Q:
I will make the arrangement of these queries simple. They may come off as slightly abrasive, but I assure you it’s more curiosity than anything else, and wish to offend no one in the process of this attempt to rationalize some things about the setting.
1. Technology in Tyria; The charr, the asura and to some funny degree the sylvari all have means of advancing the general lifestyle of the average farmer by several decades through the application of their most basic technologies. The setting demonstrates that even complex asura technology can be easily tinkered with by other races with due trial and error. It also makes pretty clear trade between races and mutual sharing of technological knowledge is ongoing. Why is this not reflected at all? Why do farmers continue to live in mud huts strapped with two doors? Why does the average house and setup in Kryta (this including Lion’s Arch) feel and behave like Ye Olde Times when technology is quite clearly accessible? Any logical government would have first and foremost invested in the development of their technological advances through trade soon as the opportunity rose, and while the charr’s truce is barely a new thing, the asura -have- been around for the past 250 years. Despite continuated claims, the setting disproves their technology not being adaptable to other races over and over. Did the Council of Lion’s Arch and The Queen(s) of Kryta simply go “You know, I think I prefer starving peasants.” and left it there?
2. … Stemming from a logical government train of thought; Exactly when did the Queen wake up and go; “Gentlemen! You know this area where we used to host large amounts of civilians? And you know how we have even more refugees and farmers getting murdered outside our city walls by centaurs which we have not yet taken care of at all? Well. I suggest we build a huge arena full of magical mesmer robots and life endagering artillery. None of the aforementioned will be used for the protection of our people, but instead for amusement of tourists. Once per year. This will take a whole district of our city.”
3. … And how has everyone in Divinity’s Reach gone “That’s a wonderful idea!”? Have the canthan not felt an itty bitty offended over the fact that their houses were turned into an arena and they were essentially kicked out to elsewhere?
4. Scarlet (and co.) spent months upon months building giant airships and a whole army. She did so in a time lapse of less than a year (applicable by the main storyline’s time passage.); While the man power can be scrapped off as “Well she’s a creepy woman”, where did she get the materials to do this? She built an airship almost as big as Tyria’s capital center, and absolutely no one noticed the amounts of materials and man power necessary to make this happen. No one. A city’s worth of metal disappeared and no one had any logs on the subject. Lovely Mordremoth being behind the whole Scarlet situation smoothens out most of her plot, but the time+resources deal of her whole initiative still mistifies me.
5. … Which makes one ponder; Exactly what does the Order of Whispers do these days? For the most informed, oldest and widespread organization in Tyria, they never seem to be able to know ahead of… anything, really. They didn’t notice a single one of Scarlet’s plans. Or anyone’s. Not even the basic gists. Even with the Pact’s initiative… I would say that is a bit too blatant that it was left up to complete randoms to figure out everything.
6. … Raising up the subject of the Pact. An elder dragon, one of history’s biggest threats since ancient times, was obliterated in less than a year, with a makeshift army of people that had never cooperated before, led by a randomer from a newborn race, with equipment scrapped and made functional in the aforementioned lapse of time. Is there any explanation as to how wasn’t this whole project a major trainwreck, or in this particular case is it just a mere matter of Zhaitan having a very bad headache that day?
7. Now this is a bit of an extra, but why does no one in Tyria ever mention the possibility of using the lore-adapted portals to the Mists for more, well, necessary processes than mauling each other?
As mentioned before, these are just things I ponder when I see the storyline in motion. It’s hardly meant to be any sort of offensive post, but mostly a plea for a bit of rationalization for bits of it that escape my coherence grasp.