I said I was going to make a post about it and I forgot but I noticed both FE14 and FE16 make use of automatons to fight.
In FE14 we have those dreaded lunge puppets and the stoneborns, who, apparently are sentient? The wiki said so, and iirc, a stoneborn talked during a lava chapter - but maybe the stoneborn was programmed with a drill like FE16′s golems
And in FE16, we have the golems used by the Church, and Agarthan Titanuses (?).
Yukimura from Fates (in the cipher it’s lampshaded) is tasked with maintenance of the automatons but they appear to be mostly mechanical constructs. They mirror real-life automatons? In FE Fates though, they’re used as fodder/baits, being sacrificed to lure a player unit - thanks to lunge - in the range of harder hitting units.
Nohr’s stoneborns doesn’t look to be mechanical at all, and apparently flavor text said they were made with dark magic but look pretty... mineral. I don’t know who produces them or how they are controlled, or who takes care of their maintenance, but from the four golems we see they’re the most “magical” ones.
The Church of Seiros’s golems appear to be... laying in the backyard, rotting away (we see deteriorated ones in the sealed forest) but someone (Rhea? Seteth?) managed to repair them well enough so they could be fielded against Edel in CF’s version of Chapter 12. Apparently, in the DLC, random golems are also used as security measures to prevent thieves from stealing a relic, and from what we see in Rhea’s paralogue, they can be programmed with drills.
The Church doesn’t mass produce those things and yet Rhea manages to get some during the penultimate and last CF chapter, meaning 1) she left with Wilhelm, Iris’n’co when she had to flee Garreg Mach or 2) she built them in Faerghus during those 5 years.
(maybe it’s gameplay and story segregation but damn if the world would have been a better place if Billy could reactivate some golems in VW/SS/AM’s chapter 13).
Church’s golems seem pretty mechanical, but they have a glowing red core. I’ve seen some theories about that core being actually a crest stone, but I don’t think so, in the concept art we have the scale and that red core is way too big to be a crest stone. So it’s magic? Nabateans can create phantom like creatures to fight, so maybe they can use “magic” to make a source for their golems.
Also, given how Wilhelm’n’co grow stronger when receiving Rhea’s magic, and how they have a crest of Seiros, I suppose Golems are actually a form of magi-tech, taking into account that it could also be called biotech since dragons are closely associated with magic in this verse.
Golems and Altered Golems also use magical lances “lances of light” - it doesn’t look like material weapons, those things are magical, maybe they draw on the power of the IO (the reason why she carved her crest in them?) or use their magical power source to summon/channel those lances?
Then we end up this mecha overview with the Titanuses. They still have blue spots suggesting they have something magical going on, but given what Shambala looks like, I’d say the Titanuses are purely mechanical. The Blue spots and, idk, threads, look like circuits. Agarthans maybe managed to refine the Nabatean magi-tech in a purely, idk, “scientific tech” (tfw no nabatean fuel to power magi tech). I suppose, given the number of Titanuses and Golems is roughly the same, great mecha wars aren’t happening in Fodlan. Both aren’t seen as fodder, but more like hidden/secret weapons.
which makes it all kind of odd that Rhea’s letting some rot in the forest, but w/c
OTOH, Titanomachy refers to an ancient battle between old and new gods, so given what the devs kind of developped before deciding petting cats was more important, I think it’s heavily implied Titanuses were used during the Sothis-Agartha war of old.
Contrary to the Golems, Titanuses cannot be programmed with drills - there’s always someone “controlling” them. Let it be Cornelia or Bias’n’Pittacus when we storm Shambala.
Now, are the Titanuses a limited ressource or can some be created using Fodlaners? I always go the impression Cordelia drafted randoms from the Kingdom to build some but given how... complicated they look, i doubt a bunch of Faerghus randoms could deliver one per year TFW you hire workers without high qualifications
I still think Titanuses are supposed to be stronger than Nabatean Golems, but the golems can be nuisances with their shield + boosted stats.
However, Golems win on cuteness points, because even if the Church sells the Altered versions as “striking fear in the heart of enemies” the devs gave us this :
It’s the same kind of horror someone experiences when they see the happy smiley face :)
