Guild Wars 2

The only answer I can come up with is “They don’t want to.”

My logic is that they control the Asura gates & waypoints. They dictate how and when they are used. Not only that, but they have Asura gates in every race’s capitol. It’s a very simple matter to march your army into every racial capitol in the middle of the night, disable all waypoints & Asura gates, then follow it up with a slaughter. Blitzkrieg at it’s best. And the defending city’s reinforcements would be unable to reach their city before it burns to the ground because for the most part, they are scattered across the planet. Added bonus: the Asura say “you may only use our gates for peaceful purposes” to ensure that this strategy is not employed against them.

Furthermore, the Asura seem to have an army of golems that only they understand how to operate and militarized technology surpassing every other race currently on the planet: who are the ones who made the anti-dragon mega laser? who are the ones pioneering research into draconic energies? who are the ones with a nigh impenetrable floating city, it’s only means of entry being an Asura gate that the Asurans can easily lock down? Yeah…

On top of that, they have more money than every other race combined. When you pay your waypoint fee, who do you think gets that money? The Asurans. When you use an Asura gate, the city pays for you to use it. They’re richer, they’re smarter, they’re stronger, and they already have an easy means of attacking.

In a real world situation, the Asurans would abuse the hell out of their militaristic advantage to acquire copious amounts of goods giving them an even greater advantage over the other races. So why don’t they?

I don’t think there are enough asura to pull this off. Maybe they could take one city like this, maybe two if they move quickly and get around before word gets out and around. But even that’s a big maybe. But all of them?

And golems aren’t a reliable military force for Asura. They tend to explode/malfunction/turn on their creators and attempt to become our New Machine Overlords.

And even if they had a golem army, I can’t see them taking either Hoelbrak or The Black Citadel as easily as you describe. The norn would be too formidable and the charr would, at the very least, be able to hold out till their runners managed to go get reinforcements. That citadel is made to withstand a siege. I’d think everyone has a gun in Lion’s Arch, so they’d probably be fine, too.

DR might be in trouble with all the infighting there weakening it. Also, the placement of the Asura Gate in the very heart of the city would make it difficult. An enemy coming thru there, if they took the courtyard, could dig in very effectively very quickly.

And The Grove is very flammable.

They’d be the only towns I’d really consider in possible danger. Even then though, I doubt their people would go quietly into the night.

And on a separate note, could the asura even invade any racial capitals from Rata Sum? I thought the gates were tunnels btwn two set points. So they’d have to stage it from Lion’s Arch, which means taking that first.

As for why they don’t try all this… you’re right. They probably don’t want to. Or at least the ones who want to don’t have the power to do so. (Yay for Arcane Council gridlock?)

The Asura would never be able to assault the Black Citadel this way. Why? Ask the Charr NPCs around the Asura Gate. One of them is checking the charges set on the bridge. They honestly expect something bad to come through the gate, and have a means to make sure that they don’t easily get into the city – blow the bridge.

If that didn’t immediately destroy the gate, it would at least make it seriously difficult for the Asura to get enough forces through it, since the gate takes up most of the area on the platform it rests on.

^Also, that.

/10char

Simply because they couldn’t pull it off. Maybe they could get the Grove, but there is no telling what special magic the Pale Tree has up it’s sleeve in case of an invasion. If Hoelbrak was taken, the Norn would just turn to guerrilla fighting, which is how they beat the Charr. With the Charr, they are way too militaristic for any invasion to work. I mean in your home instance there you can see 3-4 TANKS just waiting. With Divinity’s Reach while the gate is close to the throne room, it is still guarded by the Shining Blade, who would definitely have a plan in place in case something happened. As someone said above Lion’s Arch is also very well armed.

Keyce.8137:

The Asura would never be able to assault the Black Citadel this way. Why? Ask the Charr NPCs around the Asura Gate. One of them is checking the charges set on the bridge. They honestly expect something bad to come through the gate, and have a means to make sure that they don’t easily get into the city – blow the bridge.

If that didn’t immediately destroy the gate, it would at least make it seriously difficult for the Asura to get enough forces through it, since the gate takes up most of the area on the platform it rests on.

I wouldn’t be so sure. In the asura personal story involving the selection of the Inifinity Cube (or something, can’t remember the exact name and don’t have access to the wiki due to work site-blockers), you open a rift to an alternate reality where the PC has become supreme dictator of Tyria.

Again, since I’m going off of memory I may be missing a few facts. But IIRC that’s more or less what goes down. Whether this alternate reality is missing out on some Black Citadel or what, I can’t say. xD There could be a ton of variables there that don’t apply to our reality, but it suggests that the potential is there.

Hoelbrak? The norn were always described as nomads, I wouldn’t put it past them to either 1) fight and die or 2) abandon the city without much concern. I agree with what Alleluia said about the grove & divinity’s reach. But wouldn’t it be simple for an Asura to attune the Asura gates to skip the middle-man of Lion’s Arch? Furthermore, if they can recalibrate their Asura gates at will, they could simply begin an attack then recalibrate asura gates to drop anyone who uses them in the middle of a volcano. Nothing says “Oh shi—” like spawning 500 meters in the air above a pit of lava. Where’s the reinforcements? “Well, funny story about that…”

I do agree that the black citadel & lion’s arch wouldn’t fall so quickly to the blitzkrieg, but I feel like they still could be taken. Although “they are not very numerous” is a great argument for why they wouldn’t succeed.

zoidberg.7801:

If Hoelbrak was taken, the Norn would just turn to guerrilla fighting, which is how they beat the Charr.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re referring to here… If you’re talking about the EotN storyline, there was far more than just the Norn fighting the Charr, not to mention that the Charr forces were rather divided at that point.

zoidberg.7801:

With the Charr, they are way too militaristic for any invasion to work. I mean in your home instance there you can see 3-4 TANKS just waiting.

And yet it’s Siege Golems that take down gates and fortifications in the mists, not tanks. ;P
Which I suppose doesn’t really suggest a whole lot, but I wouldn’t discount golems so quickly.

zoidberg.7801:

With Divinity’s Reach while the gate is close to the throne room, it is still guarded by the Shining Blade, who would definitely have a plan in place in case something happened.

That’s being a bit vague though, and seems to be suggesting that the invading Asura wouldn’t have a plan. No one goes into war without a plan.

zoidberg.7801:

As someone said above Lion’s Arch is also very well armed.

True, but Lion’s Arch is a city, whereas the others we’re talking about are full-blown nations. Not to mention that Lion’s Arch seems to get a lot of aid from the Pact in times of need to save their butts.

The Pact would be a whole other adversary for the asura to deal with as well though, so the asura would certainly be hard-pressed, there’s no doubt. The problem with these conversations is that there are so many variables and with racial pride abounding there’s a healthy helping of kitten waggling to skew things further.

That was a good catch, Sieg. Below is my personal opinion on your response (about the Infinity Ball), which I’ll admit – I haven’t spent hours digging around for, trying to come up with the absolutely-one-hundred-percent-perfect-lore-based-answer.

The Infinity Ball opens up a portal to a place that is not only likely the future, but also an alternate reality. Especially considering that after the PC defeats said evil version of themself, s/he swears to not try to rule the world. That pretty much prevents him/her from becoming Evil Dictator of Everything, if only the Evil part.

Time diagonal, if you will. Forwards and sideways.

So, the simple act of powering the Infinity Ball not only opened up a portal to another timeline, it also completely prevented that timeline from ever occurring inside GW2 canon (again, by forcing the PC to defeat the evil version of themself and then swear off becoming Supreme Ruler of Everything).

So, maybe in the time-space continuum where you ARE Supreme Ruler of Everything, you launched a blitz attack on the Charr using Steam creatures AND their portals before they could mount an adequate defense.

But since Steam creatures haven’t been invented by Asura PCs yet (they come through portals presumably from that other timeline), there’s no reason to be worried about it.

Unless you’re the kind of conspiracy theorist that exists only in popular media.

Simplicity.7208:

Hoelbrak? The norn were always described as nomads, I wouldn’t put it past them to either 1) fight and die or 2) abandon the city without much concern. I agree with what Alleluia said about the grove & divinity’s reach. But wouldn’t it be simple for an Asura to attune the Asura gates to skip the middle-man of Lion’s Arch? Furthermore, if they can recalibrate their Asura gates at will, they could simply begin an attack then recalibrate asura gates to drop anyone who uses them in the middle of a volcano. Nothing says “Oh shi—” like spawning 500 meters in the air above a pit of lava. Where’s the reinforcements? “Well, funny story about that…”

I do agree that the black citadel & lion’s arch wouldn’t fall so quickly to the blitzkrieg, but I feel like they still could be taken. Although “they are not very numerous” is a great argument for why they wouldn’t succeed.

You’re perfectly right in that the Asura could easily change their Gates to redirect forces from one place to another.

However, Asura are not yet so evolved in technology that they can teleport someone without an entrance and exit pad (like an Asura gate). If you run the Personal Story, one of the early missions involves a piece of technology that can teleport people without the need for a destination pad, however the Inquest captures the blueprints and you’re forced to destroy everything when those evil scientists try to use it for their own purposes.

It’s not something that’s out of reach for the Asura – so they probably could develop it again if they needed to – but for the time being the gates work perfectly fine for what they’re programmed to do.

The asura are not nearly as dominating as people like to believe. There is no way they’d be able to take on the Citadel in a full scale war.

An invasion of Black Citadel would fail miserably for the reasons already stated. The Asuran Gate is suspended over a sheer drop with explosives rigged to take it out the second something starts to emerge that isn’t suppose to. First day of the asuran Blitzkrieg everyone going through the portal at the times dies.

The Waypoints might work, but I feel those can’t move anything especially large or large numbers of people at a time. Otherwise the Gates would have no purpose at all. So the asura likely get picked off as they steadily appear through those. You’d be fooling yourself if you think the charr don’t have all of them monitored in some way, shape, or form. Speaking of Waypoints, ever wonder how there can be so many of them in far off places in the world with no one to maintain and protect them? Why hasn’t Zhaitan crushed the ones around Orr? Sometimes it seems like Waypoints aren’t actually a thing in lore. At least not to the extent they are ingame.

So that leaves the asura having to travel across the Shiverpeaks and invade the old fashioned way. Invading a much larger, stronger species that has ten times or more your own population is a hilariously bad idea. And while asuran magitech is impressive, good ol’ charr engineering has proven to be just as effective in it’s own rights. Asuran golems aren’t anything to be especially afraid of either. We destroy plenty of them like anything else. Even in WvW. Know what we don’t get a chance to fight very often? Full sized charr tanks, that are more like mobile castles with functioning artillery.

Their worst enemies are themselves.

They aren’t organized enough to do it. Crews develop and dissolve to focus on one purpose. and they fight amongst themselves. Also, they deffinitly DO want to rule the other races so if they havn’t done it yet, it seems it is because the don’t believe they can …. yet.

Ehecatl.9172:

The Waypoints might work, but I feel those can’t move anything especially large or large numbers of people at a time. Otherwise the Gates would have no purpose at all.

Waypoints wouldn’t work, either, actually. You can only use a waypoint you’ve previously visited on foot and been attuned to. Even if the attunement to something you were in, like a battle golem, this would still mean every pilot, driver, golemancer, and soldier of the asuran army that wanted to invade a spot via waypoint would have had to have already visited that spot at some point previously. Kinda infeasible.

They already do, but they don’t make a big deal out of it. They just quietly keep everything going and allow other races to think that they have a say in how things work. Have you ever tried to manipulate a gate keeper into letting you use waypoints for free? Yeah, you know they know they’re in charge. The Asura run the world, and they’re generous enough to let us live in it.

@Ehecatl – Diehard Charr fan maybe? Believing the Charr have the ability to withstand an assault better than the other races is one thing. Completely disregarding Asuran magitech is something else entirely. If every Charr thought like that, then the Charr would be a pathetically easy race to wipe off the planet. Ever hear of something called “underestimating a foe?” You should look up the American war of Independence. See how that worked out for Great Britain.

Fortunately, not every Charr does underestimate their opponents and as such we have things in place like the explosives on the bridge. I’m not about to argue “Oh yeah, the Asura would or would not win X at Y” because that’s pointless, I was just curious as to why they’ve never tried it yet. Of all the races, I feel like the Asura would have the best chance at winning a war against the others.

I think all that fighting would distract them from their intellectual pursuits.
Being on friendly terms with everyone gives them a lot of opportunities to tinker away.
The only fighting they currently do is between themselves.

The reason the asura don’t rule the world is because they can’t work together very well as a whole race. Their intellectual egos are too big to permit moving in the same direction in the same manner as the charr did during the Searing. Which was the closest the charr ever came to ruling the world, and why I believe they’d have an easier time of it than the other current races.

Except maybe the sylvari, I’m not . . . sure I want to see where they are in another 250 years.

Simplicity.7208:

Of all the races, I feel like the Asura would have the best chance at winning a war against the others.

Ehh. I’d give that to the charr. yes the asura have magitech but most of it is countered by the tech that the other races do have. Like golems. they are expesive to make as stated by NPC’s and they routinely malfunction requiring the asura to destroy them with brute force. if the asura can destroy them with brute force on a regular basis, the larger more organized and warlike races would have an easier time. The charr on the otherhand, are militant, organized, physically impressive and also technologically impressive.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Except maybe the sylvari, I’m not . . . sure I want to see where they are in another 250 years.

I’m sure that there’s a reason “pod people” taking over the world is a classic horror theme. Sylvari really are creepier than we give them credit for.

Dustfinger.9510:

They aren’t organized enough to do it. Crews develop and dissolve to focus on one purpose. and they fight amongst themselves. Also, they deffinitly DO want to rule the other races so if they havn’t done it yet, it seems it is because the don’t believe they can …. yet.

This. As was said in EOTN – put three asura in a room, get four opinions. The Inquest is an exception, but I think they’ve realised they can’t afford to antagonise everyone at once, and we hope they haven’t sufficiently infiltrated the gate operation krewes. Thing is, unless the asura could pull off enough near-simultaneous gate assaults to knock everyone out before word gets out, the surviving nations would destroy their gates then unite to march on Rata Sum. It’s a big gamble, and the asura have a lot to lose.

That said, I do have a suspicion that the metaplot behind a lot of the Living Story is that the Inquest are trying to raise an army that can do that by supporting and uniting all of the enemy factions in Tyria.

draxynnic.3719:

That said, I do have a suspicion that the metaplot behind a lot of the Living Story is that the Inquest are trying to raise an army that can do that by supporting and uniting all of the enemy factions in Tyria.

No, I expect Modus Sceleri is doing it.

Everyone on this thread seems to think the Asura need military might to rule the world. There are many more ways to conquer a foe, than just in battle. The Asura was probably going to take the slower, more cost effective, path to world domination.

They are going to make themselves… indispensable.

Simplicity.7208:

@Ehecatl – Diehard Charr fan maybe? Believing the Charr have the ability to withstand an assault better than the other races is one thing. Completely disregarding Asuran magitech is something else entirely. If every Charr thought like that, then the Charr would be a pathetically easy race to wipe off the planet. Ever hear of something called “underestimating a foe?” You should look up the American war of Independence. See how that worked out for Great Britain.

Fortunately, not every Charr does underestimate their opponents and as such we have things in place like the explosives on the bridge. I’m not about to argue “Oh yeah, the Asura would or would not win X at Y” because that’s pointless, I was just curious as to why they’ve never tried it yet. Of all the races, I feel like the Asura would have the best chance at winning a war against the others.

Not underestimating the asura. It’s knowing the difference between ten thousand and one hundred thousand. And there are a few key differences between this scenario and the American Revolution.

The Americans were not the ones invading England. England was invading the colonies. So it was on England to send troops over a several month long voyage to America, and to somehow provide proper provisions and supplies for their troops within these logistic constraints. England was by a large margin the more powerful force. If America had invaded they would’ve been crushed. Severely. In this scenario you have a much smaller nation invading the much larger one.

America also had help from outside forces in the ways of supplies from France. Something the asura don’t have in this hypothetical scenario.

And magitech is a nice advantage. But it’s not nearly enough to make the asura a genuine threat to the charr. The day the asura get the hang of mass producing their inventions is the day they might start posing a militaristic threat. But for now, they have to build just about everything by hand, with only a few facilities that mass produce anything. Usually their golems, which are, as I said above, not that big of an advantage. I’m pretty sure an elementalist’s earth elemental could go toe to toe with the mass produced asuran golem.

Then you take into account the charr also have highly effective technology. And honestly, I have my doubt that the asuran magitech is more effective than charr steam engineering in a war scenario. The asura have teleporters, energy weapons, forcefields, and laser cannons. The charr gave us automobiles, airships, helicopters, and long range, high caliber artillery cannons. The asuran technology may be more advanced, but charr technology can be mass produced with extreme speed and efficiency.

You posed the question of why the asura haven’t taken over the world. This is my answer. They can’t. They don’t have the mentality for war, nor the experience as a society for it.

Asura wouldn’t want to do it, becuase it distracts them from experiments, IF they finnaly find enough asura and build a massive golem army, it wouldn’t take long before they start fighting themselfs and so they can be stopped easily by the Pact, Humans, Charr, Norn, Sylvari, other Asura…

The problem is: Asura’s hate everybody, they are too egocentric to take over the world

I’m not convinced that we can assume any of the stuff being used by the Pact in Orr is mass-produced. In the charr territories, we only see a few dozen tanks (and none that I recall being used in action), one submarine, and one flying machine (which might better be described as a crashing machine). Most of what we see in Orr is described as a mix of efforts of all races, although mostly based off charr starting points. My overall feel is that what we’re seeing are largely ‘battle prototypes’ constructed by the Pact directly, and while they’re probably sharing technical details with the High Legions, as of the Molten Alliance plot arc there doesn’t seem to be evidence that any of these have seen largescale deployment in Ascalon. (Possibly the submarines, since it’s easy to explain their nonappearance, but that’s obviously a special case.)

Erukk.1408:

Everyone on this thread seems to think the Asura need military might to rule the world. There are many more ways to conquer a foe, than just in battle. The Asura was probably going to take the slower, more cost effective, path to world domination.

They are going to make themselves… indispensable.

Pretty much.

Incidentally, going back to pick another hole in the OP’s battle plan… if I was going to attack Divinity’s Reach through a subverted gate, I’d do it through the Rurikton gate. I have suspicions in general that Divinity’s Reach has hidden defensive features, and the orrery in particular strikes me as having a high likelihood of being a camouflaged killing zone.

Asura as I understand them, consider other Asura their greatest threat. They look down on the other species, and have no desire to rule them. The current situation is far better for Asura, because they can let the other species do their dirty work for them. And that’s exactly how they operate.

I think it’s hard for Asura to rally behind one leader as well, since Asura always disagree with each other. Asura simply have different goals. For an Asura, power does not come through conquest, but through knowledge.

Anyone saying the Asura do not wish to rule the lesser species is dead wrong, walk around rata sum or talk to the arcane council, they say that they wish to be overlords but know the dragons are a bigger threat right now so for the time being they will work with them

Another reason not to vote for Kiel!

Btw Divinity’s Reach wouldn’t be that easy. The Queen once managed to pull out such an illusion (as a mesmer) to be able to show the troops and ciztizens in Ebonhawke as Branded, so Kralkatorrik’s minions will retreat and leave the city.

She and Anise coul easily turn the asuras against each other, with making 50% of the asuras think the other 50% is Seraph, and do the same with the other 50% to see the first ones as Seraph. They would kill off each other. If not, their golems would for sure fall for the illusion and attack their asura masters.

Humans could teleport way before Asuran gates, as evidenced in the Crystal Desert and many other areas of the game. Even Flame Legion have perfected teleportation! (The main difference between Asuran Gate and not, is the capability to travel higher distances.)

As for Asurans being the only geniuses in the world, that is flat out WRONG! The Iron Legion is just as capable the College of Statics. However they choose not to rely on Golems because they are expensive and impractical in the battlefield.

If the Durmand Priory has not yet explained themselves to you, they are just as capable creating gadgets and gizmos as any Asura could as well.

These last 2 posters are perfect examples of why it would be so easy to take over these bookahs with all their ignorance

dunnberry.2964:

These last 2 posters are perfect examples of why it would be so easy to take over these bookahs with all their ignorance

Indeed. I explained about twenty posts up how the Asura already do control everything, and yet it goes ignored. Bookah don’t see what they don’t want to see. They dismiss out of hand anything that doesn’t fit their limited world view. I see similar interactions with the Council and the Inquest. Myopic control-types with minimal cranial capacities. It’s all very sad… for them.

The way I see it is, you’d be greatly outnumbered in a military situation, and outmatched. And further more, outnumbered.

Having each race turn on you, from Charr siege machines, to Norn in bear form that are the same size as your golem army, mixed with the agility of the smaller races, you’d be at a war with everything.

Considering they cannot even control their own machines 99% of the time, I doubt militarized approach would be possible.

However, an economic drought could give Asurans victory through the methods the earlier posts suggested.

The asura want to rule the world economically. Make all the races dependent on them. They don’t intend to rule by brute force (magical or otherwise), because they know that’d be pointless. You cannot rule over charr or norn easily with strength.

Though it’s only the Arcane Council that truly wants this.

To elaborate on my earlier point about DR, in one of the personal story quests we find out that there are tunnels in the Seraph headquarter dungeons, and they presumably lead outside. If those tunnels are there then there would have to be ones in the throne room for the Queen’s safety. The Shining Blade as bodyguards for the Queen could more than buy enough time for her to slip out through a tunnel.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The asura want to rule the world economically. Make all the races dependent on them. They don’t intend to rule by brute force (magical or otherwise), because they know that’d be pointless. You cannot rule over charr or norn easily with strength.

Though it’s only the Arcane Council that truly wants this.

. . . they’d get bored of it in two generations.

To me is seems that the Asura already think they rule the other races, through their technology and economy. And they make them work for them. Bookahs don’t realize they are being used by the Asura.

I’ve not seen any indication that the Asura want to actually rule over the other races with an iron fist, like a dictator might. Because they are too intelligent for that in my opinion. If they want the other races to do something for them, they’ll find a way to make them do it.

The Movement of the World

The Asura believe they are destined to rule the larger, less intelligent races of the world.

[…]

As a step in their master plans, the Asura established good relations with every other intelligent race on Tyria, from the militant Charr to the inquisitive Sylvari. They even established Asura Gates in major cities to provide safe passage from city to city and promote trade. However, they control these gates jealously, maintaining their trade routes and their neutrality as carefully as a gem, always keeping themselves on the edges of disputes and wars. Their own cities are far off the main paths of travel, distant even from central Lion’s Arch. There they perform experiments, searching for new magics and new power to control.

Although some say the Asura have integrated into society, it would be more accurate to say they’re creeping over it like ivy and moss, fingers digging into crevices where their magic can take hold.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Movement_of_the_World#Asura

there is a steam ogre in the thaumanova reactor.
the asura won’t do this because they are asura and not human/americans.
the infinity ball storyline although shows that potentially they can do that, but the character and zojja aknowledge this as an evil deed, so probably do a lot of asura.

that said there are lots of means to rule the world and according to me they are already doing it, not that i like, but they do.
there is always asura behind everything, one of them even managed to leash and mind control kralkatorrik.

edit: if you make the asura angry enough they can just create an embargo to all the major cities and we have only dolyaks to move from a place to another… unless we manage to tame centaurs

Because they are angry bunny rabbits :P

(NOTE: This is a joke)

Amadan.9451:

the asura won’t do this because they are asura and not human/americans.

Hmm…

Troll or not a troll. That is the question…

Why is everyone insisting it has to be a military take over? There are other ways to take control, albeit sometimes indirect control.

Silly bookahs, a direct invasion would be highly cost inefficient. For all intents and purposes we already control you, so that would be nothing but a colossal waste of resources.

When you think about it, you’re doing exactly what we want you to. The dragons were deemed a threat due to their appetite for magical artifacts such as our cities, and now you’re busily beating them back. Instead of imposing direct taxation we provided you with a gate network that provides the same result – us getting rich in your expense -, and you’re thanking us for it.

You are even doing heavy lifting for us in our numerous efforts to utilize otherworldly resources from the mists. Who do you think built the portals that lead to the Mist War? Think about it, even our fractal research is directly funded by candidates of Lions Arch Captain council.

No, you needn’t worry about an army of golems charging through the gates. If we want something killed, we send you

On the subject of the Infinity Ball story line, it should be noted that isn’t proof the asura can take over the world. It’s proof the PC can take over the world. In each of our personal stories we are this super awesome indispensable mega-important figure that is destined to help Treaharn save the world, and is incapable of failure.

Any PC can probably take over the world given enough time. Asura just have the silly sci fi theme to make it make sense to see it happen.

yski.7642:

(snip)

^ This. Exactly this.

yski.7642:

snip

Hahaha. You sir win my internets for the day. I like your answer.

The only thing that prevents the asura from gaining total control over all the other races. Even thou they control them all to some extent is the same reason the charr weren’t able to annihilate humanity: internal conflict.

Asura are continuously draining the riches of the world through their waypoints. They’re even willing lower the fee in order to send us to investigate the taumanova reactor event. Kiel is just a puppet, vote Evon.

If the asura get Kiel to the council they’ll be one step closer to total control, anyway. They don’t have the nornish need to smash their enemies, they’re smarter than that.

I, for one, welcome our new Asuran overlords! Long may they reign!

(Brought to you by: The Asurans for Asuran World Domination. Making a better tomorrow…. whenever we feel like getting around to it.)

yski.7642:

Silly bookahs, a direct invasion would be highly cost inefficient. For all intents and purposes we already control you, so that would be nothing but a colossal waste of resources.
{snip}

Or, to translate this with a little less asura bigheadedness: Why go to the effort of a hostile takeover that might backfire when the potential targets are already pretty much doing what you want them to anyway?

With the exception of the Inquest, asura megalomania tends to be based around the belief that Tyria would be run more efficiently if it was run by asura… but they believe this to be such a self-evident fact that given time all thinking beings would come to the same conclusion. They’ll put down species that present a present threat, but those that aren’t… well, wars mean the deaths of bookahs that could be dying fighting enemies of the asura or earning a living that can be going towards paying for asura products and services. And even if the war was a short, victorious one with few casualties… insurgencies are messy, and represent an even less efficient use of bookah resources than letting them do their thing.

The Inquest is different, but that’s because bookahs tend not to willingly volunteer to be test subjects.

draxynnic.3719:

yski.7642:

Silly bookahs, a direct invasion would be highly cost inefficient. For all intents and purposes we already control you, so that would be nothing but a colossal waste of resources.
{snip}

Or, to translate this with a little less asura bigheadedness: Why go to the effort of a hostile takeover that might backfire when the potential targets are already pretty much doing what you want them to anyway?

With the exception of the Inquest, asura megalomania tends to be based around the belief that Tyria would be run more efficiently if it was run by asura… but they believe this to be such a self-evident fact that given time all thinking beings would come to the same conclusion. They’ll put down species that present a present threat, but those that aren’t… well, wars mean the deaths of bookahs that could be dying fighting enemies of the asura or earning a living that can be going towards paying for asura products and services. And even if the war was a short, victorious one with few casualties… insurgencies are messy, and represent an even less efficient use of bookah resources than letting them do their thing.

The Inquest is different, but that’s because bookahs tend not to willingly volunteer to be test subjects.

And this represents the main principle of the eternal alchemy. The Asura think all the races are cogs of the same great machine. So they don’t want to destroy the cogs. They want to make them work properly.

I still think Kiel is an asuran puppet btw.