Blasted Invasion!

[Donnie]

Okay, in my story in progress Overgrown Lands 2 there is this whole invasion by a human faction (called the Kingdom of Angles) supposedly on a crusade to reclaim something (there are more reasons I won't go in to  ) into the Edo continent. What this means? An army of frighteningly powerful magic humans versus samurai foxes with guns and swords.

Consider that both civilizations are separated by a huge sea and have kept themselves distant. Do you think that both sides would suffer 'You Fail Research Completely' as in neither know what the heck the other has in store? Would the foxes know the humans can pretty much cut a trench into the ground with a bolt of lightning, would the humans know the foxes have cannons with explosive charges? Would the foxes know humans have hovering chariots, and would the humans know the foxes have steam powered ships, ect >_>? Both cultures have been isolated for at least ten decades, so what say you?

[Geary]

I wondering if a century is enough time for one species to develop advanced magic and the other to develop (relatively) advanced technology...

[William Swiftfoot]

taking what happened in Japan between the 17th and 19th century, I would say no, but really it depends on how much technological sharing and informational sharing has gone on. If as you said there has been none, then the only knowledge each will have on the other is thought of as myth or old story within dust covered books of archives, and even that knowledge would be old, and missing techonology that was discovered among the last century by both civilizations, which just looking at the 20th century, can be alot.

[Digital Vulpine]

Well, assuming by isolated to mean completely and utterly cut off, no contact at all, no spying or scrying, they would likely assume that:

1: The other civilization, being obviously inferior to their own, has not advanced at all.
2: The other civilization has developed in a manner similar to their own, because that's the only logical way to develop of course.
3: The other civilization has advanced in a manner consistent with the path they were taking at the last point of contact.  Anything which the civilization considers impossible or unimaginable will not be predicted; after all, why would they have anything as ridiculous as that?  If both civilizations were nearly the same at the last point of contact, see 2.

No matter what they do, due to the large degree of diversion and the span of isolation, there will be no way to accurately estimate the development of the other civilization without gathering up-to-date information.

And yes, one century is enough to advance to the point of being unrecognizable.  Two words: Industrial Revolution.  From muzzle loaders and horses to airplanes and nukes, 1845-1945 respectively.

[Foxotcw]

That's an interesting idea.  I write similar types of stories and have to think about these sorts of issues a lot, so here are some of the possible research problems:

1.  Main problem:  It's hard to imagine that any species would develop such high technology (magical or physical) *before* developing ocean-going ships and embarking on world-wide exploration.  (Maybe there are taboos on crossing the great sea for some reason, or some geological phenomena that makes the sea impassible by normal ships.)

2.  You may not need to worry about how the two species came into existence, but it can be fun to think about.  You have two separate "human-like" species (I call them super-social generalists) which occupy the same evolutionary niche.  They would have needed to have been isolated for millions of years in order to evolve in parallel.  (I deal with this by putting my fox-like and human-like species on separate but relatively close planets.)

It sounds like a neat story.

[Donnie]

Haha good point DV XD.

If from what I imagined, the Angles know the Edonese are magicless. Them just looking at the continent makes them cringe at the 'void' in magical power. The Edonese know the Angles are proficient at magic from whatever they had gleamed.

Also I'd imagine spying would be rather impossible. You couldn't get close to anything important at all if you are a 5 foot tall person in a land of 3 foot tall vulpines >_>.