longer had to be confined to shooting one round at a time before needing to reload as they could now load individual clips that contained 5-10 rounds a piece. Machine guns are now becoming more and more popular in the battlefields, drastically changing the way infantry would maneuver the battlefield as a single MG emplacement can effectively cripple platoons with the right positioning. Submachine guns, the first automatic infantry weapon, are developed by the German Empire and issued to their stormtroopers, giving the rest of the world an idea on the wonders of a lightweight fully-automatic weapon that could easily be used by infantrymen, which was previously restricted to heavy machineguns.

'''late 1930s-1940s''': Automatic and semi-automatic rifles start phasing out bolt-action rifles for standard infantry use with the start of WW2. Submachine guns are now becoming more popular with various armies around the world, making it the staple lightweight automatic weapon for infantry troops, totally re-defining urban combat due to the weapon's great effectiveness in close combat. Nazi Germany invents the Sturmgewehr 44, the first widely produced assault rifle (the Fedorov Avtomat being the first Assault Rifle to be put into service, introduced in 1915, but production was limited due to costs.). This weapon would later become the template for modern assault rifles used by the world over.

'''1950s-1990s''': People now realize the power of a fully-automatic rifle. Assault rifles become more and more common with armed forces of the world and are extensively developed upon, largely, if not completely, phasing out the old bolt-action and semi-automatic rifles used back in WW2. Iconic Assault rifles such as the AK-47, M14, and M16A1 are created and show the world the power of an automatic rifle through the the numerous wars going on during the 1960s-70s, such as the Communist wars in Korea and Vietnam, along with the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, to name a few.

'''2000s''': With the invention of more advanced materials such as plastics and carbon-fibre, along with numerous technological advancements of the modern world, firearms become more deadly than they were ever before. Fine-tuning on how every aspect of how a firearm would work, has allowed numerous countries to develop better and efficient ways on how to kill on a scale unseen since the Europeans developed the musket.

Many countries around the world are now looking for new ways to phase-out combustion-based firearms as a whole, and are looking for ways to make what were once sci-fi-only weapons, such as [[lasgun|laser]], [[plasma]], and [[gauss]] guns, a reality. While met with some degree of success, nobody (as far as we know, anyway) has found a way yet for these weapons to be man-portable that a single soldier could carry these into combat or be affordable to an extent that it would be more feasible to make these instead of the traditional slugthrowers.

==Relations here==
Most fantasy writers tend to exclude firearms. There are a variety of reasons for this, such as:
*Most fantasy comes from [[Tolkien]], who did not have guns. Though gunpowder does exist in Tolkien's works.
*Most fantasy (whether copy-catting Tolkien or not) is based on medieval Europe. Depending on your definition of "medieval," Europe did ''technically'' have firearms towards the very end (crude and unreliable ones, but firearms nonetheless), but most authors base their fantasy on earlier medieval Europe. 
*As in real life, firearms mean that vulgar, dirty, peasant conscripts can take down the author's Mary Sure, noblemen [[knight]]s that trained ''so'' hard in the arts of swordsmanship and melee combat. That statement is a simplification and leaves out the rise of pike formations and standing armies, but it is, in part true.
All that being said, most fantasy authors are much more open to cannons, which became viable on the battlefield long before smaller firearms.

Generally speaking, if a world has both the "stock" fantasy races and guns, there will a strict hierarchy of who uses them, from most to least likely:
*[[Dwarves]]: They almost always have the best, most plentiful guns. If only one race gets firearms, it's them.
*[[Gnomes]]: As tinkers, they're frequently on a different tech level from everyone else too.  Not unlikely to have firearms either.
*[[Human]]s: Unlike the other races, which are usually an all-or-nothing deal, different human nations have different likelihoods of having guns. Italian and east Asian analogues, as well as the "industrious" or "scientific" nations, are much more likely to have them. Your barbarians, guys keen on knights and chivalry and the more conservative less so.
*[[Orc]]s: Orcs would probably love guns if they could actually build some. However, they're usually either incapable of building things or have a hard time organizing themselves to the point that large-scale firearm and powder production is possible. Even so, they could still obtain them them by other means such as fighting as mercenaries for guns and stealing them off the corpses of the fallen and similar. They are higher on the list if they are emore more like Tolkienian Orcs, which can be fairly well organized and do "delight in explosions".
*[[Elves]]: Being arrogant pricks, they see guns as crude, inaccurate, foul-smelling contraptions that are no substitute for a bow. However, they'll still use them when necessary, even if they don't like it. That said they also had a good reason to not use them, namely most firearms in a fantasy settling would be Arquebus-type which were out range and had slower firing rates than a bow, the main advantage being ease of use and armor penetration. As the main problem of a bow, it takes years to learn, itsn't a problem for long life elves, a bow is simply a better choice.
*Wood Elves and other Fey/Nature types: They'd rather die than use a firearm, even if the rest of the world has moved onto biplanes, bolt-action rifles, shell-firing cannons, and tanks. If this happens, this means they either have powerful magic (so the actual weapons used are unimportant), they are ''really really'' good shots with a bow, or they're about to die out.

Of course, sci-fi writers almost exclusively use firearms, seeing as how it's THE FUUUUUUTTTTTUUUUURRRREEEE. The one exception is [[Warhammer 40,000]]: although guns are the main combat implement, close combat is still alive and well, and most armies have at least one elite, close-combat unit wielding weapons that are distinctly not firearms.

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