Guild Wars 2

I RP Yumiko as her last rank before commander in her order as there can only be one commander and it is not right to RP “I’m a commander.” and the next guy also says they are one too? Yet there can be plenty of magisters, lightbringers, and warmasters in the game and in RP. Its all about the nameless hero thing. We also can’t say I killed Scarlet as 1000s of us probably did too.

In the RP scene, I play as one of the many Vigil Warmasters of Divinity’ s Reach’s branch and she handles more non-dragon stuff, like Scarlet, by getting new recruits and volunteers to fight her armies in the previous LS part that just ended.

Yumi was very kittened that she barely got more than a handful (maybe a few 100) troops (and of her own order) to send to their doom in the Battle for Lion’s Arch. When the guy came form the pact and said what he said, it further reinforced her ire towards Trehearne and the pact, as already she had to bury her own dead and return dog tags to the vigil and Almorra.

Actually there is more than 1 commander. If I remember right Commander is just the second highest rank in the Pact, but it is a title shared by a group (it is just that you personally are the “greatest among equals”). I want to say there is a Pact Commander NPC in the game, but I can’t remember where and the wiki doesn’t state. Anyways, you are prolly right though. There may be a few Commanders, but not millions, lol.

I recall there being at least 2, possibly up to 4 if not more, Pact Commanders in-game.

There’s one in the Pact fort in Frostgorge (near the entrance to FIreheart – it’s a charr). There’s one in Citadel of Flame explorable (another charr). There’s a “Commander” figure in southern Timberline Falls in a Vigil/Priory camp, though Commander isn’t a rank in either order. And IIRC, there’s a Commander that’s present in Cursed Shore’s Gates of Arah meta.

Ironically, the first three are all Charr and wearing Vigil armor.

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”.

Of course the commander should do his best to minimize causalities. But if 100 soldiers have to die, in order for 10,000 civilians to survive, the commander would make that trade every single time.

If one of these 100 soldiers refuse to fight and say “I don’t wanna die”, we would have to shoot him for desertion to set an example. Because if one soldier do not die fighting, 100 additional civilians will be dead.

And if you think we don’t kill deserters:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Deserters

War is not pretty. Commanders make life and death choices everyday. It is literally impossible to keep everyone alive. This has nothing to do with “sacrificial pawns”. Soldiers will die in war no matter how good the commander is.

If a soldier say he only “trust” his commander on the condition that commander promised to keep everyone alive, we might as well disband the army. Because this “trust” is never going to happen.

In GW2 no one forced anyone to join the army. There are plenty of farmers, shop keepers around. But once a person joins the army, he must be ready to give his life any time.

“Forced to die for civilians”? If this is what it takes to save lives, sometimes it got to be done.

Oh here comes a little girl who lost both of her parents in LA. She got a question for all of you:

Girl: “Why wasn’t the Pact airships here? Why didn’t they shoot down the baddies’ airships to save my parents?”
Defeatists: “Because the Pact airships are no match against the baddies’ airships. Our engineers sucks.”
Cowards: “Because we don’t want to die. Our lives are worth more than stranger civilians.”
Traherne: “Because the LA council refused our help. Obviously LA wasn’t prepared. But neither were we, because for us to be prepared the LA council must agree to our help first. Here is the idiot ball that I got.”
Girl: “I hate you guys! I am joining….whoever your enemies are when I grow up!” (runs away) :P

You see, we are not answering to each other. We are answering to all the victims in LA.

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.

Why wasn’t the Pact airships on stand by around LA Konig? Why wasn’t the Order of Whisper able to gather intelligence on Scarlet and her army before this disaster? Why are the Pact engineers so far behind our enemies? Why is the Pact failing on so many levels?

Finally, go ahead Konig, tell that little girl why her parents are dead. Tell her how awesome the Pact is. Tell her why she should trust the Pact with her life.

BTW it is funny that you took a shot at attrition, which is a highly valid tactic. You seem to be confused that attrition=cannon fodders. This is obviously wrong.

How did you think US won the war against Japan? Superior tactics? No, it was the eventual 10 to 1 ratio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf

This, of course, does not mean US throw away their troops as cannon fodders.

If it was the Pact vs Aetherblades, attrition is indeed a very valid tactic. The pact have much more land and resources. So it is valid to take advantage of that.

Sort of skimmed through here so sorry if this has been brought up but it occurs to me that all the jointly developed tech for the Pact should really probably be trickling back to the groups that make up the pact by now. Especially the airships, considering that the Aetherblades have quite literally had free reign over the skies of Tyria for months now, why haven’t the orders and nations started building their own fleets?

I mean, if the Aetherblades could build a fleet of that size in the intervening time since they acquired and reverse engineered a Pact one surely the groups behind the pact would be building up their own ships for use outside the Pact.

I can understand the Pact itself not intervening they are strictly anti-dragon but I find the fact that the Battle for LA was fought without any air-support to be absolutely absurd. It really is a miracle we managed to win at all, and I daresay without the sort of assassination we pulled against Scarlet we would not have been able to win through sheer military might.

CHIPS.6018:

Why wasn’t the Pact airships on stand by around LA Konig? Why wasn’t the Order of Whisper able to gather intelligence on Scarlet and her army before this disaster? Why are the Pact engineers so far behind our enemies? Why is the Pact failing on so many levels?

Finally, go ahead Konig, tell that little girl why her parents are dead. Tell her how awesome the Pact is. Tell her why she should trust the Pact with her life.

BTW it is funny that you took a shot at attrition, which is a highly valid tactic. You seem to be confused that attrition=cannon fodders. This is obviously wrong.

How did you think US won the war against Japan? Superior tactics? No, it was the eventual 10 to 1 ratio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf

This, of course, does not mean US throw away their troops as cannon fodders.

If it was the Pact vs Aetherblades, attrition is indeed a very valid tactic. The pact have much more land and resources. So it is valid to take advantage of that.

In order:

• Go to Orr, look up. That’s where all the airships are, if they weren’t stolen by Aetherblades or aren’t in repait.
• Hell if I know. Anet loves dem good folks having this here idiot ball. Why didn’t the Priory know Scarlet had a lair right underneath them? This isn’t a fault on the Pact anyways, so why bring it up in this topic?
• They aren’t. Just because the Aetherblades added some fancy dancy shining red electromagnetic plating doesn’t make their airships superior. Though if you’re referring to everything else, the answer is obvious: Scarlet. ArenaNet wanted her to be better than everyone and anyone, and she’s the reason why the alliances were capable of progressing so far. Beyond that, I wouldn’t really say the Pact are “behind” so much as they are “developed in a different direction” – all of their weapons are geared to the mentality of “anti-Elder Dragon (minion)” whereas Scarlet’s alliances were making weapons to the mentality of “killing people.” And what works best against dragons and their minions… don’t work so well against people, especially people who have weapons geared to improving effectiveness of killing people.
• The Pact is not failing on any level, actually. They set out to kill Zhaitan, they did so. They suffered a lot of losses and spent the past year rebuilding said losses, but they’ve yet to fail. They’ve yet to suffer defeat (just got casualties).

Her parents are dead because the Captain’s Council are idiots. They’re dead because that’s war for you. How about you go tell all those husbands and wives, boys and girls who won’t be seeing their fathers, mothers, brothers, and/or sisters who joined the Pact after you selfishly sent them as kamakaze runners. It may have worked against the Fire Elemental before its rebalancing a while back, but it doesn’t work with NPCs – they can’t waypoint to rez.

I wasn’t clear what I meant by attrition. I don’t mean putting the enemy through attrition, which is indeed (most of the time) a fully valid tactics. I mean using attrition on one’s own soldiers. What Russia did was that they had too many infantry for how many weapons they could produce, so they basically sent out one guy with a gun (no ammo), the next with the ammo (no gun). You’re saying we should do the exact same thing with the Pact’s troops. Well guess what: after a (short) while, you’re going to run out of troops in the Pact.

And sorry to say but in a Pact vs Aetherblade situation, attrition would not be a valid tactic. Why? Because there’s no need for the Aetherblades to remain in conflict with the Pact. Unlike Japan who were fighting on their own soil in WWII in the situation you’re talking about, the Aetherblades have no soil to defend, no wall to be backed into – that’s the key point in battles of attrition, you have to wear down the enemy because they have no other option but to be worn down and if you cannot back them into a wall, they have other options. Especially now that they’re set up in the Mists.

Well, as i already did stated my opinion about the PACT lack of involvement, and genearly about the massive amount of plot-holes in the LS in other thread, i will just say this.

As a 2nd in command(stated by game many times) that suposed to have some influence over the PACT, that suposed to have some people under me to follow my orders, after the fight for LA, during which i was fighting throu hordes of Scarlet’s soldiers with only some random Adventuresrs, Lionguards and some Order’s members at my side, witnessing city burning and crumbling,…smelling the odor of blood and buring corpses of citizens and soldiers, that was spreading throu the city! fighting and finishing off Scarlet herself, and finaly after all is over…after this nightmare ended, looking at that lone PACT ship entering airspace of LA, or at least what remain of it…which is just a pile of burning rubbles, looking at that scenery i feel EXTREMLY disapointed in PACT…needless to say i felt extreme urge to punch Laranthir to the face…

…charter, purpose, jurisdiction…what does it all mean? what is the point of it? when thousands of citizens died, not all of them were pirates, ther were many families with childrens.
What Elder Dragons? it was just a single maniac and her army that razed the city to the ground, thats all it took…

I dunno about others , but after all thies events, i don’t really feel like continue being member of PACT.

p.s. This post is made based on experience and feelings of my game character…well, on my personal feelings aswell.

Why isn’t the CIA out patrolling the streets of NY helping to catch muggers? Don’t they care about our fine citizens? A neighbors got mugged and the CIA did nothing to stop it. They have the ability to catch a single mugger but they simply failed my neighbor.

Lasica.5068:

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

It’s an organisation put together to fight the Elder Dragons, it’s not there to solve every internal conflict or war within or between nations. Should the Pact also be involved in fighting the Inquest? or the rebels threatening the human/charr peace around Ebonhawke.

As the NPC added in this update said, had they known Scarlet was involved with the Elder Dragons they would have assisted. This is because then they would be filling their role.

EXACTLY. They aren’t going to charge forth to stop every racial deviant and criminal group. Besides the fact the problems often were solved quickly by local forces and adventurers.

I HAD a long as kitten multi-point post explaining a lot of the reasons the Pact didn’t get involved, but it got wiped accidentally. I’ll retype it later and post it here.

Actually, to truly have the feel of being a Commander of the Pact in the open world, you need to have an actual Commander tag so that other players (who are most, by definition of their Personal Story, members of the orders and the Pact) would follow you around in a zerg.

Okay, a calmer, more concise post variant of my earlier one.

A: If the Pact got involved, it could hold bad implications. Either 1: People start expecting them to stop local warlords/criminal groups, and when they don’t they complain. or 2: Pact stretches itself thin and useless fighting EVERYBODY’s battles.
B: As said in the post I quoted, we can’t expect them to fight every battle, they focus on dragon related fights.
C: LA/Captain’s council didn’t ask for help. Marching in against the will of the local leadership can cause other cities and towns to question if the Pact will just force themselves in without invitation or warning.
D: Scarlet’s forces (Before LA) never really worked together, and were swiftly beat down. If you asked Trahearne to launch an airship force to take out the aetherblades or anybody else, you’d have to answer “Where is their base?” WHICH, nobody knew. Ever. We knew of a threat toward LA but we had no idea where it’d come from. Which is how Scarlet steamrolled the defenses. Aetherblades from above bombarding, then Molten Alliance from underground and Toxic from the sea.
E: The Pact IS the orders. Orders provide manpower to the Pact. Really, the only ‘special’ things the Pact could’ve brought forth is leadership/officer elements (Wasn’t needed) or heavy gear (Airships, tanks, etc… which wouldn’t have truly helped). By the time they could’ve had a force mobilized and ready to launch from Fort trinity, the worst of the fighting would be over. By the time they reached LA, it’d be cleanup time.

If I played my character as a commander of the Pact (Second in command or just commander level/very high up), She’d understand why Trahearne couldn’t get involved. As noted above. First off, the situations before got handled neatly by local forces and adventurers without too much issue. Secondly, they had no idea where the forces retreated to. Thirdly, it’d possibly cause a PR disaster or create unwanted expectations about the Pact.

The Risen, as I’ve heard, have to be heavily smashed up/damaged to ‘die’ fully. We may have never completely killed the risen giants, larger risen, or dragon champions. They need the forces deployed in Orr to handle the Risen cleanup, which isn’t an easy task.

CHIPS.6018:

If it was the Pact vs Aetherblades, attrition is indeed a very valid tactic. THE PACT have much more land and resources. So it is valid to take advantage of that

Hey guys, the Pact is apparently a land holding nation.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In order:

• Go to Orr, look up. That’s where all the airships are, if they weren’t stolen by Aetherblades or aren’t in repait.
• Hell if I know. Anet loves dem good folks having this here idiot ball. Why didn’t the Priory know Scarlet had a lair right underneath them? This isn’t a fault on the Pact anyways, so why bring it up in this topic?
• They aren’t. Just because the Aetherblades added some fancy dancy shining red electromagnetic plating doesn’t make their airships superior. Though if you’re referring to everything else, the answer is obvious: Scarlet. ArenaNet wanted her to be better than everyone and anyone, and she’s the reason why the alliances were capable of progressing so far. Beyond that, I wouldn’t really say the Pact are “behind” so much as they are “developed in a different direction” – all of their weapons are geared to the mentality of “anti-Elder Dragon (minion)” whereas Scarlet’s alliances were making weapons to the mentality of “killing people.” And what works best against dragons and their minions… don’t work so well against people, especially people who have weapons geared to improving effectiveness of killing people.
• The Pact is not failing on any level, actually. They set out to kill Zhaitan, they did so. They suffered a lot of losses and spent the past year rebuilding said losses, but they’ve yet to fail. They’ve yet to suffer defeat (just got casualties).

Her parents are dead because the Captain’s Council are idiots. They’re dead because that’s war for you. How about you go tell all those husbands and wives, boys and girls who won’t be seeing their fathers, mothers, brothers, and/or sisters who joined the Pact after you selfishly sent them as kamakaze runners. It may have worked against the Fire Elemental before its rebalancing a while back, but it doesn’t work with NPCs – they can’t waypoint to rez.

I wasn’t clear what I meant by attrition. I don’t mean putting the enemy through attrition, which is indeed (most of the time) a fully valid tactics. I mean using attrition on one’s own soldiers. What Russia did was that they had too many infantry for how many weapons they could produce, so they basically sent out one guy with a gun (no ammo), the next with the ammo (no gun). You’re saying we should do the exact same thing with the Pact’s troops. Well guess what: after a (short) while, you’re going to run out of troops in the Pact.

And sorry to say but in a Pact vs Aetherblade situation, attrition would not be a valid tactic. Why? Because there’s no need for the Aetherblades to remain in conflict with the Pact. Unlike Japan who were fighting on their own soil in WWII in the situation you’re talking about, the Aetherblades have no soil to defend, no wall to be backed into – that’s the key point in battles of attrition, you have to wear down the enemy because they have no other option but to be worn down and if you cannot back them into a wall, they have other options. Especially now that they’re set up in the Mists.

-Yes of course the airships are in Orr. But that’s the problem.

There is no need for airships in Orr right now. Zhaitan is “dead”. The Risen is a mop up operation by this point. That’s why many Pact members were allowed to take a leave of absence.

The army’s resource should be reallocated to the area in more dire needs. The Pact fails at doing that.

-The Pact being idiots is a failure.

-Actually, it was other defeatists that insist that the Aetherblade airships are far superior than Pact airships. I do not agree with this. I am glad neither of us are defeatists.

But if the defeatists were right, then the Pact engineers failed big time. That’s my point.

-What kamikaze? We just established above that the Pact airships can fight against the Aetherblade airships on a equal footing. So sending Pact airships into LA is not kamikaze. It would be a fair fight.

-Firstly, that no ammo BS is from Company of Heroes 2. Ammo is never Russia’s problem. Germany at no point in the war outproduced Russia. The German army was much better trained and had better tanks. Their tactics are also better.

And I never advice for cannon fodders. Sending Pact airships into LA to fight Aetherblade airships isn’t cannon foddering. It is a fair fight, as we established above.

-Attrition works against anyone. We just need to locate the home base of the Aetherblades. Just because we currently do not know their home base, it does not mean it literally doesn’t exist. No army can exist without a supply line. Once these idiots from the Order of Whispers give us the information we need, we can wipe out the Aetherblades.

Pact Airships continue to battle the dragon champions above Orr. Go to Malchors Leap and look up. No airships to occupy the dragons, the land troops will be wiped out and overpowered.

CHIPS.6018:

-Yes of course the airships are in Orr. But that’s the problem.

There is no need for airships in Orr right now. Zhaitan is “dead”. The Risen is a mop up operation by this point. That’s why many Pact members were allowed to take a leave of absence.

The army’s resource should be reallocated to the area in more dire needs. The Pact fails at doing that.

If risen require major body damage to ‘die’, we’ve never done that amount to Dragon champions or some larger Risen. Airships and forces in Orr are required to be there to ‘clean up’. It’s not as easy as it sounds NOR has there been any implication of large numbers of Pact personnel being allowed to take a vacation. Orr may be cleansed, but it’ll take years for the corruption to wash free. A HUGE chunk of Orr is completely uncharted (modern) still. They HAVE to push the risen back and secure anything that spawns the dragon corruption or else the Risen will NEVER be defeated.

-What kamikaze? We just established above that the Pact airships can fight against the Aetherblade airships on a equal footing. So sending Pact airships into LA is not kamikaze. It would be a fair fight.

Unsure what you mean, but even if Pact Airships had been above LA, they would’ve fallen to the Aetherblade tactic of dropping from high up to close range when that are right ontop of the enemy. And the wreckage would ruin LA.

And I never advice for cannon fodders. Sending Pact airships into LA to fight Aetherblade airships isn’t cannon foddering. It is a fair fight, as we established above.

Fair fight which would cause a lot of destruction to LA, even if neither side fired cannons toward the ground. Also, Molten Alliance and Toxic alliance alone would be able to force the Lionguard into retreat with the Miasma.

-Attrition works against anyone. We just need to locate the home base of the Aetherblades. Just because we currently do not know their home base, it does not mean it literally doesn’t exist. No army can exist without a supply line. Once these idiots from the Order of Whispers give us the information we need, we can wipe out the Aetherblades.

Assuming the OoW hadn’t been trying. And that they are idiots. (None of the orders are idiots)

Their supply line to bases may be airships flying really kitten high. We have no idea where the forces retreat to after various events ended. Hell, if the Aetherblades have portals to the mists and use those… They kittening could be WHO KNOWS WHERE in the mists and emerge to cause chaos.

-How exactly do we know that there is no need for Airships in Orr? I’d love for that to be elucidated on as apparently Tequatl is still around and kicking post-Zhaitan.

-The Pact’s job is not to take the forces allocated to them for fighting dragons and use it for their own goals and purposes.

-Why would it be a better idea to park Pact airships outside LA against the wishes of the Captain’s Council when Orr is still overrun with undead (likely still the dragons as well), the Jormag is pushing South, and the Shatterer is spitting distance from major population centers?

-German tanks weren’t actually better than Russian ones. Early on in many ways it was a toss up but as the war went on there was great disparity in design philosphy. The German’s also did not emphasize tank production and long term design until they were going into Russia. Before then the Wehrmacht still played a second fiddle to the Luftwaffe. Additionally, Russian and German tactics were very similar. They both developed their armor divisions in the 30s working together and cut their teeth against each other in the Spanish Civil War.

-The only way Pact airships reach LA in time to have any affect on the situation is if they are already there. Sitting around. Parked. Doing nothing. When they threat that they are intended to fight is still out there and very much visible and requiring attention.

-Oh god, why does this have “waste billions of dollars looking for goat farmers with AK’s!” written all over it.

Again I have to wonder why the Pact are the only ones with airships at this point. The Aetherblades have proven time and again over the past year that air power will have a major impact on all future wars in Tyria, not just those involving dragons. Why hasn’t anyone but the Pact built any more airships? Seriously you’d think the Vigil at least would be fielding it’s own air wing out of Vigil Keep by now.

I just find it stupid that a splinter faction of pirates/Inquest could reverse engineer, then produce an airship fleet to rival the Pact’s within a year yet the factions that make up the Pact have yet to utilize any of their own designs outside of that coalition.

Lostwingman.5034:

-How exactly do we know that there is no need for Airships in Orr? I’d love for that to be elucidated on as apparently Tequatl is still around and kicking post-Zhaitan.

Hell, tequatl is STRONGER post-zhaitan. It’s not entirely clear why (Whether this is his own doing or something related to Zhaitan), but imagine if that was occuring across most of Zhaitan’s dragons? Ouch. Especially if they fall into the ocean or mountains and thus the Pact can’t get there and destroy the body, they may regen enough to wake back up and fight again (Or drag themselves into whatever lairs they have to heal).

-The Pact’s job is not to take the forces allocated to them for fighting dragons and use it for their own goals and purposes.

Indeed, going off to fight criminals and Deviants would produce bad PR for the Pact. Either people would EXPECT them to fight off the criminal warlords and troublemakers, or the Pact would do it and stretch their forces to the point of being useless.

-Why would it be a better idea to park Pact airships outside LA against the wishes of the Captain’s Council when Orr is still overrun with undead (likely still the dragons as well), the Jormag is pushing South, and the Shatterer is spitting distance from major population centers?

EXACTLY what I’ve been saying. Especially since nobody could confirm how or from which direction the attack could come from.

-The only way Pact airships reach LA in time to have any affect on the situation is if they are already there. Sitting around. Parked. Doing nothing. When they threat that they are intended to fight is still out there and very much visible and requiring attention.

-Oh god, why does this have “waste billions of dollars looking for goat farmers with AK’s!” written all over it.

Lionguard have at least 3 airships (including Kiels). Two are parked in Gendarran fields (I believe those two were shown in the Aetherblade path ending as well), and then Kiels to the south of LA.

But really, to those complaining about the lack of Pact involvement. What can the Pact bring forth that the Orders could not?

Airships, Helis, tanks, heavy golems and artillery.

Okay, now how GOOD is any of that for battle of LA?

Airships: Aetherblade airships basically bombarded the city, dropped off troops then bugged out. Kiel was able to fly her airships into LA, pick up lionguard from the fort, then leave without any issue. Pact Airships would at most, delay/stop the bombardment (But instead rain debris on the city).
Helicopters: No real use besides emergency evac of wounded maybe.
tanks: No use at all. No room to manuver/place them for one, and many of the bridges might not support the weight, ESPECIALLY post bombardment.
Heavy golems: Most useful, especially in clearing mobs of bad guys, rubble trapping civilians, and taking on the watchwork nightmares and such.
Artillery: Useless.

So… Why does the Pact have to be there? Orders = Pact Manpower and were there already and helped out a lot. Why does Pact leadership and heavy gear need to be there?

Oh, I wasn’t replying to you, I was replying to CHIPS. It’s just you responded as I did and I didn’t feel like editing in a bunch of quotes lol

Lostwingman.5034:

Oh, I wasn’t replying to you, I was replying to CHIPS. It’s just you responded as I did and I didn’t feel like editing in a bunch of quotes lol

I know. Just reinforcing your statements.

Kalavier.1097:

Okay, a calmer, more concise post variant of my earlier one.

A) You have to keep in mind that when people are fighting for the Pact, they are not able to join the local army and police. That means the Pact, indirectly, weakens all the local defensive forces by taking away their manpower.

If the Pact refuse to help local conflicts, local areas are all more vulnerable than before.

And let’s be honest. The only major threat was Scarlet at the time. Else, after the LA invasion, the Pact wouldn’t be able to pull all that manpower together to take back LA.

You see, the Pact members (players) did end up going to LA. We just went very late, so thousands more unnecessary civilian deaths happened. The Pact could have been there earlier if they were more prepared.

B) Dragons were temporarily not a major threat. See above explanation of why the Pact were able to go to LA at all. If the dragons and minions are still such a serious threat, requiring 24/7 full time attention, no one would be able to help LA at all. Everyone would be fighting elsewhere. The fact that “we” were able to show up in such huge numbers is prove that the dragons are temporarily not a major threat.

C) The LA council refused help before the invasion. But the obvious next question is: Once Scarlet does invade, will the LA council still refuse help?

The obvious answer: No.

So any diplomacy argument you guys use is pointless.

The Pact knew about this attack, with almost 100% prove. Sure the LA council can hold the idiot ball. But the Pact doesn’t have to play idiot with them. We should have been prepared and be sending airships and troops to the outskirts of LA (not inside). Once the Scarlet invasion starts, we rush to assist and save the people.

D) It was the failure of Order of Whisper in not being able to locate Aetherblades’ main base. I bet they will keep failing at this until the Aetherblades strikes again and kill even more people next time.

Think about it. We held Mai Trin for like a year. How can we not mesmerize/intimidate/torture some kind of information out of her after all this time?

There must also be some off screen captures of other Aetherblade members. How can we have no information out of any of them after over a year?

Now do you see why I am disappointed in the Pact as a whole?

You said “No body knew where they are!” Yes I know dude. That’s the problem. This is not good enough. Imagine having the FBI or CIA being idiots and know nothing.

E) The Pact forces shouldn’t be in Fort Trinity when the Scarlet attack start. They should be right outside of LA, ready to assist.

Why?

The Pact knew the attack is coming. In fact, Scarlet may not know that the Pact knows about her plan. So the Pact can in fact surprise Scarlet with a counter strike once she began. (You didn’t see this one coming did you, Scarlet?)

As for you 4 reasons at the end:
-Local forces are all weakened because they loaned manpower to the Pact. This is in fact a reason for the Pact to assist any local threats if possible.
-The Pact knew Scarlet is coming for LA. There is no reason to not be prepared for it as best as they could, instead of doing nothing.
-The Pact can station airships and troops outside of LA anytime. There are enemies and Risens everywhere. And the LA council welcomed Pact help once the invasion got started. So diplomacy isn’t a problem at all, before and after the invasion started.
-If the Risens are indeed that dangerous, and ties up all of the Pact’s manpower, then none of the Pact members (e.g. the players) could have went to help LA in the first place. The fact that the players were able to show up to help LA is prove that the Risen threat is not as dangerous as you are trying to make it out to be.

Sure not all Pact members can go to LA. But it is obvious that significant number of Pact members were able to go.

lakdav.3694:

Pact Airships continue to battle the dragon champions above Orr. Go to Malchors Leap and look up. No airships to occupy the dragons, the land troops will be wiped out and overpowered.

Zhaitan is dead, at least temporarily. The Risens are as weak as they could ever be. This is a fact.

If the current Risen (weakest they can be) and other dragon minions already tie up 100% of the Pact’s manpower and airships (e.g cannot spare any men elsewhere), then the Pact will be powerless when the second (or third) Elder Dragon start their major offensive. These other elder dragons hasn’t even gotten started. This is a fact.

So listen to this. If this opinion of yours (the Pact cannot spare any men elsewhere) is true, then the Pact already lost. This is a fact.

So if you are right, the Pact already failed. So I hope you are wrong.

Kalavier.1097:

If risen require major body damage to ‘die’, we’ve never done that amount to Dragon champions or some larger Risen. Airships and forces in Orr are required to be there to ‘clean up’. It’s not as easy as it sounds NOR has there been any implication of large numbers of Pact personnel being allowed to take a vacation. Orr may be cleansed, but it’ll take years for the corruption to wash free. A HUGE chunk of Orr is completely uncharted (modern) still. They HAVE to push the risen back and secure anything that spawns the dragon corruption or else the Risen will NEVER be defeated

Unsure what you mean, but even if Pact Airships had been above LA, they would’ve fallen to the Aetherblade tactic of dropping from high up to close range when that are right ontop of the enemy. And the wreckage would ruin LA.

Fair fight which would cause a lot of destruction to LA, even if neither side fired cannons toward the ground. Also, Molten Alliance and Toxic alliance alone would be able to force the Lionguard into retreat with the Miasma.

Assuming the OoW hadn’t been trying. And that they are idiots. (None of the orders are idiots)

Their supply line to bases may be airships flying really kitten high. We have no idea where the forces retreat to after various events ended. Hell, if the Aetherblades have portals to the mists and use those… They kittening could be WHO KNOWS WHERE in the mists and emerge to cause chaos.

1) See my above post on how “awesome and powerful” the Risen is. Once again if you are right, then the Pact already failed. If they cannot spare any men, they have zero chance against the second and third elder dragons.

2) Here is what you just said in the WW2 setting: It is better for the fighters to not interrupt the enemy bombers at all, and just let them bomb anywhere they want without fear. There would actually be less civilian deaths.

With all due respect, total non sense.

No, the worst lost of civilian live is when you allow the enemy airships to “free reign” and shoot at civilians non stop. You remember those bombs, missiles and mega lasers? Well those were all used to kill civilians hours or days before the Pact finally got to LA to help.

If the Pact airships were there to intercept the Aetherblade airships, the civilian causalities would be much lower.

3) Aetherblade is not a phantom army. They are not that elusive.

Supplies came from somewhere. Farms are needed to produce food to feed them. Weapons requires a factory. Towns and cities are needed to recruit new members. They also need to make money from somewhere to buy supplies and pay their troops.

So it doesn’t really matter if the Aetherblades can fly and teleport. Because their suppliers cannot. Someone must know something. Someone must have a receipt or log book somewhere. Someone must be making big bucks. etc etc.

And no I don’t believe that the Aetherblades have “air farms”, “air factories”, “air cities” and “air money/robbery.” Why? Because they had a airship factory in TA. If they are so good and keep absolutely everything in the air, why would they need a ground based factory?

Lostwingman.5034:

-How exactly do we know that there is no need for Airships in Orr? I’d love for that to be elucidated on as apparently Tequatl is still around and kicking post-Zhaitan.

-The Pact’s job is not to take the forces allocated to them for fighting dragons and use it for their own goals and purposes.

-Why would it be a better idea to park Pact airships outside LA against the wishes of the Captain’s Council when Orr is still overrun with undead (likely still the dragons as well), the Jormag is pushing South, and the Shatterer is spitting distance from major population centers?

-German tanks weren’t actually better than Russian ones. Early on in many ways it was a toss up but as the war went on there was great disparity in design philosphy. The German’s also did not emphasize tank production and long term design until they were going into Russia. Before then the Wehrmacht still played a second fiddle to the Luftwaffe. Additionally, Russian and German tactics were very similar. They both developed their armor divisions in the 30s working together and cut their teeth against each other in the Spanish Civil War.

-The only way Pact airships reach LA in time to have any affect on the situation is if they are already there. Sitting around. Parked. Doing nothing. When they threat that they are intended to fight is still out there and very much visible and requiring attention.

-Oh god, why does this have “waste billions of dollars looking for goat farmers with AK’s!” written all over it.

1) If the Pact cannot spare any airships or men elsewhere, the Pact already failed. What if two of the other Elder Dragons starts their main offensive right now?

And how come so many players (many members of the Pact) were able to go to LA to help? We cannot say “We couldn’t spare any men to help” and “We were able to sent tons of many men to help” at the same time.

2) Because the Pact knows with almost 100% certainty that Scarlet will attack LA. See above.

3) We have now established that the Pact airships can fight against Aetherblade airships on equal footing. There is no need to talk about Germany vs Russian technology any more.

4) Correction: The Pact airships won’t be doing nothing. They sit in waiting to counter strike the Aetherblade airships, surprising them and destroying them. Ambush requires waiting.

Lostwingman.5034:

CHIPS.6018:

If it was the Pact vs Aetherblades, attrition is indeed a very valid tactic. THE PACT have much more land and resources. So it is valid to take advantage of that

Hey guys, the Pact is apparently a land holding nation.

Actually they do have their head-quarters and it does seem like they own the surrounding area. Possibly it’s only given to them by the governing bodies of those areas, but that still qualifies them as land holding. As for nation… well if the Vatican can be a nation why not.

lakdav.3694:

Pact Airships continue to battle the dragon champions above Orr. Go to Malchors Leap and look up. No airships to occupy the dragons, the land troops will be wiped out and overpowered.

This is where the timeline issue comes in. Technically what you’re seeing happens before Zhaitan was killed. LA happens well after Zhaitan was killed. ANet has never actually come out and told us what would happen to the Risen when Zhaitan died, do they all die? Well we know Tequatl is still around so probably not. Do they continue doing what they’re doing? Are there still new Risen being made? For all we know killing Zhaitan might have done practically nothing to change the situation of Orr, or it might have drastically devastated the Risen forces meaning that a large chunk of Pack forces were freed up to do other things.

CHIPS.6018:

lakdav.3694:

Pact Airships continue to battle the dragon champions above Orr. Go to Malchors Leap and look up. No airships to occupy the dragons, the land troops will be wiped out and overpowered.

Zhaitan is dead, at least temporarily. The Risens are as weak as they could ever be. This is a fact.

Um… well it was strongly hinted that defeating Zhaitan would deal a major blow to the Risen. It’s not exactly a fact, but it is very very much heavily implied.

CHIPS.6018:

lakdav.3694:

Pact Airships continue to battle the dragon champions above Orr. Go to Malchors Leap and look up. No airships to occupy the dragons, the land troops will be wiped out and overpowered.

Zhaitan is dead, at least temporarily. The Risens are as weak as they could ever be. This is a fact.

The Risen are not as strong as they were, now that Zhaitan is dead, but they’re far from being weak. Every loss on our side equals to a gain on theirs.
Now, no one knows what kind of unbalance killing off an ED has. Tequatl became stronger lore-wise AFTER Zhaitan’s death, so you can’t assume that by killing off their leader, the rest of the army will simply die out; there are intelligent Risen still.

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.

You make my soul hurt with “skaven of Warcraft”, Dustfinger. It’s called “Warhammer”

FenrirSlakt.3692:

CHIPS.6018:

lakdav.3694:

Pact Airships continue to battle the dragon champions above Orr. Go to Malchors Leap and look up. No airships to occupy the dragons, the land troops will be wiped out and overpowered.

Zhaitan is dead, at least temporarily. The Risens are as weak as they could ever be. This is a fact.

The Risen are not as strong as they were, now that Zhaitan is dead, but they’re far from being weak. Every loss on our side equals to a gain on theirs.
Now, no one knows what kind of unbalance killing off an ED has. Tequatl became stronger lore-wise AFTER Zhaitan’s death, so you can’t assume that by killing off their leader, the rest of the army will simply die out; there are intelligent Risen still.

You are missing the point.

If the Risen and other dragon minions managed to tie down 100% of the Pact manpower & airships & resources, then the Pact already lost the war. The other Elder Dragons hasn’t even started their major offensive yet.

Think about this again. If the Pact is already so hard pressed during the “good times”, we already lost. We will be hopeless in the “bad times”.

You guys are, indirectly, supporting my point that the Pact is doing a very bad job. They currently have no chance at beating all the elder dragons.

And once again, the fact that we (the players) managed to show up in LA at all means we are not that hard pressed. We can spare people to help LA. This is a fact.

So the Pact can indeed spare manpower, and they did do so eventually. They just got there too late because they wasn’t prepared, leading to many additional civilian deaths. And there is zero reason not to be prepared because they knew the Scarlet was coming.

CHIPS.6018:

If the current Risen (weakest they can be) and other dragon minions already tie up 100% of the Pact’s manpower and airships (e.g cannot spare any men elsewhere), then the Pact will be powerless when the second (or third) Elder Dragon start their major offensive. These other elder dragons hasn’t even gotten started. This is a fact.

You realize that the Pact also have offensives set up on the edges of Jormag’s territory (and, most likely, Kralkatorrik’s too – though we don’t have any zones far enough into the plot to show this – same goes for Primordus).

Also, keep in mind that the offensive against the Elder Dragon is what weakened the Pact so much – not the clean up. The assault to invade Orr and attack Zhaitan resulted in a lot of manpower and equipment losses – we see a good deal of this in the personal story, all those NPC deaths and then some.

So it isn’t “the weakened risen tie the Pact up 100%” but rather “the invasion and battle against Zhaitan and his forces had dealt such a blow and resulted in so many deaths that cleaning up the risen, as well as having a basic defensive set up for other known Elder Dragon territory edges, has tied up all remaining Pact forces as they rebuild for the next Elder Dragon assault.”

CHIPS.6018:

So listen to this. If this opinion of yours (the Pact cannot spare any men elsewhere) is true, then the Pact already lost. This is a fact.

The Pact eliminated an Elder Dragon – prior to this, one fifth of their overall purpose was completed within months. I’d hardly call that a failure or losing. It’s just that:

1) They do not have the resources to go after things not their personal objective, when they are fully reliant on others for said resources.
2) They are recovering and thus shouldn’t be making arbitrary battles that they don’t need to.
3) And finally, it’s not their job to go after terrorists who only gains the upper hand when utilizing surprise attacks (or in the final case, when the people refuse to set up defenses – I mean, come on, the Captain’s Council may as well put a freaking bull’s eye target sign).

CHIPS.6018:

A) You have to keep in mind that when people are fighting for the Pact, they are not able to join the local army and police. That means the Pact, indirectly, weakens all the local defensive forces by taking away their manpower.

The pact manpower = orders. Given how Scarlet’s previous attacks all got handled (for the most part) by local forces without a terrible amount of effort, I’m not seeing why the pact would have to rush an army up. Also, I’ve gotten the implication it’s mostly adventurers who join the orders, and the local militaries are still fairly strong. They simply are tied up in various conflicts.

The three ‘prong’ attack Scarlet pulled off would’ve resulted in massive civilian deaths anyway. Pact members (players) were already in the region and the entire battle most likely took place… a week, maybe less (Not real life time, lore time). I’ve heard implications the baby born in Gendarren fields was born first day of the attack, and the Lionguard medic comments it’s the “first birth since Scarlet’ started her attack a week ago”. Given how that was in cleanup stage (And a bit had already happened), I can assume that statement is said a day or so after the battle ended.

As I say before, my statements point to “Pact forces there at the moment need to stick around. They need the heavy gear there. The pact really could only send leadership elements and heavy gear. Heavy gear wasn’t needed and the leadership was covered. The orders that make up the Pact manpower assisted a good bit already so why would they need to send more?”

The Pact didn’t know when, or where the attack would come from. Parking an army outside of the city would still be a bad move. The battle didn’t last a month in the lore, because for example, the “escape” from LA event only happened once. The battle? once. We are looking at maybe around a week from the very first airship flying into LA to the cleanup that was the “aftermath” update. Again, Orders helped. Orders = Pact manpower.

D) It was the failure of Order of Whisper in not being able to locate Aetherblades’ main base.
Think about it. We held Mai Trin for like a year. How can we not mesmerize/intimidate/torture some kind of information out of her after all this time?
There must also be some off screen captures of other Aetherblade members. How can we have no information out of any of them after over a year?
Imagine having the FBI or CIA being idiots and know nothing.

Yes, and that’s why we had no trouble finding the terrorists and their leaders after 9-11 right? We had some of them captured and in prison for a while why didn’t they get the information out huh?

1: Besides the fact the orders existed before the pact, and the local military forces were FINE. Orders = pact manpower.
2: All her previous actions were solved by local forces, local order deployments, and adventurers. Why would they expect this to be different? Also, airships are hard to hide near the ground. They’d be spotted as the Aetherblades head into LA.
3: I’m fairly sure say… a USA city/area would become very uncomfortable and wary if say, the Canadian military parked a large force on their side of the border and sat there until a vicious attack came to the local area.
4: I never said they tie up ALL of the manpower. I’ve been saying the opposite if you bother to READ. I’m saying the heavy gear deployed in Orr is needed for the moment to stick around. The manpower in Orr needs to stick around for the short while. The manpower of the orders (WHICH IS THE PACT, just Locally and under order control not pact) responded to the issue instantly and helped out. Why do they need reinforcements from Orr?

CHIPS.6018:

You are missing the point.

If the Risen and other dragon minions managed to tie down 100% of the Pact manpower & airships & resources, then the Pact already lost the war.

You are also missing the point, by a GIANT factor. I’m not saying “OMG THE PACT NEEDS IT’S FULL ARMY AT ORR CONSTANTLY!”

I’m saying “The Pact, ATM, needs to keep some of that heavy gear in Orr right now until they get a solid campaign plan set for the next dragon. It’s manpower (aka, the orders) obviously is free to help with LA (and they did, a lot). The only thing the Pact didn’t ‘send’ to LA was it’s heavy gear (airships, golems, tanks, subs, etc), and leadership elements.”

Kalavier.1097:

But really, to those complaining about the lack of Pact involvement. What can the Pact bring forth that the Orders could not?

Airships, Helis, tanks, heavy golems and artillery.

Okay, now how GOOD is any of that for battle of LA?

Airships: Aetherblade airships basically bombarded the city, dropped off troops then bugged out. Kiel was able to fly her airships into LA, pick up lionguard from the fort, then leave without any issue. Pact Airships would at most, delay/stop the bombardment (But instead rain debris on the city).
Helicopters: No real use besides emergency evac of wounded maybe.
tanks: No use at all. No room to manuver/place them for one, and many of the bridges might not support the weight, ESPECIALLY post bombardment.
Heavy golems: Most useful, especially in clearing mobs of bad guys, rubble trapping civilians, and taking on the watchwork nightmares and such.
Artillery: Useless.

So… Why does the Pact have to be there? Orders = Pact Manpower and were there already and helped out a lot. Why does Pact leadership and heavy gear need to be there?

I’m kinda double posting but bringing this one back to the front.

Orders = Pact manpower mostly. So besides that (Which the orders helped out with to the Lionguard), what good would bringing forth all that heavy gear to LA do really?

Simply to point out, the BIGGEST thing the Pact leadership could’ve sent is Airships. The airships wouldn’t have won the battle or even stopped most of the deaths (Miasma, Watchwork, Molten, and Toxic forces on the ground). Yes, they randomly bombarded the ground after the first wave, but really they weren’t holding a fleet above them.

The WW2 comparison I think I missed quoting. No, it’s not saying “Ignore the bombers” It’s more like “YAY, we stopped the bombers! Now a large infantry and tank wave just bulldozed through the city + the bombs the bombers already dropped and their debris.”

edit: Actually, having the pact airships parked near (or in) LA is a terrible idea. The Aetherblades could easily ‘pearl harbor’ them by dropping from above and behind (Their standard flying was above cloud line, as noted by the only warning LA had was “We have some clouds seeming to move against the wind.”), volleying into the unprepared airships crippling or destroying them, then moving into LA.

Or simply holding the attack off for a week or so to send the crews and forces from a “HIGH ALERT MEN!” to “This is bullkitten. Is the attack even coming?” then striking.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You make my soul hurt with “skaven of Warcraft”, Dustfinger. It’s called “Warhammer”

BeenholdingmyselfouttathisthreadforawhilebutIfeelliketheissueisabitoutsideoflore.
First off I agree that the Pact isn’t Tyria’s super police.

But I think the fault lies with the presentation and writing. Example:

As pact, the 3 orders need the support of ALL of Tyria.
Imagine if the Vigil requested an airship from the pact for themselves to idk safely relocate Quaggan-refugees.
1. Not only would it possibly put a dent in the trust of the other orders and supporters towards them
2. it has nothing to do with dragons, so the 3 legions, Rata sum and other forces would pull the logistics-plug.
3. They need to rebuild their defenses before they get overwhelmed by dragon forces and at the same time recover for the next offense.

Meanwhile… Scarlet.
1. Where the pact needs all support it can get, she just kittens air ships. We raided an airship factory and never saw anything remotely resembling an inconvenience for her. It even appears as if she has had more airships and more advanced technology than the pact itself.
2. Although some of her forces are splinter factions or even splinter-factions of splinter factions, it seems like an endless supply of meatshields. That is taking into account that events occur once. Obviously also a gameplay factor, but it stretches the suspension of disbelief.

tl dr; Problem, the pact has to take logistics into consideration in lore. Scarlet hasn’t, at least never visibly. Which leaves us with “but Scarlet was a huge threat!! Wth pact??”

Why should the Pact support one group over another one? Why should they act as enforcers for a sovereign city-state?

It’s not just whether the Pact is able to save the city. It’s whether they should act as Team Trahearne World Police, performing glorified anti-piracy missions against the Aetherblades, supporting one Sylvari faction in what’s basically a civil war, or whatever. I mean sure it’s obvious to us as players that the bad guys are the ones with their names in red, but the Pact just sees a pile of semi-legitimate factions that they don’t really have much right to start interfering with.

And honestly, do we really want the Pact swooping in on every conflict just because if you count the airships in Orr they probably could? The races are really interesting, but already take a massive backseat to Lion’s Arch and the Pact. I probably enjoy the story more when Anet pulls away from ‘Lionguard/Pact vs. x’.

Also, another huge thing. Let’s say the Pact has… 30 airships. And they send 10 to defend LA (before the battle). Let’s say… 5 of them are for sure destroyed in the battle, the other 5 heavily damaged/crippled (Maybe to point of having to be scuttled/scrapped)

Now, you can go with either A: They got hit parked outside of LA. or B: they got damaged actually fighting aetherblades over LA.

That’s a MAJOR loss for their air fleet if they were wanting to go on another dragon offensive soon. One that might force them to delay while those get repaired or replaced. Knowing how the Aetherblades use their airships, the Pact fleet would take losses for sure.

Allow me to add the first post in this thread, to disapprove some of what you guys are saying.

http://imgur.com/a/j07cE

1) Laranthir said the Pact didn’t go to LA because it fell outside of the Pact’s jurisdiction. He never mention, over even hinted, that the Pact couldn’t go to LA.

He then said “If we knew that Scarlet was related to an Elder Dragon, we could have gotten involved.”

There. 100% prove that the Pact could have been there. This includes manpower, airships, golems, supplies, etc.

So for those that said “The Pact is too weak to go to LA”, I got to whole heartedly disagree with you.

2) From above we can see that the lore stated very clearly that the Pact “could have” been there, but they chose not to due to “diplomacy”.

It goes without saying how much I hate diplomacy that gets in the way of getting things done, like protecting the people. Hence if diplomacy keep getting into the way, I purpose a more radical “Dark Knight” version of the Pact be formed. I couldn’t care less if it is illegal and underground. I rather be the “Dark Knight” than failing to save the people or failing to hunt down our enemies.

See the movie “Munich” to see the kind of justice I enjoy.

“Every civilization eventually find it necessary to negotiate and compromise with its own values.”

3) As for the point of “LA is doom no matter what the Pact do”, I fully disagree. For example if the Order of Whispers did a better job in finding intelligent, and assassinate the right people, this whole slaughter in LA would never have happened.

4) The point on prisoners being immune to torture, I don’t know what to say. Obviously tortures works in gathering intelligence.

Here is how it works:

“You don’t care about your fingers? How about your nose? How about your ears? How about death of your wife? How about death of your child?”

Everyone break eventually.

If you are too “nice” to torture the prisoners, let us “Dark Knights” take over. Else the blood of thousands of civilians are on your hands, like it did in LA.

5) It is the wrong question to say “Should the Pact be legally be in LA?”. The correct question is “If the Pact were in LA, would more civilians have been saved?”

The answer is obviously yes.

6) It was pointless to question possible Pact airship losses, when the Aetherblades lost ZERO airships in this whole battle. They are STILL a major threat.

Avoiding a battle against Aetherblade airships DOES NOT MEAN that threat is now gone. They are still at large. Tomorrow the Aetherblades airships may attack Divinity’s Reach, for example.

Stop using the Elder Dragons as an excuse to allow the Aetherblades have free reign over the skies. It doesn’t make any sense. This threat was never removed. Avoiding a threat doesn’t mean removal.

Player: Why didn’t the Pact help save Lion’s Arch?
Laranthir: That’s not what we do. We’ve been tasked with slaying the Elder Dragons. Defending a city from an attack falls outside our charter. But then we heard the dragon’s cry.
Player:What do you mean?
Laranthir: We believe Scarlet’s drilling roused a dragon. If we’d known that was her plan, we could have justified getting involved.

We weren’t arguing whether or not they had the ability to go to Lion’s Arch to fight or not. We were arguing on WHY they didn’t and shouldn’t go, and Laranthir’s dialogue validates our arguments. It falls outside of their charter, (Btw, thank you for adding that in Anet!), since the Pact’s whole purpose is to combat the Elder Dragons, and only the Elder Dragons.

It also doesn’t disprove the “Pact being too weak/stretched in” argument either. It’s called diverting resources. If the Pact knew they had a chance of stopping another Elder Dragon from awakening, they would have more than taken it. They would have diverted forces from Orr, Frostgorge Sound, and their other fronts to deal with Scarlet. But they didn’t know, because that was only player speculation up until Scarlet’s death.

Bad as it might be sometimes, there is a good reason “diplomacy” gets in the way sometimes. You suggest a more radical (dangerous word there) “Dark Knight” version of the Pact, but…

• Who will they answer too?
• Who will govern their actions?
• Who sets their limits?
• How do they decide what is the right or wrong course of action?
• What stopping them from going rogue and taking matters fully into their own hands?

In the end, diplomacy and politics are there, because who else will watch the watchmen?

Its worth mentioning that even if the Pact isn’t moving against another ED right now and even if Orr is now under control, it doesn’t mean they have any shortage of other fronts to be combating Dragon minions since both the Brand and Jormag’s minions in the north are both very active. They would also, in addition to rebuilding their forces, probably be deploying a lot of resources into researching more info on the other Dragons and potentially scouting the areas around which the other EDs were last seen.

It seems extremely unlikely to me that they are just lounging around Fort Trinity. If anything, its probably safe to say that the role of maintain the home front was left to the PCs, who are effectively on leave until the next campaign, and the rest of the other Orders that comprise the Pact. Its not like the Vigil, the Durmond Priory or the Order of Whispers have all their strength invested in the Pact.

The proposed Dark Knight style Pact is practicly whats the Order of Whispers would be in a less glorious light. And that would be good enough for me, if the OoW developed a somewhat darker and more driven faction. After the Captains Council, they failed the most in not being able to manipulate the Captains properly, so it would make more sense. They also have their own inventors so they dont need the Priory knowledge (and they wouldnt shy away stealing it if they did).

But as soon as force of arms on the size of Vigil troops gets involved, its no longer a Dark Knight style vigilantism, but practicly a military agressor who strides in wherever it pleases with whatever excuse. And the more it descends into that oh-so-cool-and-efficient path, the less we could discern that faction’s action from what deviants like Scarlet do with too much power.

1. I’d dispute on the basis of opportunity cost.

Every resource the Pact has at its disposal probably has three or four places it could be. Orr. Northern Shiverpeaks. Rooting out Son of Svanir activity elsewhere in the Shiverpeaks. The Brand. Watching the borders of the Crystal Desert. Disrupting Inquest attempts to gather and experiment with more draconic energy. Keeping watch on known Destroyer eruption locations. Etcetera. Etcetera.

Everything they do has to go on a priority list. If the Pact had known that Scarlet was looking to rouse an Elder Dragon, then of course that would have bumped her up in the priority list – about the only thing that would be higher on that priority list is defending against a full-fledged assault by an Elder Dragon (like Zhaitan’s on LA) or having a practical chance of bumping one off. Without that knowledge, though, and with the Captains’ Council insisting that there’s no credible threat…

Then why should those resources be diverted?

To turn your argument on its head… what about the new farm in the Fields of Ruin that gets overrun by a Branded eruption because reinforcements promised to the Sentinels by the Pact were diverted to LA? What about the Claw of Jormag that succeeds because the line there was compromised, then sweeps down to Hoelbrak picking up Sons of Svanir and destroying or corrupting everything else in its path? The quaggan refugees around the Orrian coastline that were left without sufficient protection? The eruption of Mt Maelstrom spilling forth an army of destroyers that heads straight for Orr, potentially undoing the gains of killing Zhaitan as another elder dragon adds the power of Orr to its own as well as devastating the Pact forces that remained in Orr? What would the Pact say to the victims and families of victims of such events, particularly if the threat to Lion’s Arch had proven to be overestimated?

These, and many others, are possible scenarios that the Pact needs to be aware of in their planning. For all we know, a couple of these did come close to occurring, but were prevented from happening because Pact resources that might have been shifted to LA were left where they were. It’s all very well looking back with 20/20 hindsight and the knowledge that LA was in fact the ‘big one’, but the Pact had to make the call with the resources it had at the time.

Now, I think it’s fair to say that the Order had a big-time failure here, on its intelligence gathering, its manipulation of the Council*, or both. But for the Pact itself… the real reason may well be that without more reason to think the assistance was needed, Pact resources that could have gone to LA were instead sent somewhere else.

CHIPS.6018:

Pact as a Dark Knight

That’s just it – what is the Pact for? Saving civilians, all civilians? Fighting ‘evil’? As I said, we players know what evil is because it’s flagged hostile to us in gameplay. From an in universe perspective, how are they going to judge? It’s an organisation mean to kill dragons; what you’re proposing is a worldwide military that stamps out whatever it doesn’t agree with.

And what happens if less obviously good vs. evil problems crop up? Say the humans and charr go back to war – does the pact step in on one side? The problem isn’t whether the Pact’s involvement is legal – it’s how they decide who needs killing in the first place, and whether it’s their job to interfere at all. Identifying the designated bad guys won’t always be easy, and simple ruthlessness + firepower doesn’t automatically mean victory a la Game of Thrones.

The Council and Lionguard would have stopped pact forces entering the city before the invasion. They had no more right to enter the city in force than the Seraph, or the Iron Legion.

The pact entered the city as soon as they could (remember the event where you have to kill a bunch of Scarlets forces to gain access). After that, they help evacuate the city. Within an hour the city was overwhelmed by miasma.

Shortly after the miasma cleared they entered the city and defeated Scarlets forces.

I fail to see the point of this thread.

Erukk.1408:

Player: Why didn’t the Pact help save Lion’s Arch?
Laranthir: That’s not what we do. We’ve been tasked with slaying the Elder Dragons. Defending a city from an attack falls outside our charter. But then we heard the dragon’s cry.
Player:What do you mean?
Laranthir: We believe Scarlet’s drilling roused a dragon. If we’d known that was her plan, we could have justified getting involved.

We weren’t arguing whether or not they had the ability to go to Lion’s Arch to fight or not. We were arguing on WHY they didn’t and shouldn’t go, and Laranthir’s dialogue validates our arguments. It falls outside of their charter, (Btw, thank you for adding that in Anet!), since the Pact’s whole purpose is to combat the Elder Dragons, and only the Elder Dragons.

It also doesn’t disprove the “Pact being too weak/stretched in” argument either. It’s called diverting resources. If the Pact knew they had a chance of stopping another Elder Dragon from awakening, they would have more than taken it. They would have diverted forces from Orr, Frostgorge Sound, and their other fronts to deal with Scarlet. But they didn’t know, because that was only player speculation up until Scarlet’s death.

Bad as it might be sometimes, there is a good reason “diplomacy” gets in the way sometimes. You suggest a more radical (dangerous word there) “Dark Knight” version of the Pact, but…

• Who will they answer too?
• Who will govern their actions?
• Who sets their limits?
• How do they decide what is the right or wrong course of action?
• What stopping them from going rogue and taking matters fully into their own hands?

In the end, diplomacy and politics are there, because who else will watch the watchmen?

Priority is indeed a big topic. The Pact’s priority is the Elder Dragons. My personal priority is to protect the people. These two goals are definitely related, but they are vastly different.

If the Pact insist on limiting itself to only dealing with the Elder Dragons, then I do have to depart from this organization (if Anet gives me this option). I cannot stand by while watching civilians dying from other threats, knowing full well that we could have done better.

The Aetherblade airships can attack Divinity’s Reach tomorrow. No one can stop them except the Pact, hence no one is safe anywhere. As long as the Pact refuse to acknowledge this problem, all our cities will continue to face this threat.

Now I hope it is clear why it doesn’t make any sense to me that the Pact is ignoring the Aetherblade airship problem. This problem will never go away unless the Pact airships defeat them decisively in battle. There is no avoiding this conflict. In fact currently is the best time to deal with them. Zhaitan just “died”, and other Elder Dragons hasn’t started their main offensive yet.

So if you guys tell me right now that we cannot deal with the Aetherblade airship problem, then when can we ever deal with it? When one or two of the other Elder Dragons start their main offensive against us? Give me a break. We all know this doesn’t make sense.

My personal goal is simple: Protect civilians from whatever threats that arises, and defeat our enemies, with whatever means necessary. Hence I will be joining the “Dark Knights”.

Not everyone will agree. They can stay with the Pact if they want.

As for the morale questions:

-The Pact clearly doesn’t answer to the civilians’ lives. With so many civilian deaths, we have yet to see one NPC complain about the Pact (or anyone)‘s lack of help. Yeah who cares right? I don’t know that woman. I don’t know her daughter. Their deaths means nothing to us….
-The Pact isn’t governed by anyone neither. None of its “local” sponsors have the right to request for its help, if the Elder Dragons are the priority. The Elder Dragon threat overrules everything.
-The Pact is limited by too many things. Our world faces total annihilation. What kind of limit do you want before these limits doom us all?
-Right or wrong is not determined by laws and rules. For example Shining Blades were rogues and totally illegal. So what was your point here?
-Rogue or not, just stay out of each other’s way. We want the same conclusion here.

Why do you seem to think we need airships to defeat the Aetherblades? The only real decisive victory they had was the surprise attack on LA. All previous times we have encountered them (Secret base, TA, Marionette fight, and BfLA) were clear victory against them.

To compound matter against them, Scarlet is now dead. That was their chief employer, strategist, and constant source of new tech just gone. And with her death, they are just about Tyria’s most wanted now, and the only way they can really protect themselves is to flee and hunker down in the Mists or risk death.

Though, I did enjoy how to deflected all the moral questions. I was asking them about your theoretical “Dark Knights” not the Pact. If there was some confusion, I guess I can explain them further.

• (Who will they answer too?) Who/what is the organization/state/person that the Dark Knights is going to answer too? And yes, they will need one. A rogue military can’t travel around nations without a great deal of “diplomacy” as you said. Someone is needed to handle these matters, and to deal with the restrictions the nations will put on them to allow them enter into their space. Without it, they would be invading a nation’s land, and they and their order could be branded enemies of the state.

• (Who will govern their actions?) Who is going to be in charge of the planning the actions of the Dark Knights, and what qualifies said person to be in charge? Every organization needs a chain of command.

• (Who sets their limits?) While the different nations will set their own limits, but what are the limits within the order themselves? Will they involve themselves in what they perceive as a threat to the people? What happens if what they perceive as wrong conflicts with what the nations might view as such.

• (How do they decide what is the right or wrong course of action?) This ties in with the last question, but as adds… What is the order willing to do, and how far are they willing to go, to stop an actions they view as a threat? If stopping a threat also puts the lives of innocents in danger, are they willing to do it? Or are the lives of innocents going to take priority over the danger? How would the leader of the order make these decisions?

• (What stopping them from going rogue and taking matters fully into their own hands?) As you, and possible the Dark Knights by extension, don’t seem to hold any love for diplomacy, what stopping you from being a fully fledged vigilante group? I can think of a lot of reason, but I want to hear yours on the matter.

Am I the only one who thinks that it would have been stranger if the Pact actually showed up?

I don’t think that the Pact it’s so good for everyone.

Sure, they defeat dragons, so they can exist. But that’s it.
I, if I was a nation leader, wouldn’t take so well an entire army marching on my city, even if it’s for helping me.
They are a real political risk for every single nation.
They could even declare Orr their new empire and wage war to everyone (ok, that’s not going to happen because no one in the Pact would fight his on country but I wouldn’t take that as granted forever).

The point I’m trying to make it’s that the Pact it’s a big and indipendent army, they can do what they like and they won’t take orders from anyone.
An army like that it’s a political spark in a gas station.

No leader in their right mind would give them the permission to move that army freely out of Orr and within their own country.
If they just marched on Lion’s Arch to defend it I could even suspect them to be the ones who used Scarlet to destroy Lion’s Arch and obtain the city without a direct war.

We, as players, know that the Pact it’s not an enemy.
But every nation in the game can’t be so sure about it.
A friend today can become an enemy tomorrow. Would you really take that risk?
Just my 2 cents.

CHIPS.6018:

Priority is indeed a big topic. The Pact’s priority is the Elder Dragons. My personal priority is to protect the people. These two goals are definitely related, but they are vastly different.

If the Pact insist on limiting itself to only dealing with the Elder Dragons, then I do have to depart from this organization (if Anet gives me this option). I cannot stand by while watching civilians dying from other threats, knowing full well that we could have done better.

Your character is not limited by the Pact to not act, you still have your order.
It’s not even about priority in general, there are ALWAYS bad things happening to innocent people all over Tyria. It is literally impossible to deal with them all at the same time. This is some bizarre savior complex you have going on here.

Also, about this “Dark Knight Pact”

Where would it get funding? Supplies? recruits?

If it basically marches wherever the kitten it wants and targets whoever it wants, I don’t see the orders, much less any governments or villages, willingly giving resources to it. Hell, recruits may shy away for the most part because instead of joining an order/army dedicated to saving the world from the dragons and DOING GOOD, it’s this murky realm of picking and choosing whether we go after a dragon today, or some backwater terrorist.

The difference between a garrison and an occupation is one is wanted. Marching into a city whether they want it or not will cause MAJOR political feedback.

I think to answer this question we are lacking alot of vital information on the pact at this time:

1.) We don’t know when it happend compared to the personal story

Is it shortly after fighting Zhaitan, long after Zhaitan, while we fight Zhaitan? This is fundamental to understand wether or not the pact has the troops/weapons to fight off scarlet. But we lack the information. (Anet is probably discussing alot atm how they fit the living story in with the personal story, because thats the major problem here)

2.) We don’t know anything that happend behind the curtains (even though we should have known since we are the second in command of that force)

We don’t know what Traherne thinks, what his concerns are or what his plans are. He just told us that he leads the pact to “the next challenge”.
Maybe he is worried moving the biggest army in tyria into a free city can be misinterpreted as an aggresive/worrisome move.
Maybe he was threatend by scarlet.
Maybe he doesn’t care because it’s not what’s the pact supposed to do.
The problem is we can’t speak to Traherne to find out. He seems to be invisible since the personal story.
(The major problem here may be the same as in 1. or that Traherne isn’t well liked in the community)

I think we get most of our answers in the next few living story patches, because then they need to put the living story and the personal story together and we maybe get to speak to Traherne to find our answers.

Kalavier.1097:

Also, about this “Dark Knight Pact”

Where would it get funding? Supplies? recruits?

If it basically marches wherever the kitten it wants and targets whoever it wants, I don’t see the orders, much less any governments or villages, willingly giving resources to it. Hell, recruits may shy away for the most part because instead of joining an order/army dedicated to saving the world from the dragons and DOING GOOD, it’s this murky realm of picking and choosing whether we go after a dragon today, or some backwater terrorist.

The difference between a garrison and an occupation is one is wanted. Marching into a city whether they want it or not will cause MAJOR political feedback.

I said in my post that the Pact won’t turn evil now.
People in it share way too many bonds with their own home for that.
And we also know as players that Trahearne is a good guy and all.
But no leader would be dumb enough to think that something similar won’t ever happen.
It could happen. They could even be decieved to think that someone is allied with a dragon or something.
A good leader won’t even trust 100% his own men, leave alone a stranger’s army.
And don’t forget that the Pact has the more advanced army of all the good guys.
You say that no one would give them supply and that’s true. But would they still need it if they conquer a land?
Would you as an hypotetical leader take a risk that big without thinking about it?
For example charrs don’t even trust asura gates, I don’t think they would be ok with the Pact marching on Ascalon.

But you found the major problem yourself.

Marching into a city whether they want it or not will cause MAJOR political feedback.

Who asked them to march on Lion’s Arch? No one.
Lion’s Arch itself didn’t even thought of Scarlet as a danger.
If the Pact showed up it wuold have caused some serious issues.

That’s because I said that I would have found waaaaay more strange the Pact showing up during the attack.
It would have been a very bad thought story if no one would had problems with that.