Guild Wars 2

We’ve killed two elder dragons so far. What were the elder races able to accomplish? Well, they cured glint, and managed to differ the problem so there descendents would have to deal with them.

Frankly, I’m not impressed with them.

Oh yeah, they created the exalted. So far the exalted haven’t done anything helpful.

Keep in mind that the elder races lacked two things the modern races have in abundance:

1) Unity. The elder races were brought down not by the Elder Dragons but by the mursaat’s betrayal and subsequent near genocide of the Seers.

2) Technology. The only technological race of the elder races were the dwarves, and their technology goes as far as blackpowder and trebuchets in GW1.

However, you’re also ignoring the fact that the Elder Races:

1) Put the Elder Dragons to sleep via starvation by the creation of the Bloodstone.
2) Created a means to effectively fight and survive the Elder Dragons (unfortunately, the mursaat took their Spectral Agony and dimensional phasing with them when they left for the Mists, leaving the others mostly defenseless – and wholly offenseless).
3) Discovered magic that was not only able to break the mental enslavement between Elder Dragon and dragon minion, but also prevented corruption.
3.1) The latter magic being used on the Exalted, who had kept Mordremoth back before the Pact arrived, seemingly, as well as gave them refuge when they were recovering
3.2) The former not only used on Glint but seemingly used on the Pale Tree (no other explanation for why both Pale Tree and Malyck seems free of Mordremoth), which allowed the sylvari to be a thing, which in turn allowed a major advance against Zhaitan, the forming of the Pact, and effectively all things the modern races have accomplished.
3.3) Glint’s turn also allowed the races to survive, and created enough preparation for the next awakening cycle – of which we’re likely to see take fuller root in the next LW Season or two (or next expansion).
4) Dwarves ended up stalling Primordus, keeping him from wrecking Tyria’s surface for enough time for the modern races to find out about Elder Dragons.

Effectively, without the Seers and Forgotten and possibly dwarves, modern races couldn’t accomplish what they have.

Also we dont know how many dragons was or wasnt killed before. for all we know we could be repeating something thats leading to a disaster thats happen before :s
they clearly knew something we havnt realised yet (well at least the forgotton and sheers did)

There is a text somewhere that indirectly hints that the elder races did actually take down 1 dragon

Which dragon would that be? The dragons that are affecting us now all survived the last round.

DarcShriek.5829:

Which dragon would that be? The dragons that are affecting us now all survived the last round.

I have to find it but it indicates that there may have been more than 6 elder dragons at one time. It’s a kinda vague references and doesn’t give any details as to what the other dragon(s) may have been linked to

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Keep in mind that the elder races lacked two things the modern races have in abundance:

2) Technology. The only technological race of the elder races were the dwarves, and their technology goes as far as blackpowder and trebuchets in GW1.

You forgot about the Jotan. Even if its not double confirmed the Jotan have stories of their civilization and had technologies such as telescopes, which in my opinion is much more advanced than trebuchets.

ColdSlot.6928:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Keep in mind that the elder races lacked two things the modern races have in abundance:

2) Technology. The only technological race of the elder races were the dwarves, and their technology goes as far as blackpowder and trebuchets in GW1.

You forgot about the Jotan. Even if its not double confirmed the Jotan have stories of their civilization and had technologies such as telescopes, which in my opinion is much more advanced than trebuchets.

Also much less useful for, y’know, just about anything to do with surviving an endless horde of monsters. Konig was speaking in context of the things they had to handle the Elder Dragons, and so far as we know the jotun didn’t bring anything to the table in that regard except enchanted swords, magic, and some loose understanding that the EDs had a bigger role at play in the cosmos.

We really don’t know what technologies those races had. If they had telescopes and magical towers with scrying pools, who’s to say they didn’t have something great they could weaponize? The Cauldron of Cataclysm and the scrolls that caused The Cataclysm (interestingly not caused by the aforementioned cauldron) certainly didn’t come from the current races. In the Cauldron’s case, it was given to the Charr by the Titans, (as orchestrated by Abaddon), but did the Titans/Abaddon actually MAKE that weapon? (Serious question, I don’t know if it was ever mentioned)

It was many centuries and one apocalypse ago that these weapons would have been made. Any of the races that weren’t completely wiped out had to re-populate in a world that suddenly had several other races occupying it. I think the best argument for “they didn’t have good war tech” is the dwarves. Who have garbage war tech by modern standards. But I would argue that they might have had a much more advanced civilization before the dragons. There’s even a hint of them existing in Cantha. But the dragons nearly killing the planet would have probably put a hard reset on their civilization, and when it was safe for them to grow again, they were stuck with growing at about the same rate as the rest of the new races that filled the spaces that were once filled by Mursaat and Seers and Dwarves and such.

I would also argue that their lack of technology and unity would, in fact, make them chumps xD. We were able to get our kitten together and fight back given nothing but ingenuity and good old fashioned Tyria magic. What was their excuse? What prevented them from pooling together and creating better tech? What prevented them from setting aside personal grudges or self preservation and decide to fight together?
Very chump-like behavior, I think xD

Telescopes are Renaissance technology – so roughly equivalent to early cannons, but still a long way from what the charr had. The two aren’t linked technologies, either, so that’s just an observation of how things happened on Earth. From memory of the jotun path, it’s also strongly implied that magic is involved in its construction, putting it more on par with asura magitech (or even human at its height).

The problem that Konig relates that the elder races had is that while apart from the dwarves they all had potent magitech, there’s no evidence of nonmagical military technology beyond the relatively crude use of explosive powder by the dwarves… and we don’t know for sure they even had that at the time of the last rising. This is a gamechanger: regular magic weapons become food for the dragon if you lose a battle, while a destroyed charr warcar is just scrap metal.

Keep in mind, also, that the charr technological revolution was built off reverse-engineering dwarven inventions – without the dwarves, we wouldn’t have that advantage. The modern races have benefited from the knowledge, actions, and artifacts of the elder races. Their success is due to the combined efforts of the elder and modern races, not of the modern races alone. Newton’s quote about standing on the shoulders of giants comes to mind here.

It’s worth noting that despite this, there is evidence that at least some of the elder races survived multiple awakenings, so it appears that their strategy was largely working (possibly better than killing them). The plaques in Tarir suggest that the near-annihilation of the seers meant that the capability to produce new bloodstones was lost along with a significant portion of their combined military strength, however, thus requiring a change in strategy.

Furthermore, before describing the elder races as chumps due to their disunity, we should consider the threats to the unity of the modern races. It’s been pretty strongly indicated that if the Arcane Council had a means of extracting the asura and leaving the other races to go hang, they’d take it… and the Inquest is working to provide such a means. The charr-human war is one coup – on either side of the border – away from breaking out again. HoT trailers teased us with a massive backlash of other races against the sylvari, which we haven’t really seen apart from some Pact vigilantism. And the norn have never been unified in the first place. Let’s face it, the unity of the major Tyrian races is three events away from dissolving completely. Once the dragons are dead or asleep without one of those events happening, then maybe we can crow about elder race disunity without taking the chance of having to eat that crow later.

Valik Shin.9027:

There is a text somewhere that indirectly hints that the elder races did actually take down 1 dragon

I don’t recall any such indication. There is mention of six dragons in the past, and there are six dragons now (though one’s not affecting Tyria – directly).

ColdSlot.6928:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Keep in mind that the elder races lacked two things the modern races have in abundance:

2) Technology. The only technological race of the elder races were the dwarves, and their technology goes as far as blackpowder and trebuchets in GW1.

You forgot about the Jotan. Even if its not double confirmed the Jotan have stories of their civilization and had technologies such as telescopes, which in my opinion is much more advanced than trebuchets.

I didn’t forget it. As Aaron said, telescopes aren’t very useful in war – and the jotun had given no known militant assistant during the last dragonrise. Their story is more neglected than humanity’s in the modern time, which barely adds anything that norn don’t – which is pretty much just physical forces, in turn that’s not very useful against the Elder Dragons except as canon fodder and meat shields for the actual canons.

And as draxynnic said, what ‘technology’ that the jotun had actually appears to be magitech – aka food for dragons. Only the dwarves had pure raw technology, like the charr do, and theirs was drastically inferior.

Squee.7829:

We really don’t know what technologies those races had. If they had telescopes and magical towers with scrying pools, who’s to say they didn’t have something great they could weaponize? The Cauldron of Cataclysm and the scrolls that caused The Cataclysm (interestingly not caused by the aforementioned cauldron) certainly didn’t come from the current races. In the Cauldron’s case, it was given to the Charr by the Titans, (as orchestrated by Abaddon), but did the Titans/Abaddon actually MAKE that weapon? (Serious question, I don’t know if it was ever mentioned)

The Priory’s plan in Orr does go into a tad bit more on the cauldrons – the Cauldron of Cataclysm was given to the charr, but the Flame Legion were the ones to enchant and duplicate it – and given CoF’s Searing Effigy and the purple hue of the Searing Crystals in GW2, the idea must be that they siphoned from hibernating Kralkatorrik to enchant the cauldrons.

As for the elder races’ technology… Yes, they had magitech, and they had magic. They no doubt had powerful spells too. We know they had powerful magitech and powerful magic.

But that’s it – everything the elder races had relied on magic, at least given all of our information. The only exception to this is the dwarves, but all indication points to their technology never exceeding the invention of blackpowder.

And dragons eat magic.

I don’t think you can kill a person by throwing pies at him.

Squee.7829:

I would also argue that their lack of technology and unity would, in fact, make them chumps xD. We were able to get our kitten together and fight back given nothing but ingenuity and good old fashioned Tyria magic. What was their excuse? What prevented them from pooling together and creating better tech? What prevented them from setting aside personal grudges or self preservation and decide to fight together?
Very chump-like behavior, I think xD

They relied on magic too much, which made their civilizations greater than modern Tyria’s, but it in turn made them weaker to Elder Dragons.

Unlike them, the modern races had warnings and preventions against the Elder Dragons. Our entire success is wholly dependent on the few successes the elder races had.

Without their records, the Forgotten’s actions with Glint (and probably the Pale Tree’s seed), the dwarves turning to stone, and the creation of the Bloodstone the modern races would not have stood a chance.

Without the elder races:

• There’d be no sylvari – no sylvari means no cleansing of Orr, no Trahearne to lead the Pact (no individual that all three Orders respect)
• The mursaat would still be enslaving humanity (because Glint wouldn’t have been there to lead to their demise in GW1), who would no doubt act the same as they did before (as they did in Prophecies): sacrifice other races in the thousands to save their own hides; and the charr would still be following titans (and thus Abaddon) under the Flame Legion – which means no alliance with them
• Without the dwarves the Great Destroyer wouldn’t have been killed (it was thanks to them that we got the forewarning), leading to the asura’s (near?) extinction, and destroyers would have begun breaking the surface in 1078 instead of ~1320. Further – as drax points out – if the charr had the chance of a revolution (which wouldn’t be clear without Glint thus the Flameseeker Prophecies), they would still be unable to reverse engineer the dwarves’ technology for their speedy industrial revolution, leading them to not have as much technology as they do now, reducing any potential Pact’s advantage greatly.

Without the Forgotten and dwarves’ actions, the entire history of the lore changes. And not for the better. The only group of the modern races that would be effectively unchanged is the norn.

So those ‘chump races’ are the entire reason why modern races have made the progress they have.

The elder races might have known something we dont.
I just think back to what mordremoth says when we kill him “what have you DONE?!”
there have been many hints that killing the elder dragons could have disastrous consequences for tyria. Maybe the elder races knew this and knew WHY and their strategies for handling the elder dragons reflected that.
Alternatively.
Its also possible that the elder races were and still continue to orchestrate some kind of long grand plan. Maybe through all these awakenings the elder races have slowly been orchestrating a plan to solve the elder dragon problem once and for all, and the steps taken during the previous rises were just necessary steps to culminate to the current awakening where we (the future generations) could finally complete the plan. Maybe this is what glints legacy is all about, perhaps the forgotten used the previous awakening to complete the part of their plan to free glint and gain her aid, and then durring the dragon’s slumber, with the help of a former elder dragon champion could finish the last steps and preparations for the final confrontation with the elder dragons(the current rising)

Just as an observation, there are lots of ways to kill people with food, and I think the same is true when it comes to dragons. You can poison the food, and beating someone over the head with food is still blunt force trauma rather than nutrition… and I think the Pact has used both techniques against the dragons.

The problem is that as long as the food remains edible, if you lose the dragon can then pick up and eat the food, thereby disarming the assailant.

Kayberz.5346:

The elder races might have known something we dont.
I just think back to what mordremoth says when we kill him “what have you DONE?!”
there have been many hints that killing the elder dragons could have disastrous consequences for tyria. Maybe the elder races knew this and knew WHY and their strategies for handling the elder dragons reflected that.
Alternatively.
Its also possible that the elder races were and still continue to orchestrate some kind of long grand plan. Maybe through all these awakenings the elder races have slowly been orchestrating a plan to solve the elder dragon problem once and for all, and the steps taken during the previous rises were just necessary steps to culminate to the current awakening where we (the future generations) could finally complete the plan. Maybe this is what glints legacy is all about, perhaps the forgotten used the previous awakening to complete the part of their plan to free glint and gain her aid, and then durring the dragon’s slumber, with the help of a former elder dragon champion could finish the last steps and preparations for the final confrontation with the elder dragons(the current rising)

This… pretty much feels like it’s exactly what’s happening, except with the betrayal of the mursaat they weren’t able to survive with their civilisations intact to carry it out themselves.

That said, the plaques in Tarir suggest that storing magic in a bloodstone was pretty much the way they did it in previous rises. Thinking on it, what I suspect might be the case is that their usual method of survival was that the Seers would store uncorrupted magic in a bloodstone, thereby hiding it from the dragons and putting them into hibernation. The Seers would then release the magic again, allowing them to pick up where it left off.

Last time around, the mursaat betrayal, as well as leading to the near extinction of the seers, seems to have prevented this from happening. Cleansing Glint may have been an act of desperation, and then it was Glint that came up with a new plan for the future. With the Seers all but wiped out, it’s possible that the capability to unlock the bloodstones again was lost – which might be why the gods were brought in as well (because they did have the capability of unlocking the bloodstone that the surviving Seers had lost).

The seers died out in a war with a mursaat not from the elder dragons

That’s what drax said. Said war happened during the previous dragonrise given all known lore. The mursaat betrayed the other races, which includes nearly wiping out the Seers (not completely, but enough that they couldn’t recover), then fled from Tyria for a thousand years.

Now we see if the current races can succeed where the Elder Races failed. It seems like LSS3 could very much be Guild Wars 2: Civil War.