Guild Wars 2

I was roaming around the area of the Shattered dragon and came upon a conversation between a norn and a sylvari, they were talking about how handy sylvari were as a fighting race. Im paraphrasing here but basically the conversation went something like this:

Sylvari are born adults, fully sentient, educated and trained in their matters. Though naive, they can be “programmed” into basically any task before they are even born. They can be mass produced with only air water and sunlight, and from the moment they are born they are ready to march into battle with suits and weapons which are also made from the same tree. They share knowledge among all individuals and are connected to a central thinking machine which can relay said information anywhere in the world. The pale tree can even “see” the past.

I know they are fairly young in the world, but I think a race such as this could possibly harness magic and technology at a rate asura and charr could only dream off, since if sylvari want to, they could potentially have a “shared intellect”. If the nightmare wins, could they become the ultimate race and dominate the world as we know it? Will nature truly win at the end? Were sylvari made to destroy all which harms “nature” ? Is the nightmare, correct?

I’m going to hunt down this conversation before making a full reply (around Guardian Stone, is it?) but I would like to point out that Nightmare harms nature, not defends it. Just go and take a look at Kessex Hills- once a fantastically beautiful zone, one of my favorite in the game, now largely a blasted landscape reminiscent of Orr.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I’m going to hunt down this conversation before making a full reply (around Guardian Stone, is it?) but I would like to point out that Nightmare harms nature, not defends it. Just go and take a look at Kessex Hills- once a fantastically beautiful zone, one of my favorite in the game, now largely a blasted landscape reminiscent of Orr.

Well, I would blame Scarlett for that, but for what i have gathered, the only reason the nightmare behaves as “evil” is solely because they are trying to “break free” from the Ventari teachings, only then will they be pure and able to know their true purpose.

Perhaps they werent meant to be “good”, perhaps they werent meant to “protect” nature, what is they are nature, and you want to retake everything back, all the suffering the six gods and the charr and the asura have done to Tyria.

Sounds to me like Aylvari are truly the ultimate battling race, they are even immune to dragons.

“We emerge full-sized from our cocoons and immediately enter school.”
“Born full-sized? Maybe your race is stronger than I thought.”
Is that the one?
EDIT: They are NOT immune to dragon corruption. They don’t come back as minions, but it does kill them outright.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

“We emerge full-sized from our cocoons and immediately enter school.”
“Born full-sized? Maybe your race is stronger than I thought.”
Is that the one?
EDIT: They are NOT immune to dragon corruption. They don’t come back as minions, but it does kill them outright.

Yes, that one. But you can read between the lines, also, in the map after caleddon forest there is a dialog right by the WP entering the zone, a warrior sylvari talks about how he already knows his purpose, and how to make it happen, and even though he and the other one shared the same “purpose” the means were different. Imagine, how much of a handicap it is to train baby charr; you see the dangers they have to go through, some dont even make it, and as you can see by how they play outside by the ascalon catacombs and LA, that they are still kids that have only been trained into war by brainwashing. All races have to train adn teach their people, but sylvari are simply born, and voila, ready to roll.

Alright. Well, a few clarifications: While sylvari are born fully formed, and with a fairly good foundation of knowledge, they only know the basics- so the education and training you mentioned would still be required after birth, and would not necessarily go any faster than in any other race. While that certainly makes them able soldiers much quicker than in other races, it is by no means an instant process- I’d say it’s more likely to be only around twice as quick as in other races. Programming is the wrong word there- what they see, what they learn, rather they have a Wyld Hunt, is all essentially random. The Pale Tree is said to have some degree of influence in those things, but all indications are it’s a relatively modest amount. The “central thinking machine which can relay information anywhere in the world” bit is blatantly false- the Dream only picks up on random or particularly emotional moments, not everything an individual sylvari knows, and the Tree, while she can apparently see anything in the Dream, can only communicate with sylvari upon their return to the Grove. As far as logistics go, that means the sylvari have no upper hand.

All that said, I do agree with you that the sylvari have the potential to become an ultimate race. Their culture has a cohesive sense of purpose, their birth rate is said to be ever-increasing, they are capable warriors far sooner than the offspring of other races, and they are not seen to age. I don’t think that dominance will ever be realized, however- it would unbalance the whole “all are equal” approach ANet has taken. My bet is that the current paradigm will last for another thirty to fifty years, then the Pale Tree will either be killed off or naturally stop producing offspring.

You misunderstand the Dream and how the pale Tree interacts with it. She doesn’t controle it.

And the Dream is very flawed when it comes to sharing information. It comes to each individual sylvari incomplete and fracture so there can be no ‘shared intellect". A-net has likened everything a sylvari learns in the Dream before they “sprout” to “reading about it”. And after they do sprout, they still get further schooling by the firstborn. They aren’t like a ready made droid/clone army. Their Dream only substitutes growing up and initial schooling. They do have an advantage in that initial schooling but I’d say that washes with the disadvantage of needing to spring from the same source.

edit: Aaron beat me to it.

edit 2: Also, some sylvari don’t make it when they fall from the tree upon awakening. So this is not to say that the sylvari don’t have some advantages. they just don’t have as big advantage as the OP thinks.

This is in no way relevant to the thread, but I would love it if saplings occasionally fell out of the sky while walking around the Grove. It’s just so frustrating how vague the game is about the process of a sylvari’s birth/awakening, especially considering how central that moment is to the nature of the race.

Fortus.6175:

Well, I would blame Scarlett for that, but for what i have gathered, the only reason the nightmare behaves as “evil” is solely because they are trying to “break free” from the Ventari teachings, only then will they be pure and able to know their true purpose.

By your argument, the torture of races – both sylvari and non – is not “evil.” The fact of the matter is that the Nightmare Court is not as united as people lay it out to be. The Nightmare Court was founded upon the principles of simply ‘acting like a true sylvari’ but degraded overall into “act the opposite of the Ventari teachings” – though now within the Nightmare Court you got individuals within the court preaching that the NC are out to balance both Dream and Nightmare, that they act in the favor of both equally; on the other hand you have noble courtiers that do not see the Nightmare as acts of hostility except when needed but see it as the path to go down nonetheless (White Stag storyline); and on yet another hand you have your typical “burn! kill! destroy them all!” folks who take utmost pleasure in torturing and killing others.

Fortus.6175:

they are even immune to dragons.

Only so far in that they do not become dragon minions. Contact with draconic energies results in immediate and undeniable death to prevent becoming a minion. As Aaron said. Just want to re-iterate this point because it is too requently misunderstood.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

This is in no way relevant to the thread, but I would love it if saplings occasionally fell out of the sky while walking around the Grove. It’s just so frustrating how vague the game is about the process of a sylvari’s birth/awakening, especially considering how central that moment is to the nature of the race.

Cue It’s Raining Men. :P

Quality of fighting strength is not just about strength but also about weaknesses. The Pale Tree itself is a weakness. Just how many sci-fi films show a horde of overpowered aliens defeated with a single strike to the queen?

However, they’re very vunerable to Flamethrower and make a fine campfire instead, which boosts Charr morale by letting them cook, Global Warming and warm many Norn houses in these cold Shiverpeaks.

I was going create a topic much like the OP in this thread, so I will post it here.

First, what do we know about the origins of the pale tree?
Its seed was taken from a cave guarded by powerful plant creatures meaning :
- There were more seeds
- They were gathered in a single place and guarded.

The obvious question is why? Only two reasons to gather the seeds : keep them safe until you need them for something or keeping anyone from finding and using them because they are dangerous to you. I would rather think that the one that gathered the seeds and guarded them had plans to use them, since if you wanted to prevent anyone from using them why not simply burn/destroy them or something?

I conclude then that the pale tree (and its eventual brothers) were kept safe to be used for something. But helas we can’t tell at this point if the purposes were evil or good, and we surely can’t tell who created the seeds. The plant guardians keeping the seeds tells us that whoever gathered the seeds in that cave had some kind of control over plant creatures though.

So, what would anyone need a pale tree for? And here, I will start by my conclusion and try to explain it.
The pale tree is a powerful ‘clone’ army factory.

Please, let me explain how I see silvarys :
- They are produced in pods and are born fully mature and almost functional (hell ,my sylvari defeated an elder dragon roughly one year or two after being born – this is efficiency!)
- They can receive a ‘mission’ through the dream before birth (and even after that).
- When dead, all the things they learnt can become part of the dream or at least their more important thoughts (battlestar galactica anyone?). This is really important because it makes this race an extraordinary fighters race able to learn from their deaths to come back to battle with a better knowledge of their ennemy.

So, for me, the pale tree (and the other possible trees) are meant to produce a highly efficient army.
What for? Again I have some theories, but I don’t think this is the place.

Now, what is the dream?
I will assume here one thing : all the pale trees have a dream. Malyck is not for me a proof that the other known tree is ‘dreamless’. Many things can explain that Malyck is not connected to its tree’s dream (born too far from it, hurt when his pod fell, distance,…) and sylvaris cut out from the dream are present in the game. I simply believe that Anet wanted to keep the pale tree nature hidden for longer. If Malyck had had access to his pale tree dream we could have learnt imediatly of the nature of the sylvaris instead of ranting in this forum.
Why I think a dream is essential to the pale tree and others like it? Because as I said, it is the way to ‘program’ a ‘mission’ on the army and to gather back all the knowledge of the dead troopers. It’s the ultimate tool for our army factory. I am not saying that the dream belongs to the pale tree, but that he uses it.

What about the dream/nightmare?
If you stay with me and believe like me that the tree is a tool and that the dream is the place to give your army a mission, then the question arrises : how do you give orders to your army? How do you make sure that the tree you planted creates and army with the right goals (yours)?
Well, I think Ronan and Ventari somehow did this without knowing. If the pale tree is a tool, let’s assume that like any other tool, when used for the first time, it is in factory settings. Ronan and his friend took a seed, planted it and imediately started caring about the young sapling, loving it and influenced it. The growing pale tree, when producing this new army, made them follow the teachings of those two.
And the nightmare?
They try to undo what the ventari and Ronan did by using the inverse : creating pain and hatred and infusing those in the dream to counter-balance the ventari teachings.
But why?
This is my theory:
Ronan and the ventary ‘influenced’ the pale tree but could not program it entirely as it was meant to be. Whoever was keeping the seeds of the tree in the cave had power above plant beings (see above). This person/dragon/god could have programmed the sapling perfectly to its goal without using external means like songs, caring and love.
As it is now, the ventari influence is not enough. The nightmare is born from the dream (or from not perfectly ‘programmed soldiers’) to counterbalance those inperfect orders and return to the ‘factory settings’. What makes me think about this is that the nightmare claims that ventari teachings are lies, but I have not found a single reference to what the nightmare thinks sylvari’s goals really are. This could be explained because they don’t even know themselves. They only ‘feel’ that ventari’s ‘programming’ is failed and should be erased.

This is my take on the tree nature : a powerful army factory. What do you think?

while I find your theory interesting I think it has atleast one major hole that I could see the pale tree seems unable to " gather back all the knowledge of the dead troopers." as we see this in the death of the firstborn Riannoc it is a mystery as to how he died until you complete the personal story http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Secrets_in_the_Earth. and it is only through the help of the priory that you are able to go back in time and witness his final moments to learn what actually occurred.

Fortus.6175:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I’m going to hunt down this conversation before making a full reply (around Guardian Stone, is it?) but I would like to point out that Nightmare harms nature, not defends it. Just go and take a look at Kessex Hills- once a fantastically beautiful zone, one of my favorite in the game, now largely a blasted landscape reminiscent of Orr.

Well, I would blame Scarlett for that, but for what i have gathered, the only reason the nightmare behaves as “evil” is solely because they are trying to “break free” from the Ventari teachings, only then will they be pure and able to know their true purpose.

Perhaps they werent meant to be “good”, perhaps they werent meant to “protect” nature, what is they are nature, and you want to retake everything back, all the suffering the six gods and the charr and the asura have done to Tyria.

Sounds to me like Aylvari are truly the ultimate battling race, they are even immune to dragons.

The nightmare court at their core arnt “evil”. I assume they took the name nightmare due to the presence of the hive mind that was already called the dream.

The nightmare court want the freedom of not only themselves, but of their entire race from something that seems unjust to them. The higher ups in the nightmare court, from what i’ve seen anyway, are reasonable sylvari that you could hold a conversation with.

We really don’t know that much about the nightmare court anyway. I doubt they could take over the world because of the other races; but are the nightmare court truly evil, or are they just evil because the pale tree tells you they’re evil?

The dream isnt a full on hive mind. The sylvari don’t share experience, and they’re only taught the basics while they’re in their pods; seeing as how they have to go back to the pale tree for advice, i’d say the link weakens after they awaken. Like for example the sylvari PCs wyld hunt was to kill a dragon, yet the sylvari pc didnt awaken knowing everything Trahearne knew about Orr. Sure we could make the argument that maybe Zhaitan wasn’t the dragon in the dream, but the sylvari PC still doesnt awaken with the knowledge Sieran or any of the other sylvari in the other orders would know about that dragon.

Infamous Darkness.3284:

while I find your theory interesting I think it has atleast one major hole that I could see the pale tree seems unable to " gather back all the knowledge of the dead troopers." as we see this in the death of the firstborn Riannoc it is a mystery as to how he died until you complete the personal story http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Secrets_in_the_Earth. and it is only through the help of the priory that you are able to go back in time and witness his final moments to learn what actually occurred.

Can’t find the reference, but I am pretty sure I read somewhere that Sylvari control to some extent what they want to share with the dream.
Is is that far fetched to think that Riannoc refused to put his friend to shame by sharing his betrayal? He died alone and did not want the souvenir of that betrayal to be witnessed with the rest of his race forever?

They don’t controle what they share. The only choices we know of come when we see the soundless and how they can choose to block out incoming info. And that only comes with a lot of practice.

Dustfinger.9510:

They don’t controle what they share. The only choices we know of come when we see the soundless and how they can choose to block out incoming info. And that only comes with a lot of practice.

Might seem true. I have tried to find where I got that idea from that everything a Silvary livres through might not end in the dream but can’t find it.

Still, the situation with the first sylvari hits me as an odity since all the references I have found implies that the dream contains almost all the knowledge of the sylvari that have been born form the pale tree. This does not mean that the dreamers have access to the whole knowledge. The dream chooses what to teach them…

“For me, the Dream was almost empty. I remember hearing and feeling things, but my sight was always muddled. So I help the Wardens when I can, but I tend to get lost.” -Eithne

“In my Dream, I was surrounded by enormous mountains. Blue-black ice shards were falling from the sky, and the land bled where the shards impaled it. What do you think it meant?” -Evryn

“He knows what a sword is, he knows how to swing it, but he has never ACTUALLY swung it. It’s like seeing magazine pictures of chicken but never having eaten it. You understand what it is, but you don’ t really know.” -Ree Soesbee, Wartower Interview

=> Quotes extracted from this site : http://guildwars2roleplay.wikispaces.com/A+Comprehensive+Guide+to+All+Things+Sylvari

Is it possible that the dream decided not to share this information with the sylvari for whatever reason?

Possible. We do know that much of what the Dream shares is fractured and unclear. But whether or not the Dream “chooses” would depend on the exact nature of the Dream.

Ooo. I forgot, You may be refering to the info about Scarlet. We know that Scarlet has managed to block herself from the Dream (to an extent) so it is possible to keep info from the Dream. But a-net has said it is working “to an extent”. Which implies that much like the soundless, it takes a lot of pracrice. it’s not just something they can pick and choose from. So it’s more like an imperfect kitten that is either holding most of the water back or is open. Not like a gate keeper that just chooses “yes” or “no” depending on the info. So That wouldn’t apply to Rionnac who was a Dreamer.

Seems to have a plot hole in my theory indeed… but since we really don’t know the dream workings this can maybe fall into the ‘exception’ zone?

I am not sure that not having the souvenirs of this unique Sylvari (the pale tree does not know…. but it does not imply that those souvenirs are nowhere in the dream) means that my theory in not viable.

And you might be right. I guess it was Scarlett’s history that made me think that Sylvaris can choose to hide things from the dream…

4 norn = army of dwarfs so theory broke right there

Fafnir.5124:

4 norn = army of dwarfs so theory broke right there

You won’t say that when your corrupted salad starts moving to kill your surprised Norn!

Well, in fact, forget it. I can’t imagine norns eating salad…