YOU'RE MORE IMPORTANT, PLINY, YOU HAVE TO LIVE
YOU'RE MORE IMPORTANT, PLINY, YOU HAVE TO LIVE
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I wonder what the reaction of someone who never heard of guns would be if you pointed a gun at them.
I don't think you could use it to compel them to do anything.
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Threat that comes from pointing a gun at someone mostly comes from the body language and the facial expression of the shooter, knowing what a gun does empowers the threat, it doesn't truly create it on its own.
Someone who doesn't know what a gun is could definitely infer that it is a weapon, and that they are within its effective range. All that JUST from the body language of the shooter.
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Interesting thought. Indeed, the person might think it's some sort of exotic bolt thrower.
But I think it's as likely they might think it's a device held to be magical. And then it all depends on how effective they expect it to be.
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Interesting thought. Indeed, the person might think it’s some sort of exotic bolt thrower.
Pliny, as an extremely well-educated man, actually wrote a bit on chemical and incendiary weapons at the time. So while the notion of the chemicals being a propellant would be foreign to him, a warning shot from the smoke-and-thunder tube would probably give him a good basic idea of what he was facing - a machine that inflicted some form of harm via a projectile accompanied by fire and chemicals.
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Interesting thought. Indeed, the person might think it’s some sort of exotic bolt thrower.
Pliny: "Fascinating! May I see it? I'm interested in this machine's functioning!"
Me, overwhelmed by the interest of such an illustrious scholar: "Oh, of course!"
Pliny: "How does it activate?"
Me: "You just point it at what you want to kill and pull the trigger, which launches the projectile."
Pliny, pointing the pistol at me: "You are going to help me rescue Pomponianus."
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At least not until you gave a demonstration.
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