Guild Wars 2

During the Queen’s Jubilee/Clockwork Chaos installment of the Living Story you might have made the acquaintance of Emissary Vorpp: A snoopy asura first inspecting Watchknights, then investigating leads related to the hijacking of them. One of the Emissary’s contributions to tracking down the hijacker(s) was reverse-engineering a Watchwork Portal Device. Eager players followed his instructions, hoping to use their own Watchwork Portal Devices to discover some hidden content. But they were no more than a troupe for the portal’s designer(s) – they could never port to the same location twice, everyone was randomly generated. Now the vitriol of the players who discovered this is archived in our forums…

One thing seems evident: Scarlet has a personal portal device, perhaps a Watchwork Portal Device, unique in that she can actually control her port entry and exit points. How she has managed to achieve such control is probably best left the subject of speculation, but she certainly enjoys it, utilizing every opportunity afforded by it to evade capture.
Indeed, Scarlet seems to have a fascination with portal tech – she probably thinks that portals (in general) are an important part of the elusive “key that allows one to access the basic fabric of reality itself”. And when we consider this, a number of uncanny coincidences become apparent: Scarlet commands the forces of at least two factions whose magic and/or technology is closely associated with portal tech: The Flame Legion and the Steam Creatures. She may have approached them intially for their knowledge of portal mechanics. She certainly didn’t approach powerful mesmers (although she does seem to bear a grudge against Queen Jennah’s ability to utilise portals) for whatever reason. Perhaps she chose not to because mesmer portal magic is too localized, or rather too impotent, to allow her to port between realms. (We note, for example, that whenever Scarlet opens a portal it has a limited power supply, that power supply probably being a charged crystal; mesmer portals may not be powerful enough to provide either the same range or window of opportunity to be useful to Scarlet.) Whatever the case, she seems to have approached the Flame Legion and the Steam Creatures for knowledge of portal tech.
Why? This is the big question that we’re all debating. We don’t really have much in the way of evidence of motive, at least in this regard. However, I would like to direct everyone’s attention to something Scarlet does have a problem with, something that may help clarify why she relies on portal tech so much: The Dream Of Dreams. According to the Wiki, entrance to the Dream Of Dreams is controlled by the Pale Tree, who is “capable of sending beings, including non-sylvari, into the Dream…through a portal similar to those which often lead to the Mists”. Scarlet may be seeking a way to do just that, without the aid of the Pale Tree: Create a portal to the Dream Of Dreams, through which she can send anything, no doubt in an effort to destroy it…

If this is the case, we have to wonder whether Scarlet’s latest alliance also draws on portal tech. Maybe. Here, the evidence is nowhere near as clear-cut. Sure, there are steam portals strewn here and there in the Kessex Hills – including a massive one that seems to be floating in the sky, a much larger portal than most that Scarlet has relied on. Nonetheless, I would like to suggest that if Scarlet’s latest handiwork draws on anything to do with portals, it is to do with portals to the Underworld. Let’s face it, the forces at Scarlet’s disposal dwell along at least one of the ley lines running from Thaumanova; Grenth’s Door, a portal to the Underworld, also lies along this line. It seems that if Scarlet could command any force utilizing portal tech, it would be the forces of the Underworld. Indeed, when she approached the Nightmare Court, she may have stated that she could do just that: Command Underworld portals, somehow amplifying the Nightmare.

Most lore fans would dismiss this idea. For starters, previous posts have downplayed an association between Nightmare creatures and the Nightmare Court and I would agree that in and of itself these two factions have no reason to associate. However, the recent developments in the Kessex Hills argue against viewing (at least this faction of) the Nightmare Court as a group only concerned with the conversion of their own kind – namely, other sylvari. Instead, what we have is the development of a vision to introduce “Nightmare” to every creature on the face of Tyria and what better way to do this than by terraforming the landscape (in a way reminiscent of what the Flame Legion have achieved in their homelands and possibly in consultation with them) and introducing a new kind of creature to it, a hybrid “Nightmare”. After all, if anything is equipped to spread “Nightmare” it is a creature of the Underworld. Just think of Godlost Swamp and the plight of those poor “Tortured Spirits”. Like Nightmare Courtiers, Nightmare creatures engage in acts of cruelty. But the reach of a Nightmare creature is not as far as it would like. It will torture spirits, but it longs for more – it wishes to torture flesh and blood before it passes through Death’s door. For these creatures, then, incarnation is a tantalizing way of spreading their terror not only into the living world of humans, but also all beings of flesh and blood…

So Scarlet’s latest work may involve a portal to the Underworld and the incarnation of a Nightmare creature, but for now, without further clarification, this will remain the realm of speculation, a random anomaly of a theory, providing no greater certainty than the Watchwork Portal Devices of the Queen’s Jubilee/Clockwork Chaos Living Story updates…

Just want to acknowledge the amount of time and work you’re putting into developing these ideas. Writing out a coherent explanation to the nuts and bolts of the living story lore can be really tough! At first glance, your ideas certainly seem reasonable. As you say, it remains to be seen exactly where this goes.

I do sort of question the angle of going to the underworld, or something underworld-based happening. I myself made a video where I linked to the underworld, but I’ve since eased off from that position. Especially with her mentions of draconic energy being involved.

Portals are ultimate shields it is a wonder why pact doesn’t use them to absorb/ harness dragon attacks. Or reflect/redirect mega laser which are stationary.

Scarlet’s portals really annoy me as a storytelling device. She’s using this technology everywhere and for some reason nobody can get hold of it and reverse engineer it. If it was on the aetherblade airships then surely someone would have captured the technology by now. If it isn’t on the airships then how do the aetherblades use it?

Then we get the question of how these portals work. It could be clockwork but it is working before the Queen’s Speech. It could be chaos magic but she’s already got her miraculous vanishing trick working before the Thaumanova meltdown. She could have developed it with the Inquest but the Inquest haven’t got it, or anyone else either.

I’m assuming that each alliance has different portals just for the look of it rather than for a logical reason. Toxic portals just seem a bit silly and we still don’t know where the portal creatures come from since there was no evidence that the portals originated from the Tower.