The Pact justification

The Pact justification

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

We know all 3 orders were there. They just weren’t there as “Voltron/The Pact”. They were still there. Their resources were there. Their troops were there. The Pact is just the name of all 3 orders being lead by a Commander in Chief instead of a council of 3 separate groups in order to be more efficient. if any big threat is worthy of “The Pact” then there wouldn’t be 3 orders any more. I doubt the orders are willing to hand all power and secret order knowledge over to the Commander in Chief in order to dissolve their individuality. The 3 orders will still want to remain autonomous and only relinquish power at their own discretion.

Trahearn likely doesn’t have the power to just call up the three orders and start issuing instruction until all three orders decide that a Commander in Chief is needed for a particular situation. Dragon problems seems to be the agreed upon need.

(edited by Dustfinger.9510)

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Posted by: Erukk.1408

Erukk.1408

I seem to remember a lot of people dying due to what you call a failed weapon.

Lore-wise, the Marionette fight only happened once, and the fight was a success with the destruction of the Marionette. All the repeated fights with it was simply there for gameplay reasons.

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Posted by: JohnLShannonhouse.1820

JohnLShannonhouse.1820

Completely agree, Shiren. Their excuses for not getting involved ring hollow for me. Defending a city falls outside of their charter? Their charter with who? Does Anet even know what that word means? I didn’t realize that the Pact received their authority and mission from some higher governing body. They were founded as an independent alliance; they have no charter.

Who, had the Pact intervened, would have said “Sorry guys, you overstepped the terms of your charter by defending the city.” Especially given that all three orders were involved in the defense, the fact that the Pact couldn’t even send one airship (until after the fact) is just silly.

In fact, every multinational military expedition has a charter in real life. The charter is issued by the nations supporting it, or the chartered multinational body that delpoys it. All those UN peacekeeping missions have charters with strict rules of engagement (the United Nations has a charter, too). The Pact was supported by the High Legions, the Kingdom of Kryta and other governing bodies. They would have been insane to lend material and personnel aid to a military force without a charter limiting what they could do with those forces.

In real life, charters for military expeditions limit what military forces can do. In one case, a ship from the navy of the Netherlands on a NATO mission rescued dozens of sailors and saved a hijacked ship from Somali pirates and took the pirates’ weapons. However, they let the pirates go because, while they could respond to distress calls and rescue kidnapped sailors, arresting pirates fell outside their charter.

No sane rulers would let a powerful military force into their city outside the bounds of their charter. That simply does not happen. How many United States-based mercenary companies do you see decked out with weapons patrolling US cities. None, right?

Finally, I will point out the Lion’s Arch thought they could repel any attack, and they did in fact repel the attack even though attacking forces did gain temporary partial control of the city. It is unclear Pact forces would have made a difference since the attackers seemed to win because of the miasma tactic, not brute military force.

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

Why would the completely failed Marionette grab the Pact’s attention if the Tower of Nightmares, which was far more destructive, did not?

Not sure I follow you on the Marionette. How did it fail? What was it supposed to accomplish that it didn’t?

I just meant that it was destroyed.

I seem to remember a lot of people dying due to what you call a failed weapon.

Then you don’t seem to remember the livestream with Angel McCoy in which she stated that though the event was repeated in the open world (interpretation: to avoid the lagfest mess of the Ancient Karka during The Lost Shores), lore-wise, it happened once and it was defeated that one time.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: CureForLiving.5360

CureForLiving.5360

Thinking about this I wonder why people think the Pact should be involved?

With great power comes great responsibility?

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Posted by: Lostwingman.5034

Lostwingman.5034

Thinking about this I wonder why people think the Pact should be involved?

With great power comes great responsibility?

It. wasn’t. their. power.

Bad@Ele: Alaric Von Manstein
Bad@Thief: Kiera Gordon
Sea of Sorrows, a server never before so appropriately named.

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Posted by: Tobias Trueflight.8350

Tobias Trueflight.8350

Thinking about this I wonder why people think the Pact should be involved?

With great power comes great responsibility?

It. wasn’t. their. power.

All the more reason to use it responsibly.

Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.

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Posted by: Kalarchis.8635

Kalarchis.8635

The Pact was supported by the High Legions, the Kingdom of Kryta and other governing bodies. They would have been insane to lend material and personnel aid to a military force without a charter limiting what they could do with those forces.

Where in the game was this stated? I don’t recall anyone other than the Orders being present at the forging of the Pact. Nor do I recall a meeting with dignitaries to hammer out a charter. I remember the High Legions sending supplies, but I don’t recall any stipulations accompanying them. Was there some small mention of this in game that I missed?

And that’s really the core of my objection here: I’m the second-in-command of the Pact and I’m only just now hearing about a charter. You’re right: military alliances like this typically have charters and the Pact probably has one too. So why didn’t I know about it? Why do I know next to nothing about Pact protocol and organizational structure?

If the Pact was prevented from intervening because of a charter, fine. But why wasn’t this made apparent to us earlier? Why didn’t we get a bit in the leadup where we go to Fort Trinity, ask Trahearne about getting involved, and are told no? That would have gone a long way towards my understanding of the situation. As is, it felt like the Pact was nonexistent in the LS until Mordy woke up. Their complete lack of involvement, charter mandated or not, feels off and I think that’s what many people are objecting to.

As well, where do the Orders end and the Pact begins? Clearly the Orders themselves were not prevented from helping in LA…but the Pact was. So if I was a Vigil soldier working with the Pact, could I have withdrawn back to the Vigil to go help in LA? How do the rules governing the Pact affect the Orders that make it up? Where is the line drawn, and on what grounds?

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Posted by: Dean Calaway.9718

Dean Calaway.9718

(…)Not just from the three Orders but from one of their own commanders – the player character. Between the Priory and the Order of Whispers does it even make sense the Pact had no idea that Scarlet might be linked to an Elder Dragon? I mean players figured it out pretty early on.

Before the data mine leak many (and I do mean many) of the perma lore forum residents (nice way to say “know” it all I’m always right you don’t know anything guys) were very much against the idea Scarlet was after the lay lines much less anything dragon related.

Now on topic, the orders and specially the Pact were created to fight elder dragons.
LA had its own military, the pact had no authority there nor the responsibility to defend it.

As far as being commander of the pact, I always thought that was just a temporary title that got lifted when Zaithan fell, doesn’t make much sense having the player character bring commander of the pact.

Another important thing to remember is the events weren’t in real time, it didn’t took weeks (that was just so everyone could enjoy it unlike the mad king blowing up the statue or the karka knocking down a light house), so you can easily imagine there was just no time to prep from the moment the heroes figure out Scarlet was gonna go for LA till the breach maker landed there.

Victoria Cross [VC] – Desolation [EU]

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

I’m the second-in-command of the Pact and I’m only just now hearing about a charter. You’re right: military alliances like this typically have charters and the Pact probably has one too. So why didn’t I know about it?

Founded with the expressed purpose of batteling and slaying the ED’s. That’s the charter. it defines the purpose and reach of the Pact.

As well, where do the Orders end and the Pact begins? Clearly the Orders themselves were not prevented from helping in LA…but the Pact was. So if I was a Vigil soldier working with the Pact, could I have withdrawn back to the Vigil to go help in LA? How do the rules governing the Pact affect the Orders that make it up? Where is the line drawn, and on what grounds?

No one is forcing the orders into the Pact. So participation is at the orders discretion.

(edited by Dustfinger.9510)

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

This thread actually brings up a good point. We are a commander in the Pact. Yet we are no where near that high in the ranks of the orders. So any knowledge we would have of Pact forces is only a knowledge of the forces that the orders have donated to the Joint Elder Dragon Task Force (Pact).

People speak of the Pact as if it’s an autonomous entity that supercedes the orders in all things. But we can see that it is really just a joint task force that operates at the behest and discretion of the 3 orders while the 3 orders continue to prioritize their own business. It only supercedes the orders when it comes to one issue and only because the orders have gotten together to decide that it does in ED situations.

So maybe the three orders simultaneously deciding to help out in LA is better than the Pact just starting to go in and figure out how the three orders can gather their resources to try to start to work together to deal with Scarlet.

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Posted by: Kalarchis.8635

Kalarchis.8635

Founded with the expressed purpose of batteling and slaying the ED’s. That’s the charter. it defines the purpose and reach of the Pact.

That’s not the charter; that was the stated purpose upon formation. A charter is a legal document given by a ruling authority that defines the operational rights of a subordinate entity. Nothing like this occurred at the time of the founding of the Pact; Trahearne told the Orders that they should work together and they said OK.

No one is forcing the orders into the Pact. So participation is at the orders discretion.

Not at all what I was asking. Let me try and rephrase it: if the Pact is made of the three Orders and is bound by a charter that prevents action unless a dragon is involved, why are the three orders not also bound by this? Any nations that have ties to the Pact through the charter have ties to the three Orders by proxy. So if the Pact interfering in LA would have ticked off the ruling bodies as a breach of charter (as is implied in this thread,) why is it fine when the Orders do it?

To be very nerdy: this is like being OK with the individual robot lions helping out, but it not being OK the moment they combine to form Voltron.

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

That’s not the charter; that was the stated purpose upon formation. A charter is a legal document given by a ruling authority that defines the operational rights of a subordinate entity. Nothing like this occurred at the time of the founding of the Pact; Trahearne told the Orders that they should work together and they said OK.

The operational rights I would assume is covered by the expressed purpose of fighting the ED’s. If the situation isn’t geared towards fighting the ED’s, what other question could be had as to why the Pact isn’t there?

Not at all what I was asking. Let me try and rephrase it: if the Pact is made of the three Orders and is bound by a charter that prevents action unless a dragon is involved, why are the three orders not also bound by this? Any nations that have ties to the Pact through the charter have ties to the three Orders by proxy. So if the Pact interfering in LA would have ticked off the ruling bodies as a breach of charter (as is implied in this thread,) why is it fine when the Orders do it?

To be very nerdy: this is like being OK with the individual robot lions helping out, but it not being OK the moment they combine to form Voltron.

I think this assumes too much without factoring in the idea that the resources of the Pact are already present. The reason the “Pact” isn’t there is because the orders don’t need to work in concert in order to be effective. The pact is basically already present, sans the name “pact”. because the Pact is just a joint task force specifically geared toward one goal.

So to ask “How come voltron isn’t there?” The answer may be that it is wholly unnecessary and would waste time forming together when the individual lions will already be effective.

So the charter may not prevent their action per se. It may just be that the stated intent of the Pact just doesn’t apply to the situation. (which as far as anyone knew, it didn’t)

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Posted by: JohnLShannonhouse.1820

JohnLShannonhouse.1820

If the Pact was prevented from intervening because of a charter, fine. But why wasn’t this made apparent to us earlier?

It did not come up in the personal story. At no time would it have added anything to the story or explained anything. As I said, it would make perfect sense. It is an unwise sovereign nation that builds up a military force outside of its control without stipulations (read Machiavelli’s complaints about foreign military forces running amok, for example).

From the beginning when these objections appeared, forum folks were noting that the Pact’s job was not to fight someone like Scarlet. When forces from the Orders were fighting Scarlet’s projects, questions arose about why the Seraph/Lionguard/Arcane Council/Firstborn/etc. were not handling it instead.

Whenever you write story, the question “how much background should be included?” comes up. You don’t want to overwhelm players with walls of text. You don’t want it to seem too awkward. In real life, military expeditions and alliance operation s do have charters. It makes sense even if it confused some people.

You can introduce the world slowly. For example, although it has always made sense, now we know Pact forces cannot conduct military operations in Lion’s Arch, Kryta, Ascalon, etc. While your Asura character may have understood the relationship between the Arcane Eye and the Arcane Council, it is only when you first play through the Asuran story line you even hear about them. You learn the Ministry Guard and the Seraph are separate in parts of the Human story line. Etc.

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Posted by: Erukk.1408

Erukk.1408

Everyone was wondering what Trahearne has been doing the last year or so? It’s probably all the mountains of legal paperwork that comes with running an international military force and keeping up all the diplomatic ties to keep it funded and running.

We should be counted lucky that he hasn’t called upon his second in command to do their fair share of it…

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Posted by: CHIPS.6018

CHIPS.6018

A lot of people here are defending why the Pact didn’t show up. Let’s stop making excuses for ourselves. We failed the people.

Thousands have died. Many people lose their parents, spouses and kids. This is a fact.

Sure one may argue that if we didn’t show up at all even more would have died. It doesn’t matter to me. The way I see it we failed the people. We could have saved more if we acted earlier and with more manpower.

Instead of finding excuses and shifting blame, let’s focus on how to improve the Pact. How can we better protect the people in the future?

People entrusted us with their lives. If we start finding excuses and playing the blame game it is over.

Chipsy Chips(Necromancer) & Char Ashnoble(Thief)
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs

(edited by CHIPS.6018)

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Posted by: Horst Hortensie.5420

Horst Hortensie.5420

And there we are. The shout for the global tyrian police is done.
Do you think you have power as second in command?
Do you think they are really helpful to face the real problem?

The shortest way is not everytime the best.

Slow clap for the great puppet player.

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Posted by: Kalarchis.8635

Kalarchis.8635

I think this assumes too much without factoring in the idea that the resources of the Pact are already present. The reason the “Pact” isn’t there is because the orders don’t need to work in concert in order to be effective. The pact is basically already present, sans the name “pact”. because the Pact is just a joint task force specifically geared toward one goal.

That’s exactly my point. If the Pact is just the three Orders working together, and therefore involvement of all three Orders = Pact involvement sans the name, then why does the Pact charter not affect the Orders? Basically this means that the Pact can break their charter (and did so) simply by splitting into the Orders and not using the name “Pact.”

Which puts us back to my earlier question: where do the Orders end and the Pact begin? If the Pact has military forces (airships/helis/subs) that the individual Orders don’t use, has a charter that does not affect the Orders, and is treated as a separate entity in game (Pact showed up in name after the Orders were already there,) how can you continue to say that the Pact is nothing more than the Orders working together?

Clearly the Pact is greater than the sum of its parts. Clearly the three Orders working together in LA does not = the Pact sans the name.

As for limits in how much info a game can give players, I get that. That’s why I think even a small moment in the LS where we went to Trahearne and asked about getting the Pact involved would have gone a long way.

(edited by Kalarchis.8635)

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Posted by: Erukk.1408

Erukk.1408

A lot of people here are defending why the Pact didn’t show up. Let’s stop making excuses for ourselves. We failed the people.

Thousands have died. Many people lose their parents, spouses and kids. This is a fact.

Sure one may argue that if we didn’t show up at all even more would have died. It doesn’t matter to me. The way I see it we failed the people. We could have saved more if we acted earlier and with more manpower.

How would you have acted earlier and with more manpower? LA said “No” to any plans to prepare the city for an attack beforehand, and Scarlet’s attack itself on the city was calculated, quick, and devastating. The major damages dealt to the city and it’s population was done probably within a matter of an hour, and the miasma was simply used to kill off stragglers and to keep the city closest off for the drill to do its thing.

Without the permission of the Captain’s Council, there was nothing for the Pact to do on the matter, short of hostilely taking the city over for it’s own protection to set up defenses. But then that have set off a conflict between the Pact forces and the Lionguard, and that would give Scarlet a clear shot of killing two birds with one stone.

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Posted by: CureForLiving.5360

CureForLiving.5360

Without the permission of the Captain’s Council, there was nothing for the Pact to do on the matter, short of hostilely taking the city over for it’s own protection to set up defenses. But then that have set off a conflict between the Pact forces and the Lionguard, and that would give Scarlet a clear shot of killing two birds with one stone.

This is what we need more off, conflict were both sides are doing what they believe is best, and where neither side is stupid evil.

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Posted by: Silavor.6257

Silavor.6257

The Pact is more than just the Priory, Vigil, and Order of Whispers combined, because the three orders alone are not the full sum of the Pact’s parts. The Pact also receives supplies, soldiers, and presumably funding from all major nations, as well as some of the minor, less organized races.

If we’re keeping with the Voltron example, then having the three orders help out at the same time in Lion’s Arch is like having one or two of the lions show up, while the Krytan lion is off picking its nose, and the Ascalonian lion didn’t even hear the call to battle until it was too late.

Why is the Pact under a charter, while the three orders can run around as they wish? Mainly because the three orders are part of the handful of organizations that would have made the charter in the first place. The order leaders would have had just as much say in where the Pact can go and what it can do as the Krytan monarchy, or the charr leaders.

Order resources devoted to the Pact go to the Pact. Any other resources remaining within that particular order are autonomous from the Pact, and do not represent the Pact or Pact interests. A Priory scholar digging around in Serenity Temple is not a member of the Pact, and does not represent the Pact. They represent the Priory. Likewise, a bunch of Vigil soldiers, Whispers agents, and Priory scholars assisting a besieged Lion’s Arch are not members of the Pact, and do not represent the Pact or Pact interests. I think that’s the best way to think of it.

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Posted by: Erukk.1408

Erukk.1408

This is what we need more off, conflict were both sides are doing what they believe is best, and where neither side is stupid evil.

While it would be nice to see in the future. That wouldn’t work on this example. The hostile takeover of an ally, no matter how strongly they are holding the stupid stick, is never a good thing. Especially if you are saying you are doing it “for their own good”.

And as I said before, that would have given Scarlet the chance to severely cripple the Pact on top of destroying LA with that single attack.

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Posted by: CHIPS.6018

CHIPS.6018

A lot of people here are defending why the Pact didn’t show up. Let’s stop making excuses for ourselves. We failed the people.

Thousands have died. Many people lose their parents, spouses and kids. This is a fact.

Sure one may argue that if we didn’t show up at all even more would have died. It doesn’t matter to me. The way I see it we failed the people. We could have saved more if we acted earlier and with more manpower.

How would you have acted earlier and with more manpower? LA said “No” to any plans to prepare the city for an attack beforehand, and Scarlet’s attack itself on the city was calculated, quick, and devastating. The major damages dealt to the city and it’s population was done probably within a matter of an hour, and the miasma was simply used to kill off stragglers and to keep the city closest off for the drill to do its thing.

Without the permission of the Captain’s Council, there was nothing for the Pact to do on the matter, short of hostilely taking the city over for it’s own protection to set up defenses. But then that have set off a conflict between the Pact forces and the Lionguard, and that would give Scarlet a clear shot of killing two birds with one stone.

Many things that the Pact could have done better. For example having the Pact airships on stand by in areas around LA. Areas like Southsun Cove, Sparkfly Fen and Bloodtide Coast is owned by no one. The Pact could have stationed their airships in these areas, saying they are killing Risen, and no one would complain.

What happened instead was the Pact only warned the LA council of the upcoming attack, and did not act any more after. This is passive! So not only did the LA council not take the Scarlet threat seriously. Neither did the Pact. Why? Because the Pact did nothing else to prepare for the attack.

Chipsy Chips(Necromancer) & Char Ashnoble(Thief)
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs

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Posted by: Erukk.1408

Erukk.1408

Many things that the Pact could have done better. For example having the Pact airships on stand by in areas around LA. Areas like Southsun Cove, Sparkfly Fen and Bloodtide Coast is owned by no one. The Pact could have stationed their airships in these areas, saying they are killing Risen, and no one would complain.

What happened instead was the Pact only warned the LA council of the upcoming attack, and did not act any more after. This is passive! So not only did the LA council not take the Scarlet threat seriously. Neither did the Pact. Why? Because the Pact did nothing else to prepare for the attack.

Stationing airships in the nearby territories wouldn’t have helped at all. As I said before, Scarlet’s initial attack happened in probably less than an hour. By the time the Pact would have gotten word the attack was happening, LA would have been destroyed already, and the miasma would have started to have been released.

As for afterwards, you are forgetting that Scarlet’s airships have teleportation capabilities. The Pact airships wouldn’t last long in a fight against their fleet. They can simply teleport in, fire off a round of cannon fire, and teleport out before the Pact airship can turn their cannons.

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Posted by: CHIPS.6018

CHIPS.6018

Many things that the Pact could have done better. For example having the Pact airships on stand by in areas around LA. Areas like Southsun Cove, Sparkfly Fen and Bloodtide Coast is owned by no one. The Pact could have stationed their airships in these areas, saying they are killing Risen, and no one would complain.

What happened instead was the Pact only warned the LA council of the upcoming attack, and did not act any more after. This is passive! So not only did the LA council not take the Scarlet threat seriously. Neither did the Pact. Why? Because the Pact did nothing else to prepare for the attack.

Stationing airships in the nearby territories wouldn’t have helped at all. As I said before, Scarlet’s initial attack happened in probably less than an hour. By the time the Pact would have gotten word the attack was happening, LA would have been destroyed already, and the miasma would have started to have been released.

As for afterwards, you are forgetting that Scarlet’s airships have teleportation capabilities. The Pact airships wouldn’t last long in a fight against their fleet. They can simply teleport in, fire off a round of cannon fire, and teleport out before the Pact airship can turn their cannons.

Maybe you are right. But it doesn’t excuse the Pact from not trying their best.

The Pact airship were nowhere near LA. So of course they won’t reach LA in time to save LA. This is self fulfilling prophecy. The Pact never tried, so it didn’t succeed.

The Pact airships may or may not beat the Aetherblade airships. Either way it doesn’t excuse them from not being there. The soldiers must stand and fight the enemies, to defend the civilians, no matter the odds of winning.

(BTW, let’s not pretend this was a “tactical non-involvement” here. The Pact never intended to get involved. Only us “volunteers” were there. )

There are many other issues with the Pact. For example the Order of Whispers’ failure in finding any useful information until it was way too late. Finding intelligence was their job, but they are very bad at it. We still know almost nothing about the Aetherblades, for example. And Scarlet is already dead.

I don’t want to place specific blames on specific groups and individuals. This is pointless. But we failed as a whole, and this is a fact. Let’s not try to sweet talk ourselves to make ourselves feel better here. This isn’t helping the dead civilians and families one bit.

And if that was indeed the best that we could have done, and the best that we will ever be able to do, I see no future for the Pact. We might as well de-solve the whole organization right now and go our separate ways.

Chipsy Chips(Necromancer) & Char Ashnoble(Thief)
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs

(edited by CHIPS.6018)

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Posted by: lakdav.3694

lakdav.3694

The Pact’s job is to defeat the Elder Dragons. That implies dragons that are already awake. After Zhaitan (who they are still cleaning up after) there are still four awake dragons to fight, three with names and very tangible presence and threat. They have their hands full. If you want to seek blame, blame not the Pact, but the orders that have been present, but failed.

The Priory, who failed to find an antitoxin to the Nightmare Towers evolved miasma.
The Vigil, who failed to mount a sufficent force to aid the lionguard with, standing on the ready.
Most of all, the Order of Whispers, who failed miserably in manipulating the Captains Council into preparing for the attack properly.

Yes, the orders have been there, and tried to help. Would have been much worse without their help. The Pact as such had no business with Scarlet. So who is really to blame (other than Scarlet of course)?

The Captains Council. Even if Gnashblade is just spewing his hatred of Magnus and Kiel all around, he is right in one thing. The Council failed miserably.

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Posted by: Erukk.1408

Erukk.1408

Maybe you are right. But it doesn’t excuse the Pact from not trying their best.

The Pact airship were nowhere near LA. So of course they won’t reach LA in time to save LA. This is self fulfilling prophecy. The Pact never tried, so it didn’t succeed.

The Pact airships may or may not beat the Aetherblade airships. Either way it doesn’t excuse them from not being there. The soldiers must stand and fight the enemies, to defend the civilians, no matter the odds of winning.

So… It would have been ok for the Pact to suffer major causalities, lose of prized equipment (airships), morale, and ultimately defeat, because at least they tried their best?

While I agree that soldiers must stand and fight the enemies and to defend the civilians, but I disagree on the “no matter the odds of winning”. You can’t chance sacrificing your army to win a battle (Scarlet), when it means you’ll lose the continued war (Elder Dragons).

Scarlet might have been a highly dangerous individual, but she was still just that, an individual, and she can (and was) be dealt with like any other person can be. The Elder Dragons are not like that though. With a simple breath: they can create an army, corrupt the land to make it unlivable, destroy a settlement, and basically kill us all if they so desired.

Scarlet was no where, no where, near the level of threat of an Elder Dragon. And that is what the Pact has to deal with. I’m perfectly fine with it leaving the “small” threats of Tyria to the Orders and the major races. The Pact has to ready itself to deal with much larger threats to the land.

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Posted by: CureForLiving.5360

CureForLiving.5360

Maybe you are right. But it doesn’t excuse the Pact from not trying their best.

The Pact airship were nowhere near LA. So of course they won’t reach LA in time to save LA. This is self fulfilling prophecy. The Pact never tried, so it didn’t succeed.

The Pact airships may or may not beat the Aetherblade airships. Either way it doesn’t excuse them from not being there. The soldiers must stand and fight the enemies, to defend the civilians, no matter the odds of winning.

So… It would have been ok for the Pact to suffer major causalities, lose of prized equipment (airships), morale, and ultimately defeat, because at least they tried their best?

Hind-sight is 20/20. There would be no way for the pack to be able to accurately predict their own casualties, or enemy forces ahead of time.

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Posted by: Erukk.1408

Erukk.1408

They would have had a good idea of the strength of Scarlet’s forces. The miasma might have been an unknown, but the Orders, and probably the Pact as well, knew the capabilities of all of Scarlet’s alliances, since they faced them all beforehand.

While it might not have been an totally accurate prediction, it probably wouldn’t have been off the mark by much.

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Posted by: CHIPS.6018

CHIPS.6018

Maybe you are right. But it doesn’t excuse the Pact from not trying their best.

The Pact airship were nowhere near LA. So of course they won’t reach LA in time to save LA. This is self fulfilling prophecy. The Pact never tried, so it didn’t succeed.

The Pact airships may or may not beat the Aetherblade airships. Either way it doesn’t excuse them from not being there. The soldiers must stand and fight the enemies, to defend the civilians, no matter the odds of winning.

So… It would have been ok for the Pact to suffer major causalities, lose of prized equipment (airships), morale, and ultimately defeat, because at least they tried their best?

While I agree that soldiers must stand and fight the enemies and to defend the civilians, but I disagree on the “no matter the odds of winning”. You can’t chance sacrificing your army to win a battle (Scarlet), when it means you’ll lose the continued war (Elder Dragons).

Scarlet might have been a highly dangerous individual, but she was still just that, an individual, and she can (and was) be dealt with like any other person can be. The Elder Dragons are not like that though. With a simple breath: they can create an army, corrupt the land to make it unlivable, destroy a settlement, and basically kill us all if they so desired.

Scarlet was no where, no where, near the level of threat of an Elder Dragon. And that is what the Pact has to deal with. I’m perfectly fine with it leaving the “small” threats of Tyria to the Orders and the major races. The Pact has to ready itself to deal with much larger threats to the land.

Think of it this way. Let’s say your army only have cavalry, while the enemies have modern tanks. Do you just sit back and watch the enemies kill your civilians?

No. You stand and fight to defend your people. Causality isn’t the issue here.

Secondly, we do not know if our airships is outclassed by the Aetherblade airships. We have never seen the Aetherblade airships non-stop phasing in and out of existence, like you claimed they can. Who is to say they won’t suffer from a 10,000 second cooldown, like most skills do in GW2? Either way, a soldier cannot be a defeatist. Else the battle was lost before it began.

And let’s say you are right about the Aetherblade airships. Then the Pact still failed as a whole, this time on the Pact engineers who are totally outclassed by a bunch of thug engineers and one person: Scarlet.

BTW you said two contradicting points in that message. You said “Aetherblades is major threat” and “Aetherblades is no threat”. If these guys are that strong and can wipe out the Pact airship fleet like you said, then they are a major threat. I would rank Aetherblades more dangerous than the elder dragons. Because we killed Zhaitan with these very airships.

If the Pact soldiers are all defeatists, if the Order of Whispers cannot do a better job at gathering intelligence, and if the Pact engineers cannot do a better job fine tuning our weapons, and other departments cannot do a better job, we might as well de-solve the organization.

A defeatist “low-tech” army led by fools cannot protect the people.

Chipsy Chips(Necromancer) & Char Ashnoble(Thief)
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs

(edited by CHIPS.6018)

The Pact justification

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

That’s exactly my point. If the Pact is just the three Orders working together, and therefore involvement of all three Orders = Pact involvement sans the name, then why does the Pact charter not affect the Orders? Basically this means that the Pact can break their charter (and did so) simply by splitting into the Orders and not using the name “Pact.”

break which charter? LA had nothing to do with the ED’s (as far as anyone knew).

Which puts us back to my earlier question: where do the Orders end and the Pact begin?

Hmm, with that in mind I think the Pact begins when the orders relinquish individual power and choices by sacrificing resources in order to work in concert. But that doesn’t work the other way. The pact is the joint task force. So the Pact doesn’t really intrude on the orders beyond what they donate.

If the Pact has military forces (airships/helis/subs) that the individual Orders don’t use, has a charter that does not affect the Orders, and is treated as a separate entity in game (Pact showed up in name after the Orders were already there,) how can you continue to say that the Pact is nothing more than the Orders working together?

That is what the Pact is. The Orders working together intrinsically has access to options that the individual orders won’t have. That just comes with the cooperation. But keep in mind I also likened it to a joint task force. So it isn’t “simply working together”. it is much more when it come to specifically one goal. (Elder Dragons)

Clearly the Pact is greater than the sum of its parts. Clearly the three Orders working together in LA does not = the Pact sans the name.

The tigers could do what Voltron could not and Voltron could do what the tigers could not do alone. because their different characteristics of working together and working alone offer different advantages. The modern military works the same way. look at a CAAT Plt. (Combined Anti-Armor Tea) in the Marine Corps. It combines different arms to offer options that the individual arms couldn’t accomplish on their own.

As for limits in how much info a game can give players, I get that. That’s why I think even a small moment in the LS where we went to Trahearne and asked about getting the Pact involved would have gone a long way.

but this was given. It was just given after the event.

Q: “How come the Pact wasn’t there?”

A: “As far as anyone knew, it had nothing to do with ED’s”

But we always knew that the Pacts purpose was to deal with the ED’s.

(edited by Dustfinger.9510)

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

The Pact is more than just the Priory, Vigil, and Order of Whispers combined, because the three orders alone are not the full sum of the Pact’s parts. The Pact also receives supplies, soldiers, and presumably funding from all major nations, as well as some of the minor, less organized races.

If we’re keeping with the Voltron example, then having the three orders help out at the same time in Lion’s Arch is like having one or two of the lions show up, while the Krytan lion is off picking its nose, and the Ascalonian lion didn’t even hear the call to battle until it was too late.

Why is the Pact under a charter, while the three orders can run around as they wish? Mainly because the three orders are part of the handful of organizations that would have made the charter in the first place. The order leaders would have had just as much say in where the Pact can go and what it can do as the Krytan monarchy, or the charr leaders.

Order resources devoted to the Pact go to the Pact. Any other resources remaining within that particular order are autonomous from the Pact, and do not represent the Pact or Pact interests. A Priory scholar digging around in Serenity Temple is not a member of the Pact, and does not represent the Pact. They represent the Priory. Likewise, a bunch of Vigil soldiers, Whispers agents, and Priory scholars assisting a besieged Lion’s Arch are not members of the Pact, and do not represent the Pact or Pact interests. I think that’s the best way to think of it.

I can agree with bolded, I think spells it out the best. As a joint task force it does have it’s own resources set aside from the original entities. Once the task force becomes a task force, it has resources funneled directly to it that the original entities won’t have.

Looking at the Voltron example, he has a giant sword. None of the tigers have a giant sword. And none of them could hope to fight a giant monster with a giant sword if they want to have a good chance of all surviving the encounter. But once the tigeras get together, they can fight a big monster. But voltron also can’t be as effective against a lot of little monsters.

So maybe the answer also includes the fact that the existence of the Pact in no way makes the existance or ability of the orders obsolete when it comes to fighting bads. And without the situation the requires the orders to combine resources (ED’s), the orders really shine since they have been highly effective in their endeavors up until the ED problem forced their cooperation.

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Posted by: Erukk.1408

Erukk.1408

Think of it this way. Let’s say your army only have cavalry, while the enemies have modern tanks. Do you just sit back and watch the enemies kill your civilians?

No. You stand and fight to defend your people. Causality isn’t the issue here.

No, you tell the civilians to take what they can and flee for their lives. It’s better to try and save as many people as you can before the tanks get there, than it is to have everyone die fighting in a battle that was lost from the beginning.

Secondly, we do not know if our airships is outclassed by the Aetherblade airships. We have never seen the Aetherblade airships non-stop phasing in and out of existence, like you claimed they can. Who is to say they won’t suffer from a 10,000 second cooldown, like most skills do in GW2? Either way, a soldier cannot be a defeatist. Else the battle was lost before it began.

They don’t need to be constantly teleporting. The fleet needs to just do it in a strategic manner. The Aetherblades wait at a safe viewing distance for the Pact fleet to take a battle formation. Then, they simply teleport behind the ships and open fire. Once they are done, they simply teleport back out to a safe distance again.

Since the Pact ships cannons are on the sides of the ships, behind the ship is a vulnerable spot to take advantage of. By the time the Pact ship changes directions, the Aetherblades would have fired their volley and teleported back out again.

Also, as shown by the Opening Ceremony during the Queen’s Jubilee, the Aetherblades can teleport in an out of an area in a short matter of time. While it might be a limited amount of times to do so, if they do it right, they don’t need them.

And let’s say you are right about the Aetherblade airships. Then the Pact still failed as a whole, this time on the Pact engineers who are totally outclassed by a bunch of thug engineers and one person: Scarlet.

With the large amount of Charr in the Aetherblades, there should be a decent amount of ex-Iron Legion to oversee and train the other pirates how to take care of and repair the machines. The complicated stuff would be for the ex-Iron Legion members and the actually fully trained engineers.

And don’t discount Scarlet. She might have been crazy, but she was a genius of engineering.

BTW you said two contradicting points in that message. You said “Aetherblades is major threat” and “Aetherblades is no threat”. If these guys are that strong and can wipe out the Pact airship fleet like you said, then they are a major threat. I would rank Aetherblades more dangerous than the elder dragons. Because we killed Zhaitan with these very airships.

I didn’t contradict myself. I said that Scarlet and the Aetherblades were a major threat to Tyria, but they aren’t anywhere near the level of threat that the Elder Dragons pose.

Look how much planning it took for Scarlet to just invade and destroy Lion’s Arch. All the alliances she had to make, all the resources she had to pool together, all the stages of planning on the matter…

An Elder Dragon could destroy that whole area just by doing a fly over and breathing on it. The difference of the threat levels between the two are astronomical.

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Posted by: Lostwingman.5034

Lostwingman.5034

The difference is that Elder Dragons are extinction level events where Scarlet and her armies were more akin to a coalition of rogue states.

Bad@Ele: Alaric Von Manstein
Bad@Thief: Kiera Gordon
Sea of Sorrows, a server never before so appropriately named.

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Posted by: CHIPS.6018

CHIPS.6018

@ Erukk

Do you honestly believe the Pact did the best they could?

If the Pact actually defended LA and delayed Scarlet and managed to get the civilians out, I would totally agree with you. Once the city is evacuated, the soldiers can retreat away from the city.

But that wasn’t what happened.

Instead the Pact were nowhere near LA, when Scarlet attacked. By the time they got there thousands were dead. Scarlet had free reign in LA for a very very long time (e.g. more than 24 hours), greatly increase the number of victims.

This very very long time shouldn’t have happened. The Pact should be stationed nearby LA, ready to fight Scarlet at a moment’s notice.

The Pact could have done much better in preventing civilian deaths. That’s the main point here.

As for airships, please go ahead and tell the victims of LA that the Pact withheld their airships because the Aetherblade airships are so much better. It is like ants vs gods…

Yeah, such cowardice and defeatism will certainly win us popular support.

The Pact should have the best and brightest engineers and scientific minds in all of Kryta. It is sad to see them getting outclassed by the Aetherblades engineers by that much.

Perhaps we should go back to magic. If our engineers are that useless it is pointless to keep going toward technology. We will never catch up in this arms race.

I am very very disappointed in the Pact. This is my personal opinion. If you feel that Pact did the very best they could and even in the future they cannot do any better, that’s ok. I just personally don’t see much future with the Pact.

Maybe it is time to form a more radical version of the Pact. You know, an organization that actually delivers and successfully protects the people.

Chipsy Chips(Necromancer) & Char Ashnoble(Thief)
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs

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Posted by: DarcShriek.5829

DarcShriek.5829

Maybe you are right. But it doesn’t excuse the Pact from not trying their best.

The Pact airship were nowhere near LA. So of course they won’t reach LA in time to save LA. This is self fulfilling prophecy. The Pact never tried, so it didn’t succeed.

The Pact airships may or may not beat the Aetherblade airships. Either way it doesn’t excuse them from not being there. The soldiers must stand and fight the enemies, to defend the civilians, no matter the odds of winning.

So… It would have been ok for the Pact to suffer major causalities, lose of prized equipment (airships), morale, and ultimately defeat, because at least they tried their best?

While I agree that soldiers must stand and fight the enemies and to defend the civilians, but I disagree on the “no matter the odds of winning”. You can’t chance sacrificing your army to win a battle (Scarlet), when it means you’ll lose the continued war (Elder Dragons).

Scarlet might have been a highly dangerous individual, but she was still just that, an individual, and she can (and was) be dealt with like any other person can be. The Elder Dragons are not like that though. With a simple breath: they can create an army, corrupt the land to make it unlivable, destroy a settlement, and basically kill us all if they so desired.

Scarlet was no where, no where, near the level of threat of an Elder Dragon. And that is what the Pact has to deal with. I’m perfectly fine with it leaving the “small” threats of Tyria to the Orders and the major races. The Pact has to ready itself to deal with much larger threats to the land.

Think of it this way. Let’s say your army only have cavalry, while the enemies have modern tanks. Do you just sit back and watch the enemies kill your civilians?

No. You stand and fight to defend your people. Causality isn’t the issue here.

Secondly, we do not know if our airships is outclassed by the Aetherblade airships. We have never seen the Aetherblade airships non-stop phasing in and out of existence, like you claimed they can. Who is to say they won’t suffer from a 10,000 second cooldown, like most skills do in GW2? Either way, a soldier cannot be a defeatist. Else the battle was lost before it began.

And let’s say you are right about the Aetherblade airships. Then the Pact still failed as a whole, this time on the Pact engineers who are totally outclassed by a bunch of thug engineers and one person: Scarlet.

BTW you said two contradicting points in that message. You said “Aetherblades is major threat” and “Aetherblades is no threat”. If these guys are that strong and can wipe out the Pact airship fleet like you said, then they are a major threat. I would rank Aetherblades more dangerous than the elder dragons. Because we killed Zhaitan with these very airships.

If the Pact soldiers are all defeatists, if the Order of Whispers cannot do a better job at gathering intelligence, and if the Pact engineers cannot do a better job fine tuning our weapons, and other departments cannot do a better job, we might as well de-solve the organization.

A defeatist “low-tech” army led by fools cannot protect the people.

As a former member of the military, all I have to say is that you scare the crap out of me. You would foolishly sacrifice the lives of your calvary against tanks? For what purpose? You want to tell their wives, parents, and children how you sacrificed their loved ones for a hopeless cause? The idea of defense is to minimize casualties, not maximise them. The better move in your example is not to stand and fight, but to use speed and mobility to get your people out of the way, which should have been done prior to combat.

In your example, the best option is surrender.

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Posted by: CHIPS.6018

CHIPS.6018

Maybe you are right. But it doesn’t excuse the Pact from not trying their best.

The Pact airship were nowhere near LA. So of course they won’t reach LA in time to save LA. This is self fulfilling prophecy. The Pact never tried, so it didn’t succeed.

The Pact airships may or may not beat the Aetherblade airships. Either way it doesn’t excuse them from not being there. The soldiers must stand and fight the enemies, to defend the civilians, no matter the odds of winning.

So… It would have been ok for the Pact to suffer major causalities, lose of prized equipment (airships), morale, and ultimately defeat, because at least they tried their best?

While I agree that soldiers must stand and fight the enemies and to defend the civilians, but I disagree on the “no matter the odds of winning”. You can’t chance sacrificing your army to win a battle (Scarlet), when it means you’ll lose the continued war (Elder Dragons).

Scarlet might have been a highly dangerous individual, but she was still just that, an individual, and she can (and was) be dealt with like any other person can be. The Elder Dragons are not like that though. With a simple breath: they can create an army, corrupt the land to make it unlivable, destroy a settlement, and basically kill us all if they so desired.

Scarlet was no where, no where, near the level of threat of an Elder Dragon. And that is what the Pact has to deal with. I’m perfectly fine with it leaving the “small” threats of Tyria to the Orders and the major races. The Pact has to ready itself to deal with much larger threats to the land.

Think of it this way. Let’s say your army only have cavalry, while the enemies have modern tanks. Do you just sit back and watch the enemies kill your civilians?

No. You stand and fight to defend your people. Causality isn’t the issue here.

Secondly, we do not know if our airships is outclassed by the Aetherblade airships. We have never seen the Aetherblade airships non-stop phasing in and out of existence, like you claimed they can. Who is to say they won’t suffer from a 10,000 second cooldown, like most skills do in GW2? Either way, a soldier cannot be a defeatist. Else the battle was lost before it began.

And let’s say you are right about the Aetherblade airships. Then the Pact still failed as a whole, this time on the Pact engineers who are totally outclassed by a bunch of thug engineers and one person: Scarlet.

BTW you said two contradicting points in that message. You said “Aetherblades is major threat” and “Aetherblades is no threat”. If these guys are that strong and can wipe out the Pact airship fleet like you said, then they are a major threat. I would rank Aetherblades more dangerous than the elder dragons. Because we killed Zhaitan with these very airships.

If the Pact soldiers are all defeatists, if the Order of Whispers cannot do a better job at gathering intelligence, and if the Pact engineers cannot do a better job fine tuning our weapons, and other departments cannot do a better job, we might as well de-solve the organization.

A defeatist “low-tech” army led by fools cannot protect the people.

As a former member of the military, all I have to say is that you scare the crap out of me. You would foolishly sacrifice the lives of your calvary against tanks? For what purpose? You want to tell their wives, parents, and children how you sacrificed their loved ones for a hopeless cause? The idea of defense is to minimize casualties, not maximise them. The better move in your example is not to stand and fight, but to use speed and mobility to get your people out of the way, which should have been done prior to combat.

In your example, the best option is surrender.

They did tried surrendering, and then the Holocaust happened. If they knew that would happen, they would have fought harder.

Against an enemy of pure evil, it is fight or die no matter the odds.

If you think we should surrender, you have to ask yourself: How much faith do you have in your enemies that they won’t slaughter and ethic cleanse everyone.

I do agree that the evacuation should have been better planned and executed.

Sometimes the mission is indeed suicidal, to buy the civilians a few extra seconds to escape. I will tell the dead soldier’s love ones that they all died heroes, to allow their families to escape from the Holocaust.

BTW, if the Pact eventually does fall so far that it needs to surrender to our enemies, then I was right all along: The Pact is not good enough to protect the people.

Chipsy Chips(Necromancer) & Char Ashnoble(Thief)
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs

(edited by CHIPS.6018)

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Posted by: Zaxares.5419

Zaxares.5419

The Pact is primarily composed of forces from the 3 Orders. All 3 Orders were also present in combatting Scarlet and saving Lion’s Arch. With the various dragonspawn still out there ravaging the world, the Pact can’t just drop everything and go to fight Scarlet, who as far as anyone knew, didn’t have anything to do with the Elder Dragons. Just because your country is at war doesn’t mean you send the Homeland Defense Force and your police to go fight halfway across the world unless it’s really an all or nothing affair.

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Posted by: DarcShriek.5829

DarcShriek.5829

Maybe you are right. But it doesn’t excuse the Pact from not trying their best.

The Pact airship were nowhere near LA. So of course they won’t reach LA in time to save LA. This is self fulfilling prophecy. The Pact never tried, so it didn’t succeed.

The Pact airships may or may not beat the Aetherblade airships. Either way it doesn’t excuse them from not being there. The soldiers must stand and fight the enemies, to defend the civilians, no matter the odds of winning.

So… It would have been ok for the Pact to suffer major causalities, lose of prized equipment (airships), morale, and ultimately defeat, because at least they tried their best?

While I agree that soldiers must stand and fight the enemies and to defend the civilians, but I disagree on the “no matter the odds of winning”. You can’t chance sacrificing your army to win a battle (Scarlet), when it means you’ll lose the continued war (Elder Dragons).

Scarlet might have been a highly dangerous individual, but she was still just that, an individual, and she can (and was) be dealt with like any other person can be. The Elder Dragons are not like that though. With a simple breath: they can create an army, corrupt the land to make it unlivable, destroy a settlement, and basically kill us all if they so desired.

Scarlet was no where, no where, near the level of threat of an Elder Dragon. And that is what the Pact has to deal with. I’m perfectly fine with it leaving the “small” threats of Tyria to the Orders and the major races. The Pact has to ready itself to deal with much larger threats to the land.

Think of it this way. Let’s say your army only have cavalry, while the enemies have modern tanks. Do you just sit back and watch the enemies kill your civilians?

No. You stand and fight to defend your people. Causality isn’t the issue here.

Secondly, we do not know if our airships is outclassed by the Aetherblade airships. We have never seen the Aetherblade airships non-stop phasing in and out of existence, like you claimed they can. Who is to say they won’t suffer from a 10,000 second cooldown, like most skills do in GW2? Either way, a soldier cannot be a defeatist. Else the battle was lost before it began.

And let’s say you are right about the Aetherblade airships. Then the Pact still failed as a whole, this time on the Pact engineers who are totally outclassed by a bunch of thug engineers and one person: Scarlet.

BTW you said two contradicting points in that message. You said “Aetherblades is major threat” and “Aetherblades is no threat”. If these guys are that strong and can wipe out the Pact airship fleet like you said, then they are a major threat. I would rank Aetherblades more dangerous than the elder dragons. Because we killed Zhaitan with these very airships.

If the Pact soldiers are all defeatists, if the Order of Whispers cannot do a better job at gathering intelligence, and if the Pact engineers cannot do a better job fine tuning our weapons, and other departments cannot do a better job, we might as well de-solve the organization.

A defeatist “low-tech” army led by fools cannot protect the people.

As a former member of the military, all I have to say is that you scare the crap out of me. You would foolishly sacrifice the lives of your calvary against tanks? For what purpose? You want to tell their wives, parents, and children how you sacrificed their loved ones for a hopeless cause? The idea of defense is to minimize casualties, not maximise them. The better move in your example is not to stand and fight, but to use speed and mobility to get your people out of the way, which should have been done prior to combat.

In your example, the best option is surrender.

They did tried surrendering, and then the Holocaust happened. If they knew that would happen, they would have fought harder.

Against an enemy of pure evil, it is fight or die no matter the odds.

If you think we should surrender, you have to ask yourself: How much faith do you have in your enemies that they won’t slaughter and ethic cleanse everyone.

I do agree that the evacuation should have been better planned and executed.

I will tell the dead soldier’s love ones that they all died heroes, to allow their families to escape from the Holocaust.

BTW, if the Pact eventually does fall so far that it needs to surrender to our enemies, then I was right all along: The Pact is not good enough to protect the people.

Some day, you will know what pain is. On that day, you will realize how cruel your attitude is. There is nothing the knights could have accomplished other than dying. You are promoting senseless slaughter of innocent lives.

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

Just because your country is at war doesn’t mean you send the Homeland Defense Force and your police to go fight halfway across the world unless it’s really an all or nothing affair.

This, I think, is an excellent point.

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Posted by: lakdav.3694

lakdav.3694

So basicly the Pact failed to do what may or may not specificly be their job to do, perfectly. And there is an arguement that it should disband because of this ‘failure’?

After defeating Zhaitan and successfully averting the risen advance and holding Orr ever since. Doing well what it was meant to do. Not putting a full-scale effort doing what was not its job to do.

If the Pact would indeed be depressed by this ‘failure’ enough to consider disbanding, it would be time for a proper kitten -kicking pep-talk. Man up ffs! What better military force does Tyria have after the Pact to battle the dragons, the greatest threat? Nothing. Wallowing in self-pity over this would be the most childish thing to do.

Im quite tired of people always looking for the strong to take care of their problems that they cant handle, expecting the strong to throw everything away and rush to help when they have more pressing matters that concern the safety of those same people from a far larger threat mind you. Thats kindergarden heroics with zero consideration, and im glad Anet didnt go that way. Also hoping that they will explore the full ramifications of this as the story progresses.

I repeat it again: If anyone failed, it was the Captains Council and the Lionguard.

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Posted by: Erukk.1408

Erukk.1408

lakdav.3694

I repeat it again: If anyone failed, it was the Captains Council and the Lionguard.

I would blame the Captain’s Council more than the Lionguard, since the Lionguard can’t really do anything without the Council’s authority.

Though, if the Council was going to hold the idiot ball on this occasion, the very least they could have done was make an announcement on the matter. It might have caused a panic in the populace (possibility of imminent mass death and all), but it would have still allowed some people to leave before the attack happened.

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Posted by: PseudoNewb.5468

PseudoNewb.5468

Not at all what I was asking. Let me try and rephrase it: if the Pact is made of the three Orders and is bound by a charter that prevents action unless a dragon is involved, why are the three orders not also bound by this? Any nations that have ties to the Pact through the charter have ties to the three Orders by proxy. So if the Pact interfering in LA would have ticked off the ruling bodies as a breach of charter (as is implied in this thread,) why is it fine when the Orders do it?

The Pact is just a different chain of command that the 3 orders entrust some their forces to be controlled by. Each order’s individual army report to their respective order heads. However, if a portion of the army is assigned to the pact, then those portions all report to Trahearne. If you think about it, even pact lieutenants are loyal to a specific order, so the only thing that makes the pact what it is is Trahearne being the ultimate authority for pact orders. However, Trahearne doesn’t become king of all the soldiers put under his command. Trahearne can only give out orders if the order’s conform to a set of goals agreed upon by all contributing members, that is what the charter is for. You are correct in thinking, but the 3 orders all agree on defending Lions Arch. However, they probably wouldn’t agree on bringing Trahearne into the operations in Lions Arch. Lionguard would not approve of that organizational structure either. I don’t even think most of the player base would have cared to see Trahearne involve in Lions Arch either.

In Lions Arch, the Liongaurd are in charge. All the forces in Lion’s Arch ultimately would report to Magnus. The pact exists to coordinate the cooperation of order forces, but in Lion’s Arch that job is already filled by Magnus and his lieutenants. Therefore, instead of filling pact ranks with reinforcements, then sending in Trahearne as a liaison between all order forces and the Lionguard, it is much more reasonable and efficient to simply have all forces report directly to the Lionguard. You may ask, but can’t you involve pact forces without Trahearne? No, because pact forces following orders from Magnus instead of Trahearne makes them order forces helping the Liongaurd, not pact forces.

We don’t even know the condition of the pact armies during the attack on Lions Arch. But because Zhaitan is dead, and there is no active offensive being directed towards any of the other dragons at the time, I would imagine that the order’s have returned most of their forces back under their direct command. Leaving a few forces to defend fortifications in Orr and a few others to gather intelligence on the other dragons. I would imaging that the forces actively working under the pact would be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of forces that the orders brought to Lions Arch. Are we to assume that the orders would leave such an excessive number of forces in the pact that the Pact can do whatever with them? More likely unneeded resources get reassigned to more useful tasks for their individual orders.

The orders are going to be constantly reassessing and reassigning their resources depending on their current goals. They orders could have recalled a majority of their forces that where assigned to the pact during the attack on Lions Arch. They don’t need (or necessarily want) Trahearne to lead their forces in Lions Arch, so it would be logical for them to simply take them away from Trahearne. That may also be why Trahearne was reluctant to let Laranthir to go to Lions Arch after the battle. The pact may be spread so thin after troop reductions, that Laranthir would be taking a large chunk of remaining pact capabilities to go sightseeing in Lions Arch. We have to remember that Larnthir took forces to Lions Arch after we killed Scarlet and presumably the Liongaurd+orders cleared most of the remaining threats.

We are not told that pact resources where not diverted to Lions Arch (well pact resources are actually order resources, so there is no such thing as pact resources). But we where told that the Pact, as a force reporting to Trahearne, did not move into Lions Arch.

The Pact justification

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Posted by: CHIPS.6018

CHIPS.6018

Some day, you will know what pain is. On that day, you will realize how cruel your attitude is. There is nothing the knights could have accomplished other than dying. You are promoting senseless slaughter of innocent lives.

When people signed up for the army, they agreed to take the pain of war on behalf of the civilians. No one is forcing people to join the army in GW2. If they are not willing to die for the civilians, do not join.

Chipsy Chips(Necromancer) & Char Ashnoble(Thief)
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs

The Pact justification

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Posted by: CHIPS.6018

CHIPS.6018

So basicly the Pact failed to do what may or may not specificly be their job to do, perfectly. And there is an arguement that it should disband because of this ‘failure’?

After defeating Zhaitan and successfully averting the risen advance and holding Orr ever since. Doing well what it was meant to do. Not putting a full-scale effort doing what was not its job to do.

If the Pact would indeed be depressed by this ‘failure’ enough to consider disbanding, it would be time for a proper kitten -kicking pep-talk. Man up ffs! What better military force does Tyria have after the Pact to battle the dragons, the greatest threat? Nothing. Wallowing in self-pity over this would be the most childish thing to do.

Im quite tired of people always looking for the strong to take care of their problems that they cant handle, expecting the strong to throw everything away and rush to help when they have more pressing matters that concern the safety of those same people from a far larger threat mind you. Thats kindergarden heroics with zero consideration, and im glad Anet didnt go that way. Also hoping that they will explore the full ramifications of this as the story progresses.

I repeat it again: If anyone failed, it was the Captains Council and the Lionguard.

Their failures went much deeper than that. From the Pact engineer’s failure to develop airships strong enough to fight against Aetherblades, to Order of Whisper’s failures in gathering intelligence.

There are many more. No point listing them all.

The Pact can stay together if it wants. But if it doesn’t improve, then perhaps some of us should go out and form a more radical version of the Pact that actually get things done. That’s my point.

Chipsy Chips(Necromancer) & Char Ashnoble(Thief)
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs

The Pact justification

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Posted by: Erukk.1408

Erukk.1408

CHIPS.6018

When people signed up for the army, they agreed to take the pain of war on behalf of the civilians. No one is forcing people to join the army in GW2. If they are not willing to die for the civilians, do not join.

There is a big difference between “willing to die for civilians” and “forced to die for civilians”.

People join the army to protect their people/country, but they have to know that the higher ups care about their safety as much as everyone else’s. As DarcShriek said earilier, the idea of defense is about about minimizing casualties. For both sides, civilian and soldier. If there is no trust between the soldiers and the higher ups that plan their actions, that army is doomed to fail.

They might have made their life’s work to protect others, but that in no way makes them sacrificial pawns to just throw at an enemy because “that would be the right thing to do”.

The Pact justification

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

From the living story so far we should now understand that we can’t assume anything based on what NPCs are not doing. Many NPCs have never done the minimum of what we expect them to do and instead of being a plot clue it has just been the limited scale of the game content. We have to accept that. There’s no use asking why the Pact isn’t in Lion’s Arch or why Queen Jennah hasn’t tried to catch Scarlet and recover the clockwork technology, say. Players will never though accept clear continuity errors in what we are shown in game.

If the Pact was in Lion’s Arch it would create continuity errors with the personal story. It is as straightforward as that. Some of our characters have actually founded the Pact as part of the personal story. Other characters have not. There is a massive, inexcusable, continuity error if the Pact is there defending Lion’s Arch today and tomorrow your character founds the Pact from three orders who refuse to work together. The three Orders exist in any timeline and they do take in refugees from Lion’s Arch, consistent for any timeline, so we see that in game.

Anet have already been sloppy in putting other continuity errors needlessly into the game (such as the Aetherblades stealing Pact airships), however I’d rather not see those errors compounded until their timelines become an even worse mess than they are right now. We all clearly want the story to take account of our character history, but it has to be correct for everyone. It is far easier to have the customization in an instance or have a couple of open world characters with text dialogs saying “Hello, Pact Commander”.

Thing is, from my perspective this isn’t a justification.

It’s an example of why ArenaNet’s policy of claiming that whichever part of the Living Story is currently running is simultaneous with whichever part of the Personal Story a character is up to is fundamentally flawed. The more they try to continue with this policy, the more these [url=“http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarthWiki/WallBanger”]wall-bangers[/url] are going to accrue.

We were happy to accept in Guild Wars 1 that sometimes you’d be playing things out of chronological order. I can see what they’re trying to do with their policy in GW1, but… it’s failing. They’re sacrificing their ability to make good, believable stories for the sake of avoiding any continuity error with the PS regardless of whether the player is right at the start, has finished it, or is anywhere in between, and in the process I think they’re throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

So I’m glad to hear that it’s been abandoned.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

The Pact justification

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

I think I’m going to have to come down on the side of discretion here. There are times when sacrificing soldiers in a desperate last stand is justified, but you have to keep in mind that every soldier that dies in Battle A is one more resource you don’t have for Battle B. You protect your people in asymmetric wars by trying to keep your enemy occupied while taking minimum casualties while buying as much time as possible for your civilians to escape… if you throw them all away in one suicidal action, then you’ve given the enemy free reign.

The German strategy after Hitler was replaced by someone reasonably sane shows this. They didn’t suicidally throw everything they had left at the Red Army, instead they utilised what remaining resources they had left to stall the Russians as much as possible while all but inviting the British and Americans in with the belief that Germans in Western-controlled territories would fare better than those under the Soviets (which turned out to be accurate, although it was a bit hairy for a few years). They had to accept that more of their people would still come under Stalin’s power however hard they tried, but they did better than they would have if they’d let the entirety of what was left of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe be destroyed in suicidal battles.

On the other hand… I’m not sure that the disparity is as large as claimed. I don’t remember the Aetherblade ships teleporting that often – if you watched them, they usually arrived by flying down from above, and left by ascending away. The Aetherblade soldiers could be teleported down and back up, but this wasn’t much more of an advantage than Zhaitan’s champions did being able to throw lesser Risen onto the airships in Arah story. The Glory of Tyria was damaged but not destroyed in Zhaitan’s defeat, and if it has sister ships now, they would probably substantially outclass the Aetherblade ships.

The most interesting thing to note here, though, is that we as players do make up the bulk of the Pact. Every successful dragon event has a lot more PCs than NPCs, and a lot of events in Orr require similar balances to be successful. Outside of the Personal Story we can’t all actually be the second of command, but it would be very interesting if ArenaNet acknowledges that the Pact is basically us, and uses forum activity as a basis for what discussions are going on within the Pact.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

The Pact justification

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

I’ve become convinced that CHIPS is using Russia during WWII as his basis for how wars should be fought – a war of attrition using footsoldiers to twiddle down the enemy.

Which is not how wars should be fought.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

The Pact justification

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

Heedlessly throwing troops into the meat grinder just to spite the opponent sounds like the skaven of Warcraft. And it only works for them due to a high birth rate. And only by subjecting their troops/slaves to brutalization and torture from an early age.