Solution 9 - Unfounded Speculation!

[Iscah]

Where is the highway going out of Garlemald?

The four-lane overpass that comes from the north, curves through the city and exits into the western mountains? I'd say you can't miss it, but...

[kaynide]

The four-lane overpass that comes from the north, curves through the city and exits into the western mountains? I'd say you can't miss it, but...

Which goes where?

My point is that we (earth people) made cars to replace horses so we could travel farther and more reliably, interconnecting places better than fixed transit like trains…essentially making the world “smaller”.

A single 4 lane highway to nowhere going out of your main capital city is not something I would expect of a “Rome”.

The only explanation is (as someone said), town cars for intercity use…as we have flying transport which is infinitely better, but even then the city is t large enough to merit having cars in the first place (again, caveat scale being a thing)

(As an aside, personally if I had been behind the wheel for Endwalker, I would have dedicated an entire zone to being a giant city map. An entire zone as one huge labyrinth of a city)

[Iscah]

Which goes where?

As I said, it goes into the mountains. Presumably there is somewhere worth commuting to on the other side, or at least there used to be, but there's every chance it's just as ruined as the cities we see.

I still think it was a poor move to give them boring cars when the military has whimsical bipedal mecha and wing-flapping airships, but here we are.

[MikkoAkure]

I still think it was a poor move to give them boring cars when the military has whimsical bipedal mecha and wing-flapping airships, but here we are.

Well there's the practicality aspect of things. Our real world militaries have tanks and helicopters yet I don't commute to work in a killdozer and I don't think the average family has access to a private helicopter.

I think part of it too is to sympathize the Garleans since before now we've only met their soldiers and evil scientists and we're suddenly supposed to feel bad for them now which is easier when there's familiarity. You can connect better with them when their home city looks reminiscent of home and they drive humble cars or take the train and it's a disconnect from the gigantic winged airships raining death and destruction upon Eorzea.

This may come into play in the reverse in this upcoming expansion if Tuliyollal's empire is all about being at peace with nature and then up north you have railroads and ceruleum derricks upsetting the harmony and then Solution Nine on top of that who have a completely different aesthetic, culture, and possibly sense of values that could represent our society losing touch with our environment.

Or both the Garlean and Xak Tural examples could be meaningless and the writers did it just because they felt like it.

[Iscah]

Well there's the practicality aspect of things. Our real world militaries have tanks and helicopters yet I don't commute to work in a killdozer and I don't think the average family has access to a private helicopter.

It's more the... silhouette? The vibe? A military truck or tank isn't a car but is built along the same general philosophy – it's a roughly rectangular vehicle with wheels on the long sides. It's a practical design.

If Garlean civilians have cars, why is the Garlean military not using cars? Who decided "let's build an ornate gilded mecha instead"?

[kaynide]

It's more the... silhouette? The vibe? A military truck or tank isn't a car but is built along the same general philosophy – it's a roughly rectangular vehicle with wheels on the long sides. It's a practical design.

If Garlean civilians have cars, why is the Garlean military not using cars? Who decided "let's build an ornate gilded mecha instead"?

Kinda this for me as well. Like they have massive flying death ships, but the population is just hanging in there with old timey radios and space heaters?

I had expected closer to what Cid puts out, but maybe a little lower tech (hoversleds, monorails, something like a contained shopping mall). I get not having mecha-leg-vehicles, but at the very least they have to match the chocobo carriage with air bladders.

I guess I was expecting something closer to Fallout tech, but we got some kinda pseudo Soviet 1940s vibe.

[Cleretic]

I still think it was a poor move to give them boring cars when the military has whimsical bipedal mecha and wing-flapping airships, but here we are.

I think the fact that they're boring cars is exactly the right move, actually. It establishes 'these guys had cars, but the cars aren't important'; you won't see them operational, you won't get them as a mount, they're just there to add texture to the world without distracting from the important parts of it.

And as to 'why use mechs instead of wheeled vehicles': Speaking from the perspective of a mecha nerd, the theoretical notion is that if you could make a bipedal mech like that, it would be a pretty plausible all-terrain vehicle. It could maneuver the rough cliffs of somewhere like the Thanalan, be able to navigate a dense forest like the Shroud, all with relative ease. The problem in real life is that they're impractical as all hell to actually make, because the bigger a legged thing is the more energy it needs to carry its own body weight around, and even just the notion of mechanically recreating the action of walking has been an engineering problem that was only solved relatively recently.

And of course, inversely, you wouldn't need a vehicle like a mech if you're only ever in a meticulously engineered environment like a city that'd just have roads, it's way easier to just make a car.