Guild Wars 2

So I’ve found a post in the GW2 Wiki that refers to The All, described as “a cosmic mechanism that incorporates the world of Tyria and six bodies of power” which are assumed to be the six Elder Dragons. It also goes on to say that “The six bodies of power are in continuous push-and-pull motion, perfectly balancing themselves to each other and the world. It is said by the Apostate that if the bodies fall out of balance, then the world itself would tilt and everything would fall off, though such is taken to be a metaphor – the true outcome is unknown”. This is the link to the page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_All
In a vision induced in Omadd’s machine, the Zhaitan orb crashes into the Tyria orb 2 years after Zhaitan’s death. Does this imply that in killing an Elder Dragon we are actually disturbing the balance of nature/the universe/the 6 bodies of power and thereby causing a potential cataclysm? I’d love to know what other think.

This is pretty much what I suggested in some lore thread somewhere, and I was met with ridicule and claims that I “had no evidence”.

I’m surprised that I hadn’t known about this until now as I am always interested in the lore, but this particular piece of lore makes me think that at some point during the quest to kill all the Elder Dragons we will in fact realise that we are doing the wrong thing. Perhaps Caithe has already realised this and took the egg to replace Zhaitan?

“Mechanism” is kinda the wrong word to describe the All. What we saw in Omadd’s machine was tinted by Scarlet’s view of things*, and since she was an engineer, her vision of how things might work and interact might be more mechanical in nature.

From Rallying Call

Pale Tree: I’m intrigued. Tell me more. What was it about? Where did you have this vision?
Player: In an asuran device Scarlet used to see the Eternal Alchemy. I saw it too.
Pale Tree: What dangers have you been toying with? Such things were not meant to be seen. They will crack your mind.
Player: I didn’t understand much of the vision, but you were at the center.
Pale Tree: If this was the device that Ceara used, then it must have maintained some of her touch upon it. But, I do not know what it could mean. Only you can know that.
Player: Maybe in time… What about Mordremoth? You know it’s been active?

From what Ogden says, the All is too large to be fully understood. It would almost be like trying to fully understand the complexities of the universe through only a single telescope. You can only see and understand so much.

From Hidden Arcana

Ogden Stonehealer: Ah yes. Only asura would attempt to quantify nature itself. But then, they are limited in perspective.
Ogden Stonehealer: By attempting to define the undefinable, they actually move further from the truth rather than closer to it.
Ogden Stonehealer: The Eternal Alchemy, nature, our world, the All—however you want to name it—is beyond understanding.
Ogden Stonehealer: We can only grasp portions of it. Even the Elder Dragons are small relative to the All.
Ogden Stonehealer: We see only certain layers of the Mists, the Elders, and Tyria. Anything beyond that is hidden from us.
Ogden Stonehealer: We must content ourselves with first understanding what’s before us.
Ogden Stonehealer: Right now, the Elder Dragons are the most critical to understand.

As for the deaths of the Elder Dragons leading to world ending cataclysm? That result is also implied in Nochtli’s dialogue in Dry Top. Just substitute water for magic and monster with Elder Dragon.

Nochtli

Very well. In old times, there was a tribe in a valley with only one source of water, a clear, sweet stream that ran by their village. One day that stream began to run dry and the tribe grew worried.
Go on.
They sent their greatest warrior upstream to find what had happened, and after three days she found a monster who had grown greedy and had drunk all the water for itself.
Go on.
The warrior explained the plight of her thirsty people and the greedy monster laughed a mighty croak and pushed her into the mud with its bloated belly. This angered the proud warrior very much.
Go on.
In her great anger, the warrior split the monster’s belly open, so that all the waters rushed forth in a flood that filled the valley, washing the warrior and her tribe away to the sea.
Wait, everyone died? What kind of story is that?
The point of this silly old tale is that a rash decision made out of pride is no better than a selfish decision made out of greed, and both will lead to ruin.

This “Dragon’s are balancing magic” storyline might be an overarching theme to the fight against the Elder Dragons. At the moment though no evidence is seen in the game world, we’ve got lots of NPCs telling us about it, and no NPCs are doing anything about it. We can’t really tell if there’s more to it or not.

I was thinking. What if having Zhaitan alive kept Mordremoth from being able to spread his tentacle vines all over Tyria?

Zhaitan basically wiped all the lush greenery away from Orr by residing there.

Could this be part of the push/pull they are referring too?

Mordremoth pushes back Zhatain’s “death”, but Zhaitan keeps Mordremoth’s “life” in check.

We kill Zhaitan and now there is no one to keep Morde in check, thus the current events of the living story occur.

Nah. We know that Scarlet already started having the visions from Mordremoth before Zhaitan’s death. All available evidence in-game suggests it was due to a combination of her choosing the path of the Soundless, and then moving out into the Maguuma Wastes where the closer proximity to Mordremoth affected her. (Her going into Omadd’s machine basically was her throwing open the door instead of trying to strengthen it.)

Mordremoth awoke (almost 40 years prematurely, if the regular awakening cycles of the other Dragons are a trend) because Scarlet redirected the ley line flows beneath Lion’s Arch to feed directly into Mordremoth and thus awaken him.

Zaxares.5419:

Nah. We know that Scarlet already started having the visions from Mordremoth before Zhaitan’s death. All available evidence in-game suggests it was due to a combination of her choosing the path of the Soundless, and then moving out into the Maguuma Wastes where the closer proximity to Mordremoth affected her. (Her going into Omadd’s machine basically was her throwing open the door instead of trying to strengthen it.)

Is this definitive? I mean, it is broadly assumed, both in-world and out-of-world, but the only dragon that is known for a fact to have telepathic powers is Glint (and possibly her offspring). The presence of Mordremoth’s champion in the Dream suggests he may be active there, but it could just be that he is prominent because Mordremoth is the Sylvari nemesis dragon (like Zhaitan for humans, Jormag for norn, Kral for Charr, Primordus for Asura, and DSD whenever it floods the Tengu homeland).

Other than that, AFAIK, Mordremoth’s mind powers are mainly inferred on the basis that Scarlet’s actions benefited him, therefore he was the one responsible for driving her nuts.

BUT. Scarlet saw something similar to what we saw when she broke her brain — she would have known about the balance among the dragons, and the fact that killing Zhaitan would create an imbalance in the fabric of magic that could lead to cataclysm. Mordremoth was the opposing force, but he was still sleeping. Scarlet’s actions basically opened up a pathway for the magic so it could get dumped into Mordremoth (at the cost of waking him up and putting him on roids). If you aren’t a resident of Lion’s Arch, you could even view her actions as beneficial, assuming magical cataclysm is somehow worse that Elder Dragon attack.

Certainly, she thought her actions were somehow justified. Maybe she was wrong, or misguided, or manipulated by Mordremoth. But it’s possible she was being driven by a semi-benign being (that is, someone willing to invade people’s minds and drive them crazy or destroy cities, but opposed to global cataclysm).

If I am not mistaken, the orb that crashes into the center is not Zhaitans orb, but Mordys.

EDIT : Nope its Zhaitan, you are right, then again, the vision could just be a what Scarlet saw from BEFORE Zhaitans death.

Anyway, I do not think the balance referred to is THAT direct, life (plants) vs death, water vs fire, etc.

The unbalance would probably be a wider idea with a larger time frame once the dragons are ALL dead then the effects would be visible.