Guild Wars 2

If I had to bet, Scarlet knew good and well that if she attacked Lion’s Arch in full force, we would evacuate the city and rally an army ready to take on anything…

Especially given the proximity of Lion’s Arch to the three orders.

She has probably come to the conclusion that she cannot kill “the abyss” herself.

Moreover, assuming that what she saw was a dragon (as is widely believed)… Then evacuating Lion’s Arch results in a deserted area. No lifeforms means nothing for the dragon to make into a minion.

This leaves the dragon with a distinct lack of minions.

(Of course, if it’s Primordius, there are plenty of Destroyers… And I’m sure that Mordremoth has something in the way of minions… Probably those Husk things that showed up with the Wurm.)

Moreover, we haven’t seen her using any sort of Twisted Marionette.

I suppose it’s entirely likely, given the story thus far, that we may not see the Twisted Marionette again. (aside from the destroyed one at Marionette’s Landing)

However, she did fully charge that aethercannon…

Clearly she has at least one last trick up her sleeves, but I suspect the aethercannon will merely weaken the dragon… Not kill it.

That’s where we come in.
She’s tested our skills with the Twisted Marionette.
Left plenty of clues as to the fact that she’d be heading to Lion’s Arch so that we would be ready to help evacuate everyone.
She’s going to weaken the dragon (and fend off any potential dragon minions with her own minions)…
Then expect us to help her finish the job.

And then, maybe, just maybe… If the Tengu see the other five races defeat a Dragon at the Dominion of Winds’ backdoor… They’ll finally see the error in their ways and join us to help destroy the remaining dragons.

The Dragons do NOT need to corrupt lifeforms to turn into minions. Primordius for example is capable of creating minions out of lava/rock (yes he models them after creatures, but they are not corrupted creatures). So unfortunately that part of your theory doesn’t fit. The dragons can manipulate objects as well as beings. Also I’ll point out that Zhaitan is corrupting inanimate corpses and turning them animate – rather than corrupting living beings (when he corrupts a living being they die and then are ‘risen’.)

The way the dragons create their minions vary upon the dragon. While you’re correct about Primordus; Zhaitan, Kralkatorrik, and Jormag corrupt life forms and turn them into minions. If the dragon underground is Mordremoth, we aren’t sure how that dragon creates its minions. If it’s Primordus, then you are correct. We’ll just have to wait and see.

I forgot to mention. You’re also correct that someone most likely needs to be killed before they become a risen. I’ve never heard of anyone spontaneously becoming a risen. Although, it’s possible it has happened before and we just never heard about it. But you could consider killing something as Zhaitan’s method of transformation, not so much life being a barrier to that transformation.

scarlet’s actions are so drawn out and convoluted that expecting even a twisted benevolence is quite hard to imagine when the volume of atrocities and inefficiency of such a scheme are fully considered..    then again

Tom, Zhaitan can bring life to corpses that he did not kill – so he isn’t corrupting, just using corpses as a means of constructing minions. Which is not that different to how Primordius creates minions. It seems most logical that they all can corrupt in both ways – but that the corruption of living beings is easier.

Just like I can go out and buy flowers, or I can pick them myself, Zhaitan can kill people to corrupt them or corrupt people that have already been dead. It’s the same thing.

Also: When I said spontaneously becoming a risen, I meant while they were alive, they were transformed.

Nah I don’t think so. I think she is just completely overestimating her own capabilities. The only reason why she has used us so far was to enhance her weapons and to make them more powerful. We already beat one elder dragon, so creating weapons that even we can’t destroy means that she can defeat one by herself. She is completely forgetting that we used Zhaitan’s own poisoned magic to defeat him.

I don’t think that she is trying to use the miasma to poison the dragon, but more or less to controll it. It did have some mind controll capabilities afterall, as we know from the ToN patch.