Guild Wars 2

From what Scarlet saw:

“But I see the flaws in that design. My people don’t have to take what we’re given, or be what we were “born to be.” No people do. We can change the rules…well, I can. And I’m going to.”

“Now I have to put that knowledge to use. An insurmountable challenge is rising, and my people have been called to meet it. We are compelled by our creator to do so.
“But I reject that call. I reject the notion that that I must choose the Dream or be lost to Nightmare. The forces that push us this way or that can be redirected. They can be set against one another to the detriment of both, and now I know how.”

“Empires will fall, continents will burn, and when the conflagration is over, I’ll be there to put my stamp on whatever new world this one becomes.”

Assuming (as I assume) that the nightmare is Mordremoth corruption, and assuming Scarlet knew this, what was the Scarlet’s plan since the start? Would she just set the entire world (the Dream and its defenders) against Mordremoth (the Nightmare) to just let them hit each other? Or maybe the great army of Scarlet is still waiting to hit?
I want to read your theories about this.
Anyway remember that when Scarlet died she said that it was too late.

Any number of reasons could explain what it was she was trying to do. Keep the quote on the Blades Backpiece Blueprint in mind, “Caithe, one day you will find out I was right. Tyria needs me.”

I do believe that, like Caithe as we speak, she was trying to face her fate and defy destiny. Their destiny being that the Sylvari were meant to serve to Mordremoth as nothing more than pawns, minions, in his attempt to scorn the world. But plans like these are always bate for a tragic villain, I remember I kept using Saren from Mass Effect to draw a comparison to Scarlet during the finale of Season 1.

IE
Saren sought salvation, believing the Reapers could not be stopped and so allying was the only way. Yet at the same time he was conducting research for the affects Reapers had on organics, Indoctrination, and trying to find ways to combat it.

What I think Scarlet was getting at was that Mordremoth could not be stopped until he was awoken and dealt with. A fool’s folly surely but one built over courage and determination to face a rising threat that she alone saw was the bigger picture. Now we have a trailer for HoT and Caithe mentions the same thing, that sometimes Destinies need to be challenged. In my opinion, I believe Scarlet was hopping to rewrite herself to be who she wanted to be and not some minion with a simple and violent purpose. She was obsessed but she was obsessed with conquering odds that were stacked against her, and we as the players slayed her dead before she could see any of it come to fruition – leaving us thinking her plan was only about awakening Mordremoth all along. Hell, I bet she smiled during her death because she was at last free from the mental torment she was enduring.

What if we attack the dragons when they are asleep and weaker?

Slowpokeking.8720:

What if we attack the dragons when they are asleep and weaker?

That’d be a hell of a long time to wait, my characters wont live that long!

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I have a few theories that I’m considering.

• Scarlet’s real goal was to weaken the dragon by cutting the ley line, and then turn both her armies and the rest of the world against it. You killing her aborted that plan, and her last words were referring to her being too late as she realized the dragon was waking up strong anyway. (“We’re too late, this was all for nothing.”)
  -or-
• Scarlet’s real goal was to wake up the dragon early, and thus in a weaker state, and then lead her armies and the rest of the world against it. Her last words were referring to her making it to her goal before she died- although she knew you would have to lead the armies instead of her. (“You’re too late to stop me from helping you, idiot.”)
  -or-
• Scarlet was mostly just driven mad by being the one rebel who saw how things really worked in a world of sheep, and everything else was an attempt at self-justification. Her last words were just a dying attempt to believe that she’d had a purpose in life. (“You’re too late, I win, I win, muhuhahahahaha I’m the joker only pretty and played by the other best voice actor in the world!”)

I’m not 100% on any of those, but ever since “Scarlet’s End” I’ve thought it would turn out somehow the world was worse off for us having killed Scarlet in cold blood instead of taking her prisoner. That was an intrinsically evil act, and in Tyria those kinds of acts, no matter how seemingly justified, always seem to have a cost.

Ronin.7381:

Slowpokeking.8720:

What if we attack the dragons when they are asleep and weaker?

That’d be a hell of a long time to wait, my characters wont live that long!

I mean before they awoke, why didn’t Glint gather champions to penetrate Kralkatorrik’s chest with that spear when he was asleep?

A mix of two things I believe.

1) She wanted to free herself (and incidentally the sylvari) from Mordremoth, the Pale Tree and the Dream/nightmare.

2) She gradually lost her fight with Mordremoth and ended up serving it whether she knew it or not.

I honestly don’t know why she built the Breachmaker and messed with the ley lines. Maybe she thought she could control Mordremoth? That explains the Molten Alliance and the Aetherblades – she needed their tech for the Breachmaker, but the Toxic Alliance is something else. This makes the former goal harder to see because it’s mixed in which her increasingly maddening state of mind and undermined by Mordremoth’s subtle pushes for control of her mind.

I think the Toxic Alliance was her attempt to reverse engineer Mordremoth’s corruption. The mental warping nature of the Tower of Nightmare’s toxins come from plants, which happens to be the two spheres of Mordremoth – plants and the mind. At the time Scarlet was fighting to keep control of her mind, to keep Mordremoth out, and she was losing. She knew all sylvari were meant to serve Mordremoth and that they were similarly vulnerable as she was, so she had to find a way to immunise herself against Mordremoth’s mental corruption (which incidentally protects other sylvari).

The toxin from the Tower of Nightmares was like an immunisation shot – it exposes sylvari and others to a controlled dose of Mordremoth-like mental corruption, not truly Mordremoth’s corruption but Scarlet’s refined version of it.

“Caithe, someday you’ll see, Tyria needs me. -Scarlet”

Because the sylvari PC has been exposed to Mordremoth’s Scarlet’s toxins (even new players are assumed to be commanders of the Pact, so it’s also assumed they were in the tower and in Lion’s Arch) they are now extra resistant to Mordremoth’s corruption.

We know she was able to make alterations to Omadd’s machine to make it safer (when the PC uses it, it says Scarlet made alterations to the machine and the PC sylvari show no signs of corruption) so Scarlet was having some success in resisting Mordremoth, but it was likely too late for her because Mordremoth was already inside her head.

How the leylines and the Breach Maker fits into it all? I dunno. My best guess would be she might have gone a step further when reverse engineering Mordremoth’s powers. Perhaps she wanted to use the ley lines and the knowledge she gained from the Tower of Nightmares to take control of Mordremoth. Her room in Prosperity was full of research papers relating to mind magic (including references to Snaff’s experiments with remote controlled golems) and the suggestion that magic is everywhere, like pathways or something. I believe Snaff tried to control Kralkatorrik’s mind in Edge of Destiny, Scarlet was probably trying to use the power of the ley line to get into Mordremoth’s mind and control it. Mordremoth allowed her to do this because it could influence her to tweak the machine or fail just enough so that Scarlet wakes the dragon instead of controls the dragon.

Answer: Bad writing. You don’t kill an elder dragon by waking it early and giving it a boost of power. You kill the thing in its sleep. Scarlet was an contrived lore breaking mess whose motivations were never really made clear beyond screwing with the rest of Tyria.

Ronin.7381:

kept using Saren from Mass Effect to draw a comparison to Scarlet during the finale of Season 1.

IE
Saren sought salvation, believing the Reapers could not be stopped and so allying was the only way. Yet at the same time he was conducting research for the affects Reapers had on organics, Indoctrination, and trying to find ways to combat it.

But in the end Saren for all his big talk was indoctrinated, he was a puppet. His research on indoctrination was little more than a elaborate ruse to make him think he still had control, to make him think he was still in charge of himself, while slowly all his actions, thoughts and motivation were being twisted to serve the reapers.
I think Scarlet started out wanting to be free, but her search for freedom let her to rejecting the dream, to the machine and into the arms of Mordy. Do I think she thought she was still fighting for freedom? Sure, it’s possibly that Scarlet had some mad idea in her head, but in the end she was a puppet, she did exactly what Mordy wanted.

I think a lot of people are forgetting that madness does not equal logic. In fact the very opposite. Particularly when dealing with psychotic delusions. Scarlet could very well have thought that awakening Mordy would save the world, because she was mad. I think it was best said by Spock – “Jim, madness has no purpose or reason. But it may have a goal.”

Ronin.7381:

Slowpokeking.8720:

What if we attack the dragons when they are asleep and weaker?

That’d be a hell of a long time to wait, my characters wont live that long!

Theoretically (and this is supported by Trahearne attempting to attack Mordy before he fully awoken) we’d have a far far better chance of defeating the Elder Dragon. They’d not yet have a full army (maybe only a couple of champions) and their level of magic would still be low.
Too bad no one has actually knowingly discovered a sleeping Elder Dragon yet.
Also there are way of tricking the Elder Dragon into going to sleep earlier, see the ancient races during the last cycle.

Slowpokeking.8720:

I mean before they awoke, why didn’t Glint gather champions to penetrate Kralkatorrik’s chest with that spear when he was asleep?

Maybe slapping them in the face prematurely wakes them up, on the wrong side of the proverbial bed that is.

Slowpokeking.8720:

I mean before they awoke, why didn’t Glint gather champions to penetrate Kralkatorrik’s chest with that spear when he was asleep?

Don’t quote me, but I believe in the novel, Glint stated the spear had to strike his belly. But I’m not 100% sure…

EDIT: I found the quote, ““You must strike the killing blow, right here.” Glint motioned to her side, tapping a groove between her ribs.”

CureForLiving.5360:

Maybe slapping them in the face prematurely wakes them up, on the wrong side of the proverbial bed that is.

But it fully woke up when Glint tried to kill him. What’s the difference? No doubt it would be easier to kill a dragon when it was asleep.

Plagiarised.2865:

Slowpokeking.8720:

I mean before they awoke, why didn’t Glint gather champions to penetrate Kralkatorrik’s chest with that spear when he was asleep?

Don’t quote me, but I believe in the novel, Glint stated the spear had to strike his belly. But I’m not 100% sure…

EDIT: I found the quote, ““You must strike the killing blow, right here.” Glint motioned to her side, tapping a groove between her ribs.”

So just dig a tunnel under its belly and stab it.

I think that Scarlet went mad the moment she went into Omadd’s machine, and in her madness, she actually had several contradictory goals:

1. She wants to free herself, and by proxy all the Sylvari, from Mordremoth’s control. To that extent, she started gathering an army who could potentially fight the Elder Dragon and developed technology to do the same.

Of course, as her madness grew and she fell ever more under Mordremoth’s control, her army ended up serving Mordremoth rather than the other way around.

2. She has an innate superiority complex and wants to prove that she is smarter than anyone else around. This includes proving it to Mordremoth, but as her control slipped, she started doing the dragon’s bidding unconsciously, hence the bit from her holographic journal about, “This was all my ideas. Stop taking credit for them!”

3. A part of her probably knew that she was losing the battle of wills to Mordremoth. Scarlet then started subtly working against Mordremoth and trying to let people know her true circumstances (the Marionette was the most grandiose example). I suspect that a lot of Scarlet’s methods of attack might actually be subtly disguised ways of giving Tyria technology and exposure to Mordremoth’s attacks so as to help them build up defenses against them. For example, perhaps it turns out that the Tower of Nightmares was a way to alert Tyria that Mordremoth uses spores to mentally control his minions, and by finding a way to block/cure that, they can protect the Sylvari from his corruption.

With her death, Scarlet’s technology, such as holograms, Aether and now the Watchknights could possibly be reverse engineered to become weapons against Mordremoth. (Especially the latter, since it seems that Mordremoth can only corrupt organic beings. An army of mechanical Watchknights might be totally immune to his powers.)

Slowpokeking.8720:

Plagiarised.2865:

Slowpokeking.8720:

I mean before they awoke, why didn’t Glint gather champions to penetrate Kralkatorrik’s chest with that spear when he was asleep?

Don’t quote me, but I believe in the novel, Glint stated the spear had to strike his belly. But I’m not 100% sure…

EDIT: I found the quote, ““You must strike the killing blow, right here.” Glint motioned to her side, tapping a groove between her ribs.”

So just dig a tunnel under its belly and stab it.

I though so too, but Glint continues, “You must be running when you deliver the stroke, with all your weight behind the lance. Can you do that?”

The spear had to have a great force behind it, and well, you can’t really do that while digging upwards.

Hire the Dredge to do it!

Plagiarised.2865:

Slowpokeking.8720:

Plagiarised.2865:

Slowpokeking.8720:

I mean before they awoke, why didn’t Glint gather champions to penetrate Kralkatorrik’s chest with that spear when he was asleep?

Don’t quote me, but I believe in the novel, Glint stated the spear had to strike his belly. But I’m not 100% sure…

EDIT: I found the quote, ““You must strike the killing blow, right here.” Glint motioned to her side, tapping a groove between her ribs.”

So just dig a tunnel under its belly and stab it.

I though so too, but Glint continues, “You must be running when you deliver the stroke, with all your weight behind the lance. Can you do that?”

The spear had to have a great force behind it, and well, you can’t really do that while digging upwards.

They can ask the Asura to build some machines to power it up.

CureForLiving.5360:

Ronin.7381:

kept using Saren from Mass Effect to draw a comparison to Scarlet during the finale of Season 1.

IE
Saren sought salvation, believing the Reapers could not be stopped and so allying was the only way. Yet at the same time he was conducting research for the affects Reapers had on organics, Indoctrination, and trying to find ways to combat it.

But in the end Saren for all his big talk was indoctrinated, he was a puppet.

Well yeah, that is the major flaw in just about any anti-hero who seeks to challenge fate. In their obsession to change their destiny, they are ultimately consumed by the same source of which they are trying to fight against. In Scarlet’s case, she got too close and when she thought she had the edge, really it just played right into Mordremoth’s favor.

Star Wars The Old Republic just had a plot like this with their latest digital expansion Shadow of Revan. Where Revan’s quest to vanquish the Emperor ends up playing right into the Emperor’s incorporeal hands and thus aided the Emperor in his freedom.

I think Scarlet was just consumed by her fear and determination, the two went hand in hand.

Because she was crazy.