Guild Wars 2

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Except that you have to be able to mine it – that’s why the Quarry exists, obviously it’s not as simple as going out with a pickaxe and hacking away at any random bit of the Jade Sea. Just like anything else it’s a specialised skill, which is what enables them to make money from it. It’s no different to farming, technically anyone can get hold of some land and some cows, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to turn a profit from it.

Imagining for the sake of argument that there isn’t much of a quality difference – why wouldn’t it be that simple? Open-pit mining does require substantially more resources, yes, but if the product were the same as what’s on the surface, why bother going to those lengths? Cracking bits off the surface will produce the same goods, and you don’t need to spend huge amounts of labor getting to it.

That’s how our Chalcolithic/Bronze Age ancestors used to get their metal ore – from deposits on or close to the surface. The serious underground mining operations didn’t start until that ran out – otherwise the use of metal would never have happened as early as it did.

If the Jade Sea was sufficiently dangerous, that would make some difference – though I doubt the Luxons would have the manpower to police a border of such immense size. It also doesn’t justify open-cast mining from a single site versus moving around – unless you’re turning that site into a fortress, anyway, since there are defensibility issues to worry about. (JQ being attacked so regularly would make it unlikely that that was a significant factor, though – if I were the Luxons and the specific site didn’t matter that much, I’d set up somewhere further from the border.)

So, we’re basically back at the quality thing for a sufficiently strong explanation – which has some interesting complications. It has to be much better, and it has to be obvious what the difference is (otherwise it’s cheaper to get average jade and pretend it’s good). Perhaps the magical properties of this jade are so much stronger that it can be used for things that more pedestrian material can’t.

Maybe the fact that the luxons seemed to mine exclusively from the Jade Sea would indicate that it is, in fact, a different jade. Not only was it readily available (even with aforementioned defensive issues by Sirius. Good points to consider, by the way, especially given that Luxons are nomadic, and personally I wouldn’t expect them to be particularly expert at holding or defending positions.) but something about it was obviously appealing. It was mentioned to be of varying quality in certain areas, so maybe there is a standard rock jade that nobody cares to bother with, because it’s simple plane ordinary, albeit pretty rock, and why bother mining it when there is magic/malleable/prettier/whatever jade to be mined and used and is literally right under their feet? I’m still leaning into the idea that the jade statue is of simple variety, and not sea variety. Either that, or the sea is thawing VERY slowly (Very likely that it is) and one day a surprised Zephyrite will wake up to a smaller fish statue standing in a puddle of sea water.
And of course there is the idea that it’s not thawing at all, but why bother mentioning it so often if it wasn’t? I mean, I know it’s possible that the speculations were written in the game, and not actually fact, but I feel like people (NPC’s) were actually noticing change in the Echovald and Jade sea areas. Even if it is a very slow change.

this concept shows Destiny’s Edge at the sea:

That’s also just a concept, though, and in no way canon. It only means that at some point, ANet considered the idea that the sea remained petrified- we can draw no conclusions as to whether they stuck with it, changed their minds, or still haven’t decided yet.

If I am correct the Jade Sea has The Deep right under it…..

The mine tunnel under the Jade if I’m correct…… The Jade Sea’s water under the Jade would be water in the tunnels…..

The only water I’ve seen ingame seems to be in mine areas…. everywhere else seems like a literal Jade Sea(which bizzarely functions as a big beach with no water).

Echovald seems to be growing moss and ferns….

ALL of this, I imagine, assumes that all jade statuary must have come from the Jade Sea in Cantha. Looking at the original picture, this is clearly a statue made of jade, NOT a fish encased in Jade (something we saw often in Factions).

The only remaining question, then, is the source of the jade used for the sculpture. (Although I do agree that a block of that size probably couldn’t have come from a normal jade deposit – I’m just pointing out the possibility that non-Jade-Sea jade might exist.)

My own personal opinion on the Jade Sea itself is that it IS thawing, but that it’s going to be a colossally gradual process. I rather like the mental image Kokittenve, with the “jadebergs”.

Shiro’s death shriek instantly turned an entire forest into stone, and an entire sea into jade. And the effects of this lasted until his permanent defeat, 200 years later. But just because the magic happened in an instant, does not mean it will let go just as fast. The magic/curse/whatever that maintained its status has ended, but recovery – the return of life to the affected area – will take time. (Insert parallels to cataclysmic natural disasters or nuclear fallout here.)

With the forest, it was easier to detect – the trees are all plainly visible, above ground, after all. The Jade Sea goes pretty deep, so it would be hard to tell if anything’s happening, at least until it gets closer to where it can be verified.

Several ideas here:

1. This fish is not out of the jade from the Jade Sea itself.
Contra: Why do soemthing like that, if there is plenty of jade in the sea…
Maybe the fish is made in Cantha, but the Jade is from somwhere else…

Was Cantha offical mentioned by someone from the Zephyrites? Or did they just say “on our travels”? There should be Canthans outside of Cantha.

2. The Jade Sea is thawing, but slowly and still not enough to be meaningfull reduced.

3. They found a way to bind the magic in the Jade, subsequently allowing them to keep using it.
Idea: think about cities on bound jade which suddenly loose their foothold as something steals the magic from it

Would the Zephirites even be able to land in Cantha? They got several races on board if i am not mistaken, though i guess they got trade imunity maybe…

There are a LOT of hints toward them stopping at Cantha.

Yeah, I got that suspicion from Taimi’s journaling. How exactly they plan to do it, whether they’ve done it before (or even make the trip on a regular basis), and how it’ll go, is not so clear. They obviously don’t need to land much, and some of them have apparently never set foot on the ground, so my guess is they might just send down “culturally acceptable” representatives to deal with the Canthans.

As far as I recall, Cantha isn’t under an actual embargo – I think it was the activities of Zhaitan that prevented anyone from attempting the voyage by sea (I don’t think “Bubbles” actually came into the picture there, though I could be mistaken). So it’s not unthinkable that they would welcome traders who managed to find their way to Cantha by air…

One thing I’m curious about is whether they’ve ever attempted the trip before, though. I don’t recall any extremely strong hints that they have; their architecture and decor do have a resemblance, though, which might mean something. On the other hand, I note that they are also tied in with Glint, a Tyrian dragon – although I forget whether that was always the case – and Zhaitan’s forces also included quite a few undead dragons which could have made even an airborne journey perilous, at least until the Pact moved in. It’s not exactly clear how successful they’ve been at mopping up that part.

In the Sea of Sorrows book, there definitely was trade between Kryta and Cantha before the rising of Zhaitan, although we don’t know much about the circumstances of that trade (for instance, Cantha might have a special trader’s area that foreigners are restricted to).

On the note of jade products (jade weapons, statues in Labyrinthine Cliffs, etc.) turning back to “water” if the Jade Sea was ever to reverse its transformation, are we sure there were no jade mines/deposits in Cantha before the Jade Wind transformed the Jade Sea?

Yes, the Luxons changed their trade to mine jade from the Jade Sea, but could there be other natural deposits where Canthans mined it from previously (and perhaps still)?
And incidently, what was the name of the Jade Sea before the Jade Wind transformed it? It’s that old “hen or the egg” topic, but how did they even know to call it the Jade Wind or the Jade Sea if they didn’t know what jade was already? (if that argument holds at all)

Anyway, even Anet are hinting at Echovald Forest returning to life and Jade Sea possibly reversing its transformation, as both Konig and Ansari referred to the EotN manual. Yes, these were “unsubstantiated rumours”, but still, printed as background/lore in a manual for the last GW expansion, it’s difficult to rule out that the effects of the Jade Wind might one day be reversed.

There was a chunk of jade in an old lighthouse(It was the focus of the light beams) in the jade sea I remember a picture of. Not much of a point to put it there post jade wind.

draxynnic – that is true, and it only happened roughly a century ago – well after Usoku’s reforms – so Cantha never was actually closed to trade, just non-humans (I seem to recall the entire crew of that ship was human, mostly Krytan I think).

I wonder why things have to be so convoluted. Perhaps, the Jade Sea, once turned to Jade is.. Jade..forever. Not frozen, not capable of “melting”, nada. Water could indeed slowly return to the basin that was the Jade sea, slowly creating a shallow inland sea of water.. over jade. A sea could return without reversing or “melting” transformed Jade.

The story, as little as it is, mentions water “returning”, not jade “melting”

Growth could return to Echovald Forest. Over the stone ruins of the former one.

There is no indication that Tyrian nature is any less resilient and persistent than our own. There need not be any “magical” properties involved, over 250 years, to return the areas to a more natural state, although with many relics of the transformation remaining. All we need look at is how nature, on our planet, has reclaimed areas of disaster in a far shorter time.

Simple acceptance of the literal “turned to jade” would negate the need for “magical” maintainence of jade artifacts and a whole lot of nonsense.

And on a somewhat unrelated rant.. the real damage of the unneeded retcon of Tyrian magic rears its head again. Bleeding magic, Perhaps there is a Dragon, Oooo.. Ley lines. We now have an “explainitall” in game, and every time there is speculation on events we are going to see “Bleeding magic, Dragon, and Ley Lines” tossed into the mix.

Terrible.

draxynnic.3719:

In the Sea of Sorrows book, there definitely was trade between Kryta and Cantha before the rising of Zhaitan, although we don’t know much about the circumstances of that trade (for instance, Cantha might have a special trader’s area that foreigners are restricted to).

Ahh, no. Canthans loved humans, they were xenophobic. Cobiah mentioned that he explored Kaineng City when he went there. I see no reason why the Canthans wouldn’t allow traders to see their city, if you recall, they LOVE showing off their superiority.

Charrlizard.8041:

draxynnic.3719:

In the Sea of Sorrows book, there definitely was trade between Kryta and Cantha before the rising of Zhaitan, although we don’t know much about the circumstances of that trade (for instance, Cantha might have a special trader’s area that foreigners are restricted to).

Ahh, no. Canthans loved humans, they were xenophobic. Cobiah mentioned that he explored Kaineng City when he went there. I see no reason why the Canthans wouldn’t allow traders to see their city, if you recall, they LOVE showing off their superiority.

It’s mainly a case of seemingly conflicting information- as far as I can tell, early on they meant for Cantha to go isolationist much earlier, and I recall seeing some relics of that in-game. Other in-game sources, and the more recent Sea of Sorrows, seems to have done away with that, so I’d lean towards thinking Cantha was open to foreigners until Zhaitan’s rise.

That said, there have been several points when Cantha closed themselves off from foreign contact, so it wouldn’t be out of character for them.