Guild Wars 2

Really? Over a century?

…That’s all? ONLY a century?

It’s a little odd that Glint and the Forgotten felt the need to create wildly elaborate sacrificial ghost-robot thingies to guard the city, instead of, you know, just founding a colony of humans. Surely they could keep the faith for a piddly century. Especially if you gave them nice guns to use against the Mordrem.

Also, Glint didn’t trust humans to keep it together for 100 years of protecting an empty theme park, but DID entrust her precious babby egg directly into the hands of the Zephyrites?

:-/

I think the reason for creating the Exalted was to make it easier to defend Tarir. The exalted are almost impervious to attack and uncorruptable. This makes them much better for defending the city than normal humans.

Another reason, why Glint opted for the Exalted is the jungle itself. Even without Mordrem, the Heart of Maguuma is home to nasty things like Bristlebacks, Wyverns, Rolling Devils and worst of all: Pocket Raptors.
And that’s just the Fauna.
The mushrooms are arguably worse. Then there’s other probable threats like tropical diseases, hunger and Chak.
Many things that may wipe out a newly established human settlement and even Rata Novus eventually fell.
Sure, human settlers may have managed to build the Tyrian equivalent of Tenochtitlan, but it’s fare more likely that they would have shared the fate of the Asura.

Instead of risking that Glint went with immortal golden guardians.

The Exalted also have the advantage of being able to go into hibernation until needed. They only had to face the hazards of the jungle until the city was built, whereas a human colony would need to weather everything Castigator listed for another century.

The Exalted are immune to dragon corruption, do not age, able to go into hibernation for when there’s no need for them to be awake, and are unkillable unless you strike a very specific part of their body (their mask) – they can even be dismembered and still live, unlike weak, aging, bleeding mortal humans.

Tarir was made about 200 years prior to GW2, after the events of GW1, so they wouldn’t have had much time to defend it. But when it comes to defending it, Exalted are far superior than humans.

And we are told that after Aurene is ready, the Exalted are to move to another location, to further a different part of Glint’s Legacy – these are acts (creating Tarir, protecting Aurene, going elsewhere) centuries apart, so would you really trust unknown future generations to the salvation of the world? I wouldn’t.