Guild Wars 2

Are the elder dragons universally “allied” with eachother with the common goal to consume all life on Tyria, or are they all acting alone?

If magical energy is a resource they consume, and assuming there is a finite amount of magical energy available, it seems logical to conclude that the elder dragons could possibly compete with eachother over Tyria’s resources. If this is true, it could be possible that the dragons are actually enemies with eachother, with each one in a power struggle to corrupt and consume more than its bretheren. Potentially, this could lead to in-fighting, which I could see the races of Tyria being able to use to their advantage in their efforts to defeat the dragons. What better weapon is there to fight an elder dragon than another elder dragon?

Right now, each elder dragon has its own area of influence, and (to my knowledge) we never see different types of dragon minions in the same locations. But, I wonder if one was able to collect different types of dragon minions in one area, if they would fight eachother.

Any thoughts on this?

They are acting individually. But this doesn’t mean they’re rivals.

That’s really all we know for certain. We don’t see them attacking each other actively, but we know that minions that happen to wander near each other will fight to the death like when they meet any other living being. We know they function individually and don’t have a hierarchy, but this doesn’t mean they’re not friendly.

The only in-game case of dragon minions interacting with each other is Crucible of Eternity, but here they’re all under the control of Subject Alpha who was corrupted by the energies of five Elder Dragons (and control those five dragons’ minions). So that’s not a proper example for that.

I personally believe they’re all rivals. Otherwise Kralky and Prim would have came to save their sibling Zhai. I also believe all of the dragons have a strong dislike of each other, though will not go out of their way to screw each other over. Otherwise they would have been at each other’s necks already. Kralky and Prim come off as me as two dragons who love to manipulate events (in my own mind) to their own favor, so don’t be surprised if they’re two of the final dragons we take out. Hell, I won’t be surprised if Prim creates a path straight to Mord with his minions just to make it easier for the Pact to get rid of a rival.

Another angle to look at it would be to question how intelligent Elder Dragons are. Now some believe (with evidence I will admit) that EDs are intelligent/ sentient creatures. If this is the case I imagine they would have alliances of convenience, although these would be rare if at all.
Now if we believe that EDs are mindless forces of nature bent only on consuming magic (some evidence as well, although this requires us to place tactical and logical choices on the Champions) then they’d be actively competing for the same resources and have no reason to be diplomatic about it. So they’d only attack each other when they come across each other, but have no active rivalry.

Of course the nature of there relationship needs some consideration since magic being finite inevitably they have to come into conflict each cycle when magic starts running low. Since they’ve been around for at least 2 cycles it’s possible that there use to be a whole lot more of them.