Guild Wars 2

I can see a single Asura super villain taking over the world, but I can’t see the Asura race doing it together. They just can’t cooperate.

@Draxynnic
I wasn’t being entirely unreasonable with the circumstances I proposed. No one would go to open war with anyone until the dragons were dealt with, and Rytlock is already on the verge of dealing with the ghost problem once and for all, so I thought it was a pretty safe assumption that by the time the dragons were gone, the foefire would have been dispelled. I said nothing about the ogres or harpies, because they really aren’t even a significant blip on the radar compared to any of the Charr’s other problems. Meanwhile, the humans have such a hard time keeping their kitten together, that the centaurs managed to waltz right up to their front gates and almost took the village directly outside of it. I will give the humans the factors of the bandit problem being largely fabricated, the fact that ending the treaty would eliminate the separatist problem, and Jenna is apparently a hilariously powerful mesmer.
However.
Their gods returning would be far less likely than the Charr taking that one last step in eliminating the ghosts, as would reestablishing connections with Cantha (Which we know nothing of the current state of), or freeing Elona from Palawa Joko’s rule.
Beyond that, I can’t help but notice that you ignored my point that the Charr might attack Lions Arch after the norn, claiming both it and Hoelbrak as footholds in their advance west. These footholds would allow them to set up production facilities in these areas, and in the case of Lions Arch, possibly set up a sea-based supply route, which would make it far easier for them to fuel their invasions.

Plus, like you said, assuming there are no treaties whatsoever, and the gates all get shut down if they don’t directly benefit the Asura, Ebonhawke frankly wouldn’t stand a chance. The only reason they held up as long as they did is because Kryta’s government kept sending supplies to keep the city alive, and troops to literally hurl into the meat grinder that was the Charr. Since then, Charr siege weaponry has only gotten STRONGER, so I can’t really imagine those walls holding as well as they used to… Which as we can see for ourselves with a quick visit to ebonhawke, wasn’t all that well.

Beyond that, returning to the earlier points in your post, you seem to be ignoring the fact that, under the flame legion, the Charr had quite literally half the percentage of their population in military service of what they have now, due to all females being reduced to nothing more than slaves, which compared to their current state (Three legions + Females + Growing numbers of flame legion defectors) is completely laughable in size.
Past that, the flame legion is splintering and dying with Gaheron gone, and last I checked the Dredge were entering some SEVERE political upheaval. The molten alliance is comprised of small parts of each faction. I can’t really see them surviving past another two dragons, maximum.
For the other races: Norn would lose the Sons as an opponent with Jormag’s death. Inquest has about a 50/50 chance of just picking itself back up after the loss of its biggest facility and leader, or falling apart if you ask me. Finally, the nightmare court and Faolain are probably going to be dealt with in-story before too long. Faolain is still a threat, and the writers really seem to like the sylvari, so odds are they’ll get another dungeon or have a major role in the current living story chapter.

Did that help get my point across?

Working through your claims one by one:

First, you’re starting from the scenario that the charr are choosing to pick the fight, and thus setting out the conditions from which they would start that fight. This is a reasonable way of looking at things, however, as I said, playing the same game with other races would put them in the lead.

For example, with humans: My starting assumption would be that Jennah is removed from power and power transfers to the Ministry under means that don’t lead to a civil war (perhaps Jennah dies in a way that cannot be in any way tied to the Ministry, there is no royal successor, and even the strongest opposition to the Ministry has to accept that transforming to a full republic is the best way to go from there). Suddenly, the bandit problem mysteriously disappears (enough of it that it’s less of a threat than the ogres and harpies to the charr – and I think you underestimate the former, although the latter are certainly little more than pests) and the centaurs are beaten back decisively. Then we have the arrival of a Canthan delegation (it was Zhaitan that cut off contact and he’s no longer in play, and according to Movement of the World Cantha is at the very least still sending ships out, so they haven’t collapsed) still following the human chauvinistic policies set in place by Usoku. The delegation gets talking to Caudecus, expresses great sympathy for how so much ancestral human land has been taken over by ‘inferior species’ and how Cantha is having problems with overpopulation, and suggests that maybe they can help each other?

Next thing everyone else knows, Tyria is being overrun by Canthan soldiers, possibly backed by juggernauts, siege turtles, and whatever else they might have come up with in the meantime.

Second, speaking of Cantha – As mentioned above, trading between Cantha and Kryta was only stopped by Zhaitan, and with Zhaitan dead, I think it’s pretty much guaranteed that renewed contact is only a matter of time. Lion’s Arch’s destruction has probably delayed that, but sooner or later someone’s going to get the old maps off the Durmand Priory and try their luck. Sure, there may be reasons why Cantha can’t or won’t influence what happens in Tyria… however, there may also be problems in the Blood or Ash Legion homelands we don’t know about.

Third, regarding the ghost problem: The assumption that the next step will be an easy one is not necessarily a given.

Fourth, I actually missed your point about the charr attacking Lion’s Arch since my focus was on your claim that Lion’s Arch would sit out of or even willingly support the charr attack in exchange for payoffs. It’s possible, but when you’re not launching a surprise attack with airships, tunneling machines, and chemical weapons, Lion’s Arch is a naturally fortified location. Besieging LA would probably be about as difficult as besieging a post-damburst Divinity’s Reach, giving Kryta or any other interested parties time to respond.

Fifth, regarding Ebonhawke: Edge of Destiny shows that Ebonhawke has been able to survive periods without the gate before. It has an internal farming area, and likely an internal water supply as well – it could probably still hold out for years under total siege conditions as long as the walls weren’t breached (just probably not for centuries. When it comes to the damage – if you talk to the NPCs, most of the damage you see was caused by Renegedes planting a bomb inside the walls – something they can only have done by exploiting the removal of the ‘kill charr on sight’ security procedures since the treaty. (A similar relaxation of wartime habits is the most likely reason why the Seperatists managed to get so far north.)

Sixth, regarding the charr females: No population, not even the charr, can keep 100% of its adult population on the field at all times. Under the Flame Legion, females performed noncombatant roles so males didn’t have to – now, that’s more evenly split. While that probably has paid dividends for the other legions both in quantity and quality of troops, it only results in a doubling of troop numbers for one decisive battle – for any sustained campaign, you need people on the home front. (Demographically speaking, in fact, for the Battle of Golghein bringing the females in probably had a disproportionate effect because it was bringing in a segment of the population that hadn’t suffered from war attrition. It’s possible that at the time female charr outnumbered males by a considerable margin because they hadn’t been suffering war casualties – now that female charr ARE on the field, though, they’re also taking attrition. It’s plausible, in fact, that this has made the charr weaker in the long run, because of losses among the breeding population.) Meanwhile, the Flame Legion represents a loss of a significant proportion of the fighting population, both to being Flame Legion and having to defend against the Flame, as well as the loss of the magical resources of the Flame (which, it must be point out, were the only reason the charr were able to successfully invade southern Ascalon in the first place.)

Seventh, I think you’re exaggerating the effect of Baelfire’s death on the Flame Legion. The Flame Legion lost two leaders in GW1 and was still going strong. Yes, there’s a bit of jockeying for position, but it’s part of charr culture to compete for the Imperatorship after the last one falls. It’s put them on the back paw for now, sure, but it’s overly optimistic to assume that they’re going to fall apart entirely because of the loss of one leader. A coordinated effort to clean up the Flame Legion throughout charr territory might do it, but so far we’ve seen no evidence of such a campaign since Citadel of Flames, and it’s now been two years. At this stage, given ArenaNet’s track record of revealing that enemies thought defeated really weren’t, I expect next time we hear of the Flame Legion, they’ll have lost the Citadel of Flames but will have rallied behind a new leader, possibly in Hrangmer.

Eightth, you’re DEFINITELY exaggerating the effect on the Inquest. The core of the Inquest has always been in asura territory despite their facilities elsewhere, and their involvement with Scarlet and activities in the recent Living Story show they’re still very much a going concern.

Finally, given ArenaNet’s track record of drawing out for as long as possible the defeat of any antagonist organisation, I really don’t see the Nightmare Court seeing a final defeat any time soon. (In fact, my scenarios in which either the asura or the sylvari will be launching invasions of the rest of the continent basically require those antagonistic organisations to take over as one of the initial steps.)

Norn survive.

The Charr would recognize the Asura as the biggest threat and vice versa. They go into a long drawn out war. Charr lose the use of Asuran tech and are forced to resume campaigns on foot. Their pride destroys the truce between the humans and end up leaving Ascalon short handed. In a bit of over zealousness. The Asurans bolster the human up and aid their was effort through Ebonhawke. Humans suffer great casualties because of the Black Citadels defenses and are too weak to actual hold any real territory.

The Norn are hunters, survivors, and unorganized. The are like having small (no pun intended) terrorist cells everywhere. Most of the world is lost. No one actual wins but in the end the majority of sentient beings belong o the Norn. Until the dragons eventually kill everyone and GW3 comes out.

1. Should the charr be the ones attacked first, Black citadel is quite the defensible location. Take a look at its layout at some point and you’ll see what I mean; walls freaking everywhere, and plenty of land inside the citadel itself to move the herds inside from smokestead. Plus, there are the factors of the Blood Legion Homelands far to the north east, and the as yet unknown location of the Ash legion homelands. Reinforcements would, most assuredly, be pouring in from these areas.
I will give you that Canthan reinforcements are quite likely, with this new evidence. But Elona is a lost cause in this scenario, almost for certain. However, given Logan and the Shining Blade’s close watch on Jenna, as well as her own not-insignificant combat prowess, I don’t really see her dying any time soon. I’ll just reiterate that she is one of, if not the, most powerful mesmers in Tyria.
2. As I’ve already addressed the points about Cantha, I’ll point out simply that, easy step or not, the Charr wouldn’t logically begin a campaign of extermination against other races without dealing with the Ghosts first, so it doesn’t really matter how “Difficult” it would be for them to accomplish it; only that it would be done.
3. The charr have Aerial, Naval, and chemical weaponry, so… Its entirely possible.
4. I had forgotten about the farming area, and admit that with that they do have a bit more survivability, though I seem to recall there being an area where a construction crew is dealing with damages caused by Charr artillery in the last encounter. Beyond that… A few fire bombs dropped from helicopters onto the farming areas would do wonderous things for the Charr advantage. Plus, Charr military technology has improved even farther since the last siege. I’m sure they’d last for a bit, but without Kryta throwing wave after wave of soldiers into the proverbial meat grinder this time, they’d most assuredly collapse in due time.
5. The thing about the charr females is that, in the time of the flame legion, they did indeed perform non-combat roles… Alongside the charr too old or injured to continue fighting the humans. These days, there aren’t as many charr performing those roles. Its all done by charr who are either born into those roles, or were assigned them for one reason or another (Which, with these charr still sending their cubs to the Fahrar, as well as the cubs born of battlefield romances, means their breeding population hasn’t been affected all that much.), so as a whole, even with the loss of most of the flame legion (I say most, because there are a surprising number of defectors, such as your father in the “Flame shaman” backstory), there are more charr on the front lines than before.
On top of that, they haven’t lost the magical forces they used to invade southern ascalon. They used the searing cauldrons… Which they still have, and can still operate. Plus, there are spellcaster charr in the other legions, just not in as great a concentration as in Flame.
6th. Yes, in GW1 the flame legion lost two Leaders. But Gaheron was their God. Big difference. When the Titans were slain, dissent amongst the flame legion skyrocketed. So it wouldn’t surprise me at all if, since the events in the Citadel of Flame, the number of flame legion deserters started climbing at an increased rate.
7th. I don’t really see how. I said that they had just as much of a chance to pick themselves up as they did to dissipate and be absorbed by other Krewes. The Inquest isn’t a college, they’re just an overbloated Krewe. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if they just shrugged this off like it were nothing. Either way, I can’t really see them taking over the Asuran race… As a whole, the Inquest are a bit too bumbling and careless to do anything that threatening.

1. Yes, the Black Citadel would be a tough nut to crack. So would Divinity’s Reach, Rata Sum, and likely even Hoelbrak.
2. The whole point is that you’re starting from the assumption that everything has gone right for one race to be ready to embark on a war of conquest. Naturally, under this assumption, this would give that race as advantage. However, all those things have not currently gone right, plus we don’t know what might be going wrong for them elsewhere (as previously noted, the overall situation could be anywhere from Blood and Ash being completely problem-free, to the Iron Legion actually having the most secure position of the three even with ghosts and all the rest).
3. I think you’re actually referring to my fourth point here… They don’t actually seem to have much of a navy, even if they have submersibles, and ingame the submersibles don’t actually seem to survive a lot of damage from magic-using marines. And in the hypothetical case where LA has rebuilt enough to be a valid target again… I don’t think they’re going to neglect air defences. Chemical weaponry… I don’t recall anything indicating they have anything as dangerous as the miasma, and again, now that it’s been done once, people are probably going to develop defences (and magic will probably cover for a lot in that respect.) It’s like when they were first used in WW1 – they allowed for some gains and then everyone developed countermeasures.
4. Again, those charrcopters don’t do well with being shot at. Humans do have their own technology, albeit inferior to the charr, as well as more powerful magic – you can’t assume they won’t be able to shoot charrcopters down with similar ease to that event that’s almost never successfully completed in Straits of Orr.
5a. It doesn’t matter that cubs are being sent back to the fahrars. The problem is that the females are taking attrition. For pretty much any species, males are more expendable than females because if push comes to shove, one male can impregnate a large number of females, while the reverse simply isn’t true.

To throw some numbers to illustrate this – to pluck a number out of thin air, let’s say that on average combat operations reduces a soldier’s fertile lifespan by 25% – the exact number doesn’t matter, so feel free to plug in whatever you consider reasonable. Under the Flame Legion model, this isn’t important – the fertility of the females is not going to be impacted by combat because they’re not engaged in combat. Under the modern charr model, on the other hand, combat operations have effectively reduced the size of the next generation by 25%. And this is assuming that female soldiers breed at the same rate as the Flame Legion’s policy of keeping females the equivalent of barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen – something I find doubtful.
5b. They still have Searing Cauldrons physically present in Ascalon, but given that Ebonhawke wasn’t Seared a long time ago, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that, for one reason or another, reusing them is not an available option. I suspect, given the event in Iron Marches, it’s that the ones remaining in Ascalon are low in power, and even the Flame Legion no longer has the capacity to recharge them.
6. As well as losing two leaders, the Flame Legion also survived the loss of the Titans (their original gods) and the replacement gods the Destroyers. Sure, it would have put them on the back foot. But they’ve picked themselves up and dusted themselves off from worse before, as have the White Mantle, the Stone Summit, and, well, basically every evil faction in the franchise has come back from apparent total defeat at least once. Thinking they’re down for the count is overly optimistic.
7. You’re ‘I don’t really see how’ flies fully in the face of the fact that ArenaNet is still showing them as a powerful group. Incidentally, they are in many ways organised like a college, to the point where I think there are references to them as such as well as being a kind of ‘super-krewe’. Even so, they remain the most coordinated group among the asura. Any comment about them being ‘bumbling and careless’ applies doubly to the “good” asura on the whole – it’s kinda their hat. But they’re still dangerous because when an asura experiment doesn’t blow up in their face, it results in things like, oh, an airship-mounted laser that can slice pieces off an Elder Dragon.

You want an advantage the Charr have on the other races that ISN’T tied into them defeating the ghosts and such (Which, AGAIN, would be an obvious prerequisite to them attacking other races)?
Numbers.
Sheer. Force. of Numbers.
The Charr control FAR more land than any other race, and there are far more of them than any other race. Basically everyone else is either too new to have a continent-spanning civilization, or recovering from one or more horrible disasters that left them nearly extinct. So them losing females on the battlefield will not matter worth a kitten , because they’ll STILL have far, far more troops at their disposal than anyone else. Plus, that same point applies to the other races as well, you know. If a female human, or a female norn, is out on the battlefield, she has just as much of a chance to die without reproducing as a Charr does… If not moreso, due to the Charr’s tendancy towards battlefield romances, and their impersonal stance on child rearing.
Next, the searing cauldrons. They are still QUITE operational, as seen in the personal story quest (Durmand priory) “Blast from the past”. They might not have the power of a god fueling them now, but they would still be more than enough to wipe out a city. The only reason the Charr didn’t use them in the past to finish off the humans is partially out of pride, due to the extreme stigma towards the weapons at the time. The stigma still exists, but when push comes to shove, they’ve been shown willing to use them.
And finally, regarding the flame legion.
Yes, they’ve picked themselves up in the past, but there is only so many times they can do that before theres nothing left to pick up… An inevitability which is drawing nearer and nearer due to their constant loss of troops from a multitude of sources (Desertion, death, disagreement, etc).
Its funny you used the stone summit as an example, there. What happened to them, again? Oh right. They lost their leadership and fell apart.

Just a thought on Sylvary and Nihtmare Court:

I think as far as nightmare court being defeated soon or not it depends on the true nature of what “Nightmare” is… which we have don’t know right now.

What i mean is: when Mordremoth will be defeated, will “Nightmare” still be a thing? And if the two are really that closely intertwined (which is really just as likely as the opposite at this time) would defeating mordremoth really end it? We don’t even know if dragons truly die at the moment, Zhaitan could maybe just be repleaced or reborn in the next cycle and his influence never truly cease. Risen didn’t just fall on the ground after his defeat after all.

It is however possible that with Mordremoth defeat the nightmare will simply cease to exist.

The game suggests btw that the only reason the Nightmare Court haven’t attacked and destroyed the Pale Tree yet is because they don’t have any replacement to grow new Sylvary.

There r a lot of variable to deal with. If (a very big if) someone could unite the norn they would be unstoppable. As shown by eir they are nor just all brawn. They may not have technology like the others but they are far superior physically with just as much or even more magic than any other race. The same is true with the assuran to a degree but even together they could not stop a true norn army. The humans would probably be done for. Unless they could convince the bandits and centaur they are better off with the humans in charge than any other race. Who ever could convince the centaurs to fight with they wins kryta. For the charr it comes down to what the other races do. The could beat the humans in kryta as long as the bandits and centaurs let them be. They would have little chance against the norn in the shiverpeaks due to the fact the norn will at least to some degree fight as a group to defend their home. Same with the assuran but it’s possible the charr could over come them at some point.

There is also the tengu to consider. If the humans could convince them to join them in the war they could hold out against the others for a long time. The tengu being a race of warriors and honor would mist likely only fight with those who share similar traits. The assuran would have almost no chance to get tengu add. The norn and charr are distance enough that the tengu my not be willing the ally with them. While the tengu and humans have had their differences, the geographical closeness and that facts that they know human have honorable warrior and that the 2 seam to have had some sort of peace for a while now would make them the most likely race to ally with.

On numbers:

Officially, ArenaNet has said the numbers of the races are about equal. Personally, I think this is a case of Didn’t Think About The Food Economies – there’s no way that eight-foot norn without much in the way of agriculture and in a relatively nonfertile environemnt could maintain a population as high as the others without holding down a lot more territory than they do. So let’s look at what’s actually reasonable.

First, just looking at the Iron Legion’s land: While it’s probably true that Ascalon represents a bigger ‘claimed’ zone than the others, relatively little of it is turned over to economic activities, including growing of food. The main ‘meatbasket’ is in Diessa – there are also sections in Ashford, the Iron Marches, and a fishing village in Blazeridge. Most of the rest is military installations versus various threats, or actually held by those threats. All up, the amount of land the Iron Legion has available to support a population is roughly equivalent to Kryta’s (there are regions presumably under Iron Legion control that we can’t currently explore such as Regent Valley, but interviews have said the same of western and possibly northern Kryta). Dealing with all their various threats will expand that zone, of course, but the same can be said of Kryta.

When considering the charr as a whole – as I’ve said a few times before, you’re assuming they don’t have their own problems. It’s possible that they’ve already sent as much as they can afford to. It’s also, I think, somewhat cheating to count charr territory ‘off-map’ while not being allowed to do the same for other races. But putting that aside for the sake of argument:

It’s been estimated that it takes 10 times as much land to generate nutrition for a meat-eating diet than a herbivorous or an omnivorous one. Charr are also about twice the size of a typical human, which brings it up to 20 times, but that size also makes the individual charr a stronger combatant to the typical human, so let’s assume they equal out and roughly the same number of calories is needed to supply an army of the same strength. The charr would then need ten times the arable land to supply the same army as humans could field. So how much arable land would they have? Well, historically, the charr were losing against Ascalon alone until Ascalon’s strength was sapped by the Guild Wars and then shattered by the Searing. So it’s probably reasonable to presume that the total army strength that the charr could produce back then was roughly the same as what Ascalon could sustain. Adding the lands of Ascalon would only increase this by 10% – which still puts them ahead of Kryta (which was stalemated by Ascalon during the Guild Wars and lost a lot of land after Zhaitan’s rise), but not overwhelmingly so, and certainly not a patch on what Cantha might be able to add.

Of course, this assumes that the population has reached capacity, which brings up the next point:

You’re correct in that the disadvantages associated with having females in combat applies to other races as well (apart from sylvari, but they work completely differently). However, that’s also completely missing the point. The point is that, apart from one or two decisive battles where you can afford to throw everything in, bringing both genders into combat is not simply doubling your available troops, and it makes your society more susceptible to intergenerational attrition. This means that you can’t simply say that the charr now are able to field twice as many troops as they would be able to under the Flame Legion.

Moving on:

Regarding the Searing Cauldron: The one used in the Personal Story in Orr was a ‘fresh’ one – the charr planned to Sear Orr, but Khilbron beat them to the punch. So it’s not a valid measuring stick. What is a valid measuring stick is the one in Iron Marches – there’s an event where it is used if the players don’t stop it, and it proves to be barely enough to destroy a small nearby village. Frankly, a squad of elementalists calling down Meteor Showers could probably do as much damage, as could a conventional artillery barrage. The cauldron(s) in Ascalon are really not a game-changing military asset any more – they’re not completely useless, but not more effective than an artillery battery.

Regarding the Stone Summit:

You think you’ve caught me out, but the Stone Summit actually proves my point.

We killed their leader, Dagnar Stonepate, in Thunderhead Keep. They retreated to their fortress, but were still a major threat under the leadership of the Hierophants.

We then rooted them out of there… but while they retreated, they rallied in the Far Shiverpeaks, establishing new bases and maintaining enough of a power base there that, when the Deldrimor army arrived to fight the Destroyers, the Stone Summit were able to assault it with enough force to threaten to wipe it out without the intervention of the PCs. After a number of dungeons and quests fighting the Stone Summit, the final dungeon of EotN – which doesn’t even open until you’ve defeated the Great Destroyer – is to kill the ‘Last Hierophant’.

And did that finish them off? Officially, no – according to interviews, the Stone Summit persisted until they succumbed to the Ritual of the Great Dwarf.

Never count on an antagonist group in Tyria going down to a single blow, no matter how powerful. At best, the Flame Citadel paths are equivalent to the defeat of Dagnar and the fall of Sorrow’s Furnace. It may just be equivalent to the defeat of Dagnar – the Flame Citadel may not be the Flame Legion’s primary fortress (we still don’t know where Hrangmer is, except that it’s northeast of the Plains of Golghein, which is not present on the current map. For the Flame Citadel to be Hrangmer, not only is this putting it within the territory of Ascalon prior to 1070AE, it would also mean that the Plains pretty much have to be in one of the currently explorable zones, and I’m pretty sure we’d know if they were), just the one within the currently explorable territory.

Frankly, I’d be willing to bet a couple hundred gold that the Flame Legion aren’t down for the count, if I had any faith that at the rate ArenaNet is going we’d get a definite answer within, oh, this decade.

I’d like a staff member to weigh in on this.

One of Humanity’s best quality is the shared ability to seek and identify a mission that benefits the common good. That’s what we are known for. That’s why we are the Apex predator.

Unlike the apparently more obvious choices – in the real world. Tyria of course is not the real world but…… humans are humans.

The Krytans and the citizens of the Stronghold of Ebonhawke – the defenders of their glorious past would have closed ranks ever more closely after the battle against Zhaitan and the more recent battle against the forces lead by Scarlett.

I do not believe that Arenanet has fully acknowledged this racial trait.

In an all out “we’ve all just declared war on each other” we can see….

*Humans: Have faced crisis after crisis and have proven that they can pull through when it counts. While not technologically superior in any way, they have proven that they can hold their own when it counts. Their disadvantage is that humans in Kryta have the Norn in the Shiverpeaks to deal with and the humans in Ebonhawke have the Charr to deal with unless they all decide to group up in Divinity’s Reach or something.

*Asura: Arguably the most technologically superior of the races, I see them creating
Some type of mass destruction super weapon as opposed to marching soldiers or razing cities. It’d be a little bit tougher to invade their capital seeing as it’s a floating cube. Which I suppose would limit you to air raids or realllllllllly far reaching siege weaponry.

*Norn: These guys are tough, historically, the norn have been a society focused on individual heroics as opposed acting as an actual army. They have the advantage fighting at home with being used to the cold but they are surrounded by the humans from Kryta and the Charr on the east. The norn can be incredibly powerful but it’s a toss up between how well they fight against the Charr legions.

*Charr: These guys seem to be the favorite and with good reason. Every cub is trained to be ready for war and their the most industrialized society with most of their resources being used to build great war machines. The Charr would probably take the first offensives but fighting a war against 3 other races isn’t some weekend DIY project, I wonder if their aggressiveness would hold.

The victor? It’s tough, if we’re simulating the whole war here, I see this playing out…

*Charr attack humans at Ebonhawke and prepare to attack the Norn – humans flee to Kryta
*Norn prepare their defenses against the Charr and attack them as the Charr are partially focused on getting rid of the humans.
*Humans avoid attacking the Norn and try to let them duke it out with the Charr.

• Charr could either win due to their technology or the Norn beat them with their advantage fighting in the cold. We can assume Charr victory here although it would need more analyzing to see the realistic outcome.
  *Humans v. Charr – Humans have “hometown” advantage and the battle would be long and drawn out but I give the Charr the victory here just because they have the perfect weapons for siege tactics on Divinity’s reach although by this point their numbers will have dwindled by a noticeable amount
  *Charr v. Asura: The Asura have had the most time to prepare and are on par with the Charr technologically if not superior. I give the victory to the Asura, their technology along with time to prepare against the battle-worn Charr (imo) would prove too much for the remainder of the legions.

All of this is assuming
A) the Sylvari are practically nonexistent
B) The Charr are the most aggressive conquering race and they march on the humans (Ascalon) -> norn -> humans (Kryta) -> Asura one after the other in that order.

One issue I have with your finale there, Aeria, is simply that, should the Charr reach Divinity’s Reach, it’d be a rather short lived Siege, since conquering Queensdale has been shown to be childsplay (Doable even by the centaurs), so they would likely have to blow the dam to survive, at which point it wouldn’t be too long before they starved seeing as how DR has no internal food sources, using queensdale for its farmland.
And as for the Asura… Well, the charr have a vast numbers advantage, and their warfare technology is more reliable. The Asura are a really limited race, populationwise, and have never even heard the word ‘’testing". Whereas the Charr… Are kind of the opposite. Like I’ve said many times in this topic, every race except for the Charr and Sylvari are currently attempting to recover from a horrible cataclysm that rendered their race endangered… And the sylvari are born of a tree, which can be annihilated with fire very easily, so they’re not a threat to anyone.
Tl;Dr, I still say Charr would win.

One thing that needs to be taken into account is that a lot of the Charr’s current military success rests with their great, steam-powered siege engines. However, there’s no direct route to bring those mighty machines to Kryta. They’d either have to bring them over the Shiverpeaks (cold weather wreaks havoc on steam machines, meaning that a lot of them would probably break down or be unable to cross the mountains), or they’d have to ship the parts by sea to Lion’s Arch, or another major port, and reassemble them there. That would provide Kryta with a huge advantage by allowing them to prevent the Charr from even landing there in the first place. (And I suspect Lion’s Arch would not allow its docks to be used as a beachhead for landing war machines, so the Charr would need to conquer them first. The combined forces of the Lionguard and the Seraph might be able to hold off the Charr armies for a very long time.)

Additionally, the centaurs getting into Queensdale was due to Caudecus playing a Palpatine and engineering crises in order to make a political rival look incompetent. A serious charr invasion would not receive the same benefit – Caudecus is willing to weaken Kryta in order to gain control of it himself, but not risk destroying it entirely.

For the Ministry, the centaurs are a minor enough threat that they feel that once they’ve got what they want, they’ll be able to beat the centaurs back trivially (thus cementing their credentials as being the ones to bring security to Kryta where the queen couldn’t). Give them a credible threat to themselves rather than to farmers and villagers that they don’t care about, though, and they’ll throw their resources into shoring up the defenses rather than compromising them. So the centaurs getting into Queensdale is far from a guarantee that an invasion from a force that would pose a real threat to Divinity’s Reach itself would get that far.