Dragon Age: Origins provides us with a look at a charming pseudo-medieval culture, reminiscent of England in the pre-Renaissance era, though it borrows heavily from classic fantasy. Many classic fantasies seek to provide themselves with a long and rich history, in order to provide narrative weight to their setting; “the great evil was defeated by the stalwart heroes 10,000 years ago,” for example.

However, even though thousands of years have passed, lives are lived, culture continues and warfare is waged in much the same way that it was during the time of the stalwart heroes.

We see this technological and cultural stasis embodied by example in the Warden’s Keep DLC. The DLC is a worthy purchase for a number of reasons; besides the party chest and fascinating history on the Grey Wardens in Ferelden (and, perhaps, a disquieting parallel with Sophia Dryden for Human Noble Wardens), the Keep features a new set of armor. This armor is something worthy of the price tag of the DLC.

An artifact of an earlier age, this suit of armor was worn by one the heroes of the last Blight. Its craftsmanship is superb.

The armor is truly a treasure of great archaeological significance – at least, it would be. Why would anything made hundreds of years ago be useful, much less usable, now? Surely we’ve got better stuff than they. The suspension of disbelief strains when you realize that the armor is not only functional and one of the best armor sets in the game, but is similar in style to modern Ferelden and Orlesian armor. The medium, heavy and massive armors of the Ferelden army – seen in ghostly flashbacks around the Keep – hasn’t changed in 200 years, and neither has the patterns of speech or the accent of the natives. The weapons you acquire as good as, if not superior to, the weapons you find in the modern day (Wade notwithstanding). Even Soldier’s Peak is indistinguishable from most other wooden-beam-and-stone buildings in Ferelden.

But why? Barring graphical limitations, why does armor and technology look the same over periods of hundreds of years? Barring ingenuity of the writers and designers, why do people act in the same manner as they do hundreds of years later? What of the march of progress?

In the real world, the historians and scholars of the Enlightenment period subscribed to the idea that the brilliance of the Romans declined after the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century. For nearly a thousand years, so the thinking went, history and technology declined – or at least remained stagnant. Stone buildings were relatively uncommon, especially compared to Roman architecture, and few massive civic projects were created. Even castles were little more than massive wooden forts atop a hill, surrounding a small stone building. It took all that time for the invention of the crank, windmills, and three-crop rotation to come about, which changed the medieval world drastically.

Medieval technology and buildings did not, in fact, remain stagnant; the appearance of castles changed within a century’s period, much less three. The idea that technology did not progress was incredibly persistent, however – persistent enough to become ensconced within modern fantasy, and thereby make an appearance in Dragon Age: Origins. Technology in the so-called Dark Ages changed, became more prevalent, fell out of favor and evolved. Styles of clothing and armor may not have qualitatively improved in any dramatic fashion from the Roman centuries, but they certainly looked different – and they improved in variety and quantity, as the techniques necessary to make them became perfected.

We are provided with some ideas, early on, of how weapon technology has progressed – in the Human Noble Origin, the player has the opportunity to recover the Cousland Family Sword, which is made of enchanted Grey Iron. Such a blade may have been worth far more four centuries before than now. Yet the blade is quickly outclassed by other weapons, some of which are far older than the sword (which may lead you to conclude that Sarim Cousland, the line progenitor, may have been a particularly ill-equipped Captain of the Guard). Weapon quality seems dependent on material, with high-quality metals like veridium and silverite having been developed many centuries ago and only rare due to paucity of material. Indeed, the dwarves have nearly forgotten how to work dragonbone, due to a lack of dragons. The Cousland Family Sword seems to be an unintentional red herring – in the thousands of years of Dragon Age history, very little has actually changed. Cultures have changed, styles gone in and out of vogue, countries have risen and fallen, but the trappings have remained the same. If we do not accept the similarities in weapons as technological limitations, then only the character models change – nothing else does. The question then becomes: why does technology not progress? Even in a world without a dedicated scholarly or scientific class, discoveries and innovations are seemingly inevitable – the aforementioned three-crop rotation came about after experimentation with two-crop rotation, which had long-since been codified and refined to a science, and significantly increased the nutrition and sustainable population of Europe. Why haven’t we seen this in Dragon Age?

Firstly, Thedas undergoes an extinction-level event every few years, in the form of the Blight. Stress on a civilization, and particularly wars, tend to accelerate technological development, as a society must innovate or perish. The Blights, however, are particularly vicious and fast-spreading, which makes it difficult to develop effective technological countermeasures. Still, we see in cinematic sequences that siege crossbows, trebuchets and explosives have been developed, so there was indeed evidence of the march of progress. Much of the magical relics of Old Tevinter seem to have been lost, however.

Secondly, there seem to be few dedicated scientists who focus on experimentation. Dworkin Glavonak, the dwarven explosives expert, is a notable exception, but even he needs patronage. By and large, most nobles seem focused on attaining temporal and material power, not conducting dangerous experiments.

Thirdly, the presence of the Fade changes things somewhat. It is difficult to ascertain whether or not the laws of physics and chemistry have been altered in a world with a magical presence. In a world where demons are real, Maxwell’s Demon might well be real as well.

Fourthly – and related to the second and third points – much of the technological development of Thedas is not technological in nature, but magical. Wynne’s dialogue notes that alchemical and magical development is still very much in vogue at Kinloch Hold; the Formari are master alchemists and constantly brew new and exciting beers. Which this may not seem significant, they also greatly enhance the science of runecrafting and enchantment of materials. But there efforts are largely hampered by the restrictive and anti-magic religion of Thedas, the Chanty. With such a dim view taken of magic experimentation, there is little even the best and brightest can do.

Still, a world with magic and wonders has little need for other development. If a Creation spell can cure one’s fever and purify a wound, there is never an impetus to develop penicillin. If a Primal spell concusses one’s foes and blows a hole through a wall, there is little need to develop gunpowder. If an Entropy spell fortifies your ship against the waves and removes the kinetic energy of the water to harm you, you will never build a stronger ship hull. If a Spirit spell pacifies and petrifies all around you, there is no reason to develop tear gas (or even effective riot-control techniques). Continue on page two …

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