Guild Wars 2

As for the “lawless” and “we will be hunted down part”, I actually seen this before first hand in my RPing story. Let’s go back to Ascalon 300 years ago.

My family was from a line of necromancers. Necromancy was not just a profession, but a way of life and death.

We had always been against the Order of Necromancers, since the day it was formed. We believe that there should be no limit placed to restrict the human potential. Yet the majority of the people wanted the Order. Our family obeyed their ruling, and we kept our opinions to ourselves.

Over the years many of our members gave up their lives defending Ascalon from all its threats.

When I was a child, my clan tried to teach me their values and believes on morality. But I never take them seriously. Life was good. We were safe behind our Great Wall. Who would have thought that this was a false sense of security.

I was a teenager when The Searing happened. Needless to say, the situation changed dramatically for the worst. Ascalon was on the edge of destruction.

My clan talked to the Order to loosen up the strict rules and laws on magic. They refused. They talk all day long about moral, honour, blah blah blah. They just cannot see though the truth: The End is Near.

It should be obvious by this point that my clan had to take things into our own hands, if we hope to protect and defend Ascalon.

My father sent me away with Prince Rurik. They don’t want me involved. I was young and naive, and I didn’t agree with their point of view. So I was away doing other quests and adventures when the following happened. I only realize later that my family was right all along.

My clan’s plan was to develop a deadly disease that only affects the Charrs. To discover and test this disease, we needed Charrs to test them on. This was the only way.

There is a now mostly forgotten childhood story for the Charrs, where human witches and wizards will come at night to capture the young cubs.

That story wasn’t fictional. Charr cubs were easy to capture. Their young bodies are ideal for the tests. My clan was making great progress and was on the edge of discover the perfect disease.

Sadly, my clan’s experiments were discovered by the Order. Blinded by their “self-righteousness”, they gathered a group of “heroes” and attacked my clan and killed almost everyone. They “saved” the Charr cubs and released them back to the Charr land.

My clan was murdered by the very people that they were trying to protect, because these people wanted to save our enemies. This was the honourable thing to do.

Do you see the irony in this? Do you now have a better understanding of what morality and honour is?

The Order didn’t stop there. They went around the whole world, hunting down members of my clan that were involved. They eventually found me.

The Order deemed me “innocent” because I was never involved in any of this. However my heart wasn’t innocent. Not by far. But I was too heart broken and too weak to do anything back then, so I simply ignored Ascalon from that point on.

Ascalon did end up losing the war. If the Order allowed my clan to develop that disease, the outcome might have been different. But their “self-righteousness” end up being their own downfall.

If the Pact follow the way of the Order, and be constantly limited by moral and honor, then the whole Kryta might go the same way as Ascalon.

Having moral and honour because of a false sense of security is the worst mistake we can make. It doomed Ascalon. And now it might doom Kryta. You might not see the doom of Kryta today right now. But 300 year ago the Order didn’t see the doom of Ascalon neither.

Hope you now understand where I am coming from.

Erukk.1408:

So…

Your “Dark Knights” is basically the White Mantle during the WiK, minus the religious parts, but you’ve added a big heaping scoop of CIA at their worst? That’s a very volatile combination, and I personally don’t see it lasting long.

You’ve basically described an organization of lawless fanatics that go around killing and torturing anyone (and anyone connected to them (including innocent family members)) that they see as evil or corrupt. That is NOT going to attract good moral or well meaning people to that organization. If anything, that is going to attract psychopaths, liars, murderers, and basically anyone with dark intentions to that group.

It might start off with good intentions, but it isn’t always going to be that way. The more morally repugnant actions that the “Dark Knights” do, the more that the actual good willing people will leave the group. Leaving the more morally corrupt ones to run the organization.

Given enough time, your group is going to be nothing more than a lawless band of thugs no better than the Aetherblades. Though, I personally think that the Aetherblades would be better than the Dark Knights morally at that point, or maybe a bit earlier as well. Pirates only do what they do for money and loot. The Dark Knights would be a much more dangerous group, because they are doing everything in the misguided belief that they are doing “greater good”.

There is also that other thing that would make it difficult for your group to exist for long. If your group of lawless vigilantes are going to be going from nation to nation, kittening off that powers that be, you will be hunted down.

“good moral or well meaning people”.

That’s the problem right there. You view the above people as good. I see them differently.

“These people value their personal moral, honour more than the protection of what they claimed to love.”

In other words, the protection from these people are conditional.

“I will only protect you if it doesn’t require me to break any laws.”
“I will gather intelligence only to the point that I don’t have to torture anyone.”
“I will only use spells and weapons that are legal and conventional.”
etc etc

If Kryta have to choose between good but dead and evil but alive, they should pick the 2nd option every time.

Look at the Forgotten. They have good morales and good intentions. But where are they today? Pretty much extinct.

Let me just say this:

Good moral is a privilege reserved for people who have absolutely no chance of losing.

Lostwingman.5034:

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.

I can’t think of one NPC in any of the 3 orders that I truly respect. The few people that I do respect are dead.

At one point I thought the orders and the Pact was a great idea. But it is becoming a disappointment.

Look, the Pact is by far the strongest standing army in all of Kryta. It should be going around crushing all our major enemies. Instead it is turtle-ing, saying it need to save resources for the Elder Dragons.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand that small threats like the Separatists can be safely ignored for now. They can only cause so much harm. But threats like Aetherblades with their airships are major threats. They had killed thousands, and will kill thousands again if we do nothing about it.

One point I can’t stress enough, and every one of you keep ignoring: Just because you ignore a threat, it does not mean this threat goes away.

Right now is the best time to deal with the Aetherblade airships. The Aetherblades just lost a lot of their members in LA. The other Elder Dragons hasn’t launch their major offensive. We should crush them, remove them from the “game” totally, before they can regroup under Mai Trin.

If you disagree, then don’t say I didn’t warn you. When the Aetherblades attack another city and kill thousands, all of their blood are on your hands.

Temihal.8651:

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.

I never said that the Pact should force their way into LA. But since they knew that Scarlet is coming, they could have been more prepared. It doesn’t matter how dumb the LA council was. The Pact shouldn’t be dumb alongside with them.

The Pact airships should stay just outside of LA’s territory, but be ready to move in the second the Scarlet began her offensive. Wipe out the Aetherblade airships when they weren’t looking. With their airships gone they can’t deploy the poison gas canisters.

More civilians could have been saved if the Pact were more prepared for something they knew was coming.

Erukk.1408:

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.

We have to realize that Aetherblades are pirates. That means their goal is to surprise attack a city, kill a bunch of people, loot and escape. They couldn’t care less about holding a city.

Unless the Aetherblade airships are destroyed, they can raid any city they want at any time. And each time thousands of civilians will be dead. Even if the Pact send ground forces in later to drive them out, these will still be Aetherblade victories. Because their objectives are fulfilled, and they can escape with their airships anytime.

Without Pact airships, the Aetherblade airships cannot be destroyed. So yes we need Pact airships to win. We need an air force to defeat an enemy air force. Its that simple.

There is an alternative method, which is to attack the Aetherblade home base directly. Without supplies their airships can’t fly. Good idea, but wake me up when the Order of Whisper finally find out where they are.

As for moral questions:

-Answer to who: There is no diplomacy, because the Dark Knights are considered illegal in most places. But at the same time no one knows who the Dark Knight members are.

For example I might be a Dark Knight member. But you won’t know I am one.

-Govern: The Dark Knights will have leadership. Their leaders will be people who think in similar ways as I do.

-Funding: Funding will come from people of the upper classes who believes in Dark Knight’s vision.

And there are rich members in the Pact. Some are even from the noble background.

-Limit: These are absolutely no limits and laws. That’s the point. Hence the Dark Knights are illegal, and they couldn’t care less if it means saving lives.

For example, the Dark Knights have no problem hurting and torturing the “bad guys”, until they give up the home location of the bad guys. There will never be a trial. Everything is street justice.

If they refuse to say anything, we will locate his/her family and kidnap them. We will see how long these “bad guys” can hold up, while watching their family get tortured in front of them.

Immoral? Depends on your point of view.

These “bad guys” are hurting and killing thousands of civilians. If torturing them means saving the lives of thousands it will be worth it.

If Mai Trin were in the hands of the Dark Knights, she will never walk again. She will be lucky if she still have her right arm when we are done with her. It is that simple. In hindsight, I am sure you would agree it would have been better this way. Now she escaped, fully healthy, and will threaten to kill thousands again in the future.

-Right or Wrong: How about this. I will tell you what is the wrong thing to do:

Sitting by and doing absolutely nothing about the Aetherblade airship threat. Continue to do nothing until they raid another city and kill thousands. Using the Elder Dragons as an excuse for everything.

I will also tell you an universal truth:

The more you love and want to protect “something”, the more ruthless and merciless you have to be against the enemies of this “something”.

If you are not willing to be ruthless and merciless, then you do not love this “something” enough to give up and sacrifice your own honour, moral or whatever you want to call it. And so it is hypocritical to say that this “something” is your top priority, because it isn’t.

-Rogue: They are illegal. They don’t care what people call them.

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.

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.

Toastehh.5832:

I think it helps to view magical techniques as just another technology. Professions were merged into the Guardian because people simply discovered better, more powerful ways of using magic. You could become an old school ritualist, but why would you – you’d just be hopelessly outclassed unless some new advancement is made (expansion, cough).

As long as Livia/an immortal GW1 PC kept up with new advances, I don’t think they’d be any weaker – just ridiculously experienced and probably with some old tricks nobody is used to dealing with any more.

The way I see it, the GW universe is just like real life. Some things gets further advanced and became more popular. Other things gets forgotten.

For example I can’t see any person giving up the GW1 versions of Spiteful Spirit, Eviscerate and Empathy unless they couldn’t learn these powerful skills.

And Ritualist spirits would be just as OP in GW2 as it was in GW1.

Rym.1469:

Hmm.. What with the Scepter then ?

And dual professions were straight gameplay mechanics, not a port of lore. Sure, there were some explanations by Devs but they feel very forced and don’t make much sense.
Remember that only players could be dual-spec in GW1, none of NPCs as far as I remember could’ve been dual at the same time. So N/Me as far as it was quite popular matchup for GW1 players wasn’t accessible for NPCs (apart from Heroes, but Livia was not one of them).

I doubt your theory. I belive that we will see Livia in Maguuma maybe, but not soon and not under disguise of Anise.

The GW universe goes by the “degenerative” model. All the new life forms are like ants when compared to the older/ancient life forms.

We can see from the history of the GW universe that the older something is, the stronger it is. We heard about how crazy strong the Jotuns used to be. We head about an army of Lupis that used to rule the world. We also has seen first hand how dangerous the Mursaats were. The heroes only beat the Mursaats by the help of an equally ancient race: Seers.

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the heroes from GW1 would be stronger than the heroes in GW2.

Perhaps in GW1 having duel professions was indeed the norm. And perhaps having 200+ skills was also the norm. Skills like Empathy, Eviscerate and Spiteful Spirit were clear indicators on how strong GW1 heroes use to be. We didn’t think much about all of that at the time because everyone was that strong.

Perhaps more than 1 person is capable of living for 300 years. Since Anise most likely knows Livia personally, they may pass secrets and magic between each other.

Perhaps they are all part of a group of ancient mages. These hidden guardians of Kryta will come out when necessary.

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.

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.

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?

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

lakdav.3694:

So basicly the Pact failed to do what may or may not specificly be their job to do, perfectly. And there is an arguement that it should disband because of this ‘failure’?

After defeating Zhaitan and successfully averting the risen advance and holding Orr ever since. Doing well what it was meant to do. Not putting a full-scale effort doing what was not its job to do.

If the Pact would indeed be depressed by this ‘failure’ enough to consider disbanding, it would be time for a proper kitten -kicking pep-talk. Man up ffs! What better military force does Tyria have after the Pact to battle the dragons, the greatest threat? Nothing. Wallowing in self-pity over this would be the most childish thing to do.

Im quite tired of people always looking for the strong to take care of their problems that they cant handle, expecting the strong to throw everything away and rush to help when they have more pressing matters that concern the safety of those same people from a far larger threat mind you. Thats kindergarden heroics with zero consideration, and im glad Anet didnt go that way. Also hoping that they will explore the full ramifications of this as the story progresses.

I repeat it again: If anyone failed, it was the Captains Council and the Lionguard.

Their failures went much deeper than that. From the Pact engineer’s failure to develop airships strong enough to fight against Aetherblades, to Order of Whisper’s failures in gathering intelligence.

There are many more. No point listing them all.

The Pact can stay together if it wants. But if it doesn’t improve, then perhaps some of us should go out and form a more radical version of the Pact that actually get things done. That’s my point.

DarcShriek.5829:

Some day, you will know what pain is. On that day, you will realize how cruel your attitude is. There is nothing the knights could have accomplished other than dying. You are promoting senseless slaughter of innocent lives.

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.

DarcShriek.5829:

CHIPS.6018:

Erukk.1408:

CHIPS.6018:

Maybe you are right. But it doesn’t excuse the Pact from not trying their best.

The Pact airship were nowhere near LA. So of course they won’t reach LA in time to save LA. This is self fulfilling prophecy. The Pact never tried, so it didn’t succeed.

The Pact airships may or may not beat the Aetherblade airships. Either way it doesn’t excuse them from not being there. The soldiers must stand and fight the enemies, to defend the civilians, no matter the odds of winning.

So… It would have been ok for the Pact to suffer major causalities, lose of prized equipment (airships), morale, and ultimately defeat, because at least they tried their best?

While I agree that soldiers must stand and fight the enemies and to defend the civilians, but I disagree on the “no matter the odds of winning”. You can’t chance sacrificing your army to win a battle (Scarlet), when it means you’ll lose the continued war (Elder Dragons).

Scarlet might have been a highly dangerous individual, but she was still just that, an individual, and she can (and was) be dealt with like any other person can be. The Elder Dragons are not like that though. With a simple breath: they can create an army, corrupt the land to make it unlivable, destroy a settlement, and basically kill us all if they so desired.

Scarlet was no where, no where, near the level of threat of an Elder Dragon. And that is what the Pact has to deal with. I’m perfectly fine with it leaving the “small” threats of Tyria to the Orders and the major races. The Pact has to ready itself to deal with much larger threats to the land.

Think of it this way. Let’s say your army only have cavalry, while the enemies have modern tanks. Do you just sit back and watch the enemies kill your civilians?

No. You stand and fight to defend your people. Causality isn’t the issue here.

Secondly, we do not know if our airships is outclassed by the Aetherblade airships. We have never seen the Aetherblade airships non-stop phasing in and out of existence, like you claimed they can. Who is to say they won’t suffer from a 10,000 second cooldown, like most skills do in GW2? Either way, a soldier cannot be a defeatist. Else the battle was lost before it began.

And let’s say you are right about the Aetherblade airships. Then the Pact still failed as a whole, this time on the Pact engineers who are totally outclassed by a bunch of thug engineers and one person: Scarlet.

BTW you said two contradicting points in that message. You said “Aetherblades is major threat” and “Aetherblades is no threat”. If these guys are that strong and can wipe out the Pact airship fleet like you said, then they are a major threat. I would rank Aetherblades more dangerous than the elder dragons. Because we killed Zhaitan with these very airships.

If the Pact soldiers are all defeatists, if the Order of Whispers cannot do a better job at gathering intelligence, and if the Pact engineers cannot do a better job fine tuning our weapons, and other departments cannot do a better job, we might as well de-solve the organization.

A defeatist “low-tech” army led by fools cannot protect the people.

As a former member of the military, all I have to say is that you scare the crap out of me. You would foolishly sacrifice the lives of your calvary against tanks? For what purpose? You want to tell their wives, parents, and children how you sacrificed their loved ones for a hopeless cause? The idea of defense is to minimize casualties, not maximise them. The better move in your example is not to stand and fight, but to use speed and mobility to get your people out of the way, which should have been done prior to combat.

In your example, the best option is surrender.

They did tried surrendering, and then the Holocaust happened. If they knew that would happen, they would have fought harder.

Against an enemy of pure evil, it is fight or die no matter the odds.

If you think we should surrender, you have to ask yourself: How much faith do you have in your enemies that they won’t slaughter and ethic cleanse everyone.

I do agree that the evacuation should have been better planned and executed.

Sometimes the mission is indeed suicidal, to buy the civilians a few extra seconds to escape. I will tell the dead soldier’s love ones that they all died heroes, to allow their families to escape from the Holocaust.

BTW, if the Pact eventually does fall so far that it needs to surrender to our enemies, then I was right all along: The Pact is not good enough to protect the people.

@ Erukk

Do you honestly believe the Pact did the best they could?

If the Pact actually defended LA and delayed Scarlet and managed to get the civilians out, I would totally agree with you. Once the city is evacuated, the soldiers can retreat away from the city.

But that wasn’t what happened.

Instead the Pact were nowhere near LA, when Scarlet attacked. By the time they got there thousands were dead. Scarlet had free reign in LA for a very very long time (e.g. more than 24 hours), greatly increase the number of victims.

This very very long time shouldn’t have happened. The Pact should be stationed nearby LA, ready to fight Scarlet at a moment’s notice.

The Pact could have done much better in preventing civilian deaths. That’s the main point here.

As for airships, please go ahead and tell the victims of LA that the Pact withheld their airships because the Aetherblade airships are so much better. It is like ants vs gods…

Yeah, such cowardice and defeatism will certainly win us popular support.

The Pact should have the best and brightest engineers and scientific minds in all of Kryta. It is sad to see them getting outclassed by the Aetherblades engineers by that much.

Perhaps we should go back to magic. If our engineers are that useless it is pointless to keep going toward technology. We will never catch up in this arms race.

I am very very disappointed in the Pact. This is my personal opinion. If you feel that Pact did the very best they could and even in the future they cannot do any better, that’s ok. I just personally don’t see much future with the Pact.

Maybe it is time to form a more radical version of the Pact. You know, an organization that actually delivers and successfully protects the people.

Erukk.1408:

CHIPS.6018:

Maybe you are right. But it doesn’t excuse the Pact from not trying their best.

The Pact airship were nowhere near LA. So of course they won’t reach LA in time to save LA. This is self fulfilling prophecy. The Pact never tried, so it didn’t succeed.

The Pact airships may or may not beat the Aetherblade airships. Either way it doesn’t excuse them from not being there. The soldiers must stand and fight the enemies, to defend the civilians, no matter the odds of winning.

So… It would have been ok for the Pact to suffer major causalities, lose of prized equipment (airships), morale, and ultimately defeat, because at least they tried their best?

While I agree that soldiers must stand and fight the enemies and to defend the civilians, but I disagree on the “no matter the odds of winning”. You can’t chance sacrificing your army to win a battle (Scarlet), when it means you’ll lose the continued war (Elder Dragons).

Scarlet might have been a highly dangerous individual, but she was still just that, an individual, and she can (and was) be dealt with like any other person can be. The Elder Dragons are not like that though. With a simple breath: they can create an army, corrupt the land to make it unlivable, destroy a settlement, and basically kill us all if they so desired.

Scarlet was no where, no where, near the level of threat of an Elder Dragon. And that is what the Pact has to deal with. I’m perfectly fine with it leaving the “small” threats of Tyria to the Orders and the major races. The Pact has to ready itself to deal with much larger threats to the land.

Think of it this way. Let’s say your army only have cavalry, while the enemies have modern tanks. Do you just sit back and watch the enemies kill your civilians?

No. You stand and fight to defend your people. Causality isn’t the issue here.

Secondly, we do not know if our airships is outclassed by the Aetherblade airships. We have never seen the Aetherblade airships non-stop phasing in and out of existence, like you claimed they can. Who is to say they won’t suffer from a 10,000 second cooldown, like most skills do in GW2? Either way, a soldier cannot be a defeatist. Else the battle was lost before it began.

And let’s say you are right about the Aetherblade airships. Then the Pact still failed as a whole, this time on the Pact engineers who are totally outclassed by a bunch of thug engineers and one person: Scarlet.

BTW you said two contradicting points in that message. You said “Aetherblades is major threat” and “Aetherblades is no threat”. If these guys are that strong and can wipe out the Pact airship fleet like you said, then they are a major threat. I would rank Aetherblades more dangerous than the elder dragons. Because we killed Zhaitan with these very airships.

If the Pact soldiers are all defeatists, if the Order of Whispers cannot do a better job at gathering intelligence, and if the Pact engineers cannot do a better job fine tuning our weapons, and other departments cannot do a better job, we might as well de-solve the organization.

A defeatist “low-tech” army led by fools cannot protect the people.

Erukk.1408:

CHIPS.6018:

Many things that the Pact could have done better. For example having the Pact airships on stand by in areas around LA. Areas like Southsun Cove, Sparkfly Fen and Bloodtide Coast is owned by no one. The Pact could have stationed their airships in these areas, saying they are killing Risen, and no one would complain.

What happened instead was the Pact only warned the LA council of the upcoming attack, and did not act any more after. This is passive! So not only did the LA council not take the Scarlet threat seriously. Neither did the Pact. Why? Because the Pact did nothing else to prepare for the attack.

Stationing airships in the nearby territories wouldn’t have helped at all. As I said before, Scarlet’s initial attack happened in probably less than an hour. By the time the Pact would have gotten word the attack was happening, LA would have been destroyed already, and the miasma would have started to have been released.

As for afterwards, you are forgetting that Scarlet’s airships have teleportation capabilities. The Pact airships wouldn’t last long in a fight against their fleet. They can simply teleport in, fire off a round of cannon fire, and teleport out before the Pact airship can turn their cannons.

Maybe you are right. But it doesn’t excuse the Pact from not trying their best.

The Pact airship were nowhere near LA. So of course they won’t reach LA in time to save LA. This is self fulfilling prophecy. The Pact never tried, so it didn’t succeed.

The Pact airships may or may not beat the Aetherblade airships. Either way it doesn’t excuse them from not being there. The soldiers must stand and fight the enemies, to defend the civilians, no matter the odds of winning.

(BTW, let’s not pretend this was a “tactical non-involvement” here. The Pact never intended to get involved. Only us “volunteers” were there. )

There are many other issues with the Pact. For example the Order of Whispers’ failure in finding any useful information until it was way too late. Finding intelligence was their job, but they are very bad at it. We still know almost nothing about the Aetherblades, for example. And Scarlet is already dead.

I don’t want to place specific blames on specific groups and individuals. This is pointless. But we failed as a whole, and this is a fact. Let’s not try to sweet talk ourselves to make ourselves feel better here. This isn’t helping the dead civilians and families one bit.

And if that was indeed the best that we could have done, and the best that we will ever be able to do, I see no future for the Pact. We might as well de-solve the whole organization right now and go our separate ways.

Erukk.1408:

CHIPS.6018:

A lot of people here are defending why the Pact didn’t show up. Let’s stop making excuses for ourselves. We failed the people.

Thousands have died. Many people lose their parents, spouses and kids. This is a fact.

Sure one may argue that if we didn’t show up at all even more would have died. It doesn’t matter to me. The way I see it we failed the people. We could have saved more if we acted earlier and with more manpower.

How would you have acted earlier and with more manpower? LA said “No” to any plans to prepare the city for an attack beforehand, and Scarlet’s attack itself on the city was calculated, quick, and devastating. The major damages dealt to the city and it’s population was done probably within a matter of an hour, and the miasma was simply used to kill off stragglers and to keep the city closest off for the drill to do its thing.

Without the permission of the Captain’s Council, there was nothing for the Pact to do on the matter, short of hostilely taking the city over for it’s own protection to set up defenses. But then that have set off a conflict between the Pact forces and the Lionguard, and that would give Scarlet a clear shot of killing two birds with one stone.

Many things that the Pact could have done better. For example having the Pact airships on stand by in areas around LA. Areas like Southsun Cove, Sparkfly Fen and Bloodtide Coast is owned by no one. The Pact could have stationed their airships in these areas, saying they are killing Risen, and no one would complain.

What happened instead was the Pact only warned the LA council of the upcoming attack, and did not act any more after. This is passive! So not only did the LA council not take the Scarlet threat seriously. Neither did the Pact. Why? Because the Pact did nothing else to prepare for the attack.

A lot of people here are defending why the Pact didn’t show up. Let’s stop making excuses for ourselves. We failed the people.

Thousands have died. Many people lose their parents, spouses and kids. This is a fact.

Sure one may argue that if we didn’t show up at all even more would have died. It doesn’t matter to me. The way I see it we failed the people. We could have saved more if we acted earlier and with more manpower.

Instead of finding excuses and shifting blame, let’s focus on how to improve the Pact. How can we better protect the people in the future?

People entrusted us with their lives. If we start finding excuses and playing the blame game it is over.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Directly referencing Mordy aside, I think I would have enjoyed that one better. After all the crap Scarlet put us through I felt it very anti climactic for her to limp away and be in a downed state when I got to her. If that’s all it took I should have been able to defeat her back during the Jubilee. Getting the chance to actually get in a fight with her with Kasmeer and having a character die would have been better. All the dialogue made a lot more sense too.

Having Braham explain things to Taimi seemed a little backwards, though. I much preferred Rox’s attitude toward the legions, being a gladium and Rytlock in that one, though. This whole, Rytlock could kill me, blah blah blah, that we actually got was dumb and a very poor representation of the character.

They made a big fuss about being willing to kill a character if it would work, but then when they had the opportunity to do just that they waffled and didn’t do it. That’s not impressive.

DarcShriek.5829:

I think it’s good Scarlet didn’t get to explain. I think it’s good that there are so many unanswered questions. Life doesn’t answer all our questions. Also, all these questions give us something to talk about.

They also said, though, that they were going to sum the whole thing up, which means answering the big questions. They didn’t do that, which was uncool.

TBH, the players doesn’t like/know these character enough for them to have an impact yet.

Taimi is the only one where nearly everyone likes. However it is way too early to kill her off.

Ezekiel.1985:

I’ll pitch my lot in with agreeing I was disappointed that she died. It would have been a much more compelling story for SOMETHING to make her snap and sort of realize the magnitude of what all she had done, and then maybe move forward trying to fight for the good team, even if ultimately she still had to face justice after the smoke cleared.

I still maintain that I think she was trying to draw out the dragon to kill it, basically, to silence its voice in her head, just the lengths to which she was going to do so were very….very horrible. Haven’t really seen anything to contradict this. She did say “my master” as she was dying, but from what I saw her mind seemed very much in a back and forth state. Once she stepped into the light, was killing and active, she was fairly committed. But when she was confined, alone and in her own thoughts, the other half showed.

If she said before she died “The dragons are all weakened. They will awake earlier, but much much weaker. Tyria is saved. My purpose, my wyld hunt, is finished…….”

Yes, I would agree.

But she didn’t. Instead she said “You think my death saves you?”

Bazompora.2635:

DarcShriek.5829:

Let’s get this straight people. If I’m in charge of Kryta, and the pact goes to defend the largest stronghold of pirates on the continent, then I will no longer support the pact financially nor will I support it with men and arms.

Advent Leader.1083:

The idea that the Pact is a task force designed specifically to fight dragons is noticeable, but you have to account that while the Orders make up most of the Pact forces, they also include auxiliaries of all nations in the continent of Tyria. You really can’t deploy them all without due support from their home nations, as shown with Reach’s reluctance to give support to Lion’s Arch.

Exactly.
An organisation like the Pact would only be allowed to exist under joint tutelage of the 6 nations. If it were to act independently from the conditions set up by the nations, i would become a rogue organisation, likely to be outlawed by some of them, if not all in order to avoid a diplomatic incident. Though those tight reins allow the Pact to only operate in a narrow field, it is a necessity to prevent the Pact from competing with the structures of power and eventually gain the imperial policy-making power of the Praetorian Guard in the Roman Empire.

Maybe in the future a more radical faction of the Pact will exist. They see the Pact as too “passive” and “slow to response” in the face of danger. The Pact isn’t as efficient in protecting the people as they would like.

Remember that we (the players) are the Pact. If many of us (not all) feel that the Pact leadership is too passive, that means many members of the Pact feels the same. By lore, Traherne and the Pact leadership cannot ignore these opinions. They are real in the game.

By extension, any “popular” opinion posted on these lore forums are indeed opinions from members of the Pact. These is no absolute “right” and “wrong”. It is obvious that members of the Pact often disagree with each other on how to do things.

The Pact isn’t run by some absolute monarchy, so freedom of opinion and freedom of speech is highly valued.

A lot of Pact members are on “holiday” leave after killing Zhaitan. Many of them (e.g. the players) did help in fighting Scarlet while on holiday.

Its the only explanation I can come up with. Traherne should have said something, even if he cannot help.

Alice.8694:

I’m resurrecting this discussion because of the image provided and how it relates to most of what has been said in this thread.
Minor Spoilers!

A mother grieving for her child will obviously have a biased opinion.

Not once did Scarlet begged for her life. Not once did Scarlet show that she was suffering.

In fact I will say she was extremely proud of her achievements, up to the very second of her death.

@ Egon Vidar.9125

I cannot say if The Prince is a satire or not. Some people say it is, others say it isn’t.

I personally do not think it was a satire. The reason is Machiavelli wrote it for Lorenzo de’ Medici, as a resume/cover letter for a job in court. Machiavelli genuinely want a job, not trying to get himself killed. So there is little reason for Machiavelli to write a satire for Lorenzo.

That said, I am not ruling out the possibility of it being a satire. Either way it doesn’t matter. The Prince got some good points in there.

Helping your fellow man (or Tyrian) will often get you much further, much more loved, and therefore, much more support, than relying on ruthlessness, fear, and others in your court who just might be as treacherous as you are, because that sort of thing tends to breed like-minded company. I’d rather follow a leader I can relate to and who I feel actually cares for people like me, and try to dodge anything I would pessimistically view as a wasted effort that, what I feel is an unworthy tyrant-king, might throw my way.

Oh I totally agree that it is better to have a kind hearted leader than a tyrant. But there is a condition:

The kind hearted leader must hold onto to power against his/her enemies.

You see, a kind hearted leader is only good if he/she do not lose power to these tyrants. Else this kind hearted leader will never get to fulfil his/her vision of his nation.

A dead kind hearted leader is useless.

No one can deny this fact. This is a literal fact. If a kind hearted leader got himself/herself killed, this leader just failed his/her nation.

Now, you may say that :“But Queen Jennah is holding onto her power!”

Nope. Not true at all. It is just that the living story hasn’t reach Queen’s Jennah’s story arc yet. I mean come on. We all know what is going to happen in the future:

Caudecus will defeat Queen Jennah. And only the players/Logan can save her

We can all see this story from a million miles away.

Having dumb/useless/“My Little Pony” kind of NPC that are waiting to be saved great for game play. This gives us players something to do (e.g. something to kill). However as a story it fall flat on its face.

You can also read this another way:

Scarlet’s underlings cannot do anything without Scarlet.
Ally NPCs cannot do anything without the players.

You get where I am going with this?

That’s why the story needs someone like The Prince; someone who is on the good side but is extremely ruthless. The “My Little Pony” NPCs can keep their ideals, while The Prince says what needs to be done.

These contrasts in polar-opposite opinions are great in driving the story and character forward. Think Batman vs Superman in Justice League.

I said elsewhere that "It is ok for some NPCs to be dumb and useless. But it is unrealistic for all NPCs to be dumb and useless.

Conclusion: It isn’t about who is right and who is wrong. It is about the NPCs having different opinions and argue with each other on how to get things done. This builds character.

fenre.7891:

He is literally talking about the political system he will take on in the first chapter of the Prince, where he defines the basic of the rest of his writing.

Well… yes? As I mentioned, he actually wrote another book called The Discourses on Livy which is dedicated to the whole idea of the Roman Republic

I will leave this thread now…

Chapter 1 said there is only 2 type of states. “Either republics or principalities”. Then he stated that the rest of the book deals with principalities. Republic is dealt with in another book.

And so as he promised, the rest of the book deal with “how to gain power and hold power” in principalities.

So the book is not about the “different political systems”. It is about “how to gain power and hold power”.

Alice.8694:

Mikhail.4961:

Alice, I notice that you apply pathos to your argument of “saving” and quite a bit of the ethos of our characters (and heroic NPCs), while forgetting something very, very important that I feel needs repetition:
Scarlet did not want to be saved. Scarlet is Scarlet, and what she did, didn’t do or would have done, would have all been her.

Firstly I feel you need to realise this was just a suggestion of how the writers could have brought depth to the story, nothing more.

Secondly most mentally ill patients do not want saving, partly due to their mental illness rejecting the help of the people trying to help them as hostile. So are you advocating we kill mentally ill patients because they won’t embrace help? Even mass murderers who are found insane aren’t sentenced as murderers, they are taken to a place that can hopefully help them and their sentencing is postponed until it can be determined if it is right to hold them responsible for their actions during their insanity.

Scarlet never asked for mercy because she is Villain Sue. She is the “perfect villain” in every way. She even ask “Do you know why I did it?” Then she said “You think my death saves you?”

The perfect secretive Villain Sue till the end.

Alice.8694:

CHIPS.6018:

She is a monster that killed thousands of women and children, and threatens thousands more by waking up an Elder Dragon. No jury is needed and we are the judge. This sword is for monsters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN2tmirQnYY

Fine fine, I get it, since you all clearly just want to revel in ‘justified’ violence while also constantly complaining elsewhere that the story is “not good enough”.

Did she not killed thousands of women and children? She did deserve a violent end.

Did we, the heroes, not killed hundreds of criminals? Why would we give her mercy?

fenre.7891:

CHIPS.6018:

fenre.7891:

I don’t see why Machiavelli is used in this context. Machiavelli was not interested in all forms of state, and not in all forms of power. He was mostly interested in the dynamics of illegitimate power. Hereditary monarchy and other states whose authority was legitimate were in no interest for him. That is evident when you see who The Prince actually is, as is it mostly based on a person he knew personally, named Caesar Borgia, who assassinated his older brother and murdered the husband of his sister.

Also, there is used a lot of quotes from websites to back arguments up here. I absolutely hate using those sites, because they usually take something juicy, and put it out completely out of context.

Machiavelli was a pessimist and had a very pessimistic view on the human nature. However, he is not an extremist and in both the Prince and in the Discourses Machiavelli writes numerous passages were he counsels rulers to be temperate, not uselessly cruel.

Most importantly, stop using Machiavelli like its a statement of fact. In Queen Jennahs example, its not something we want to build up arguments around, because she simply is not a leader in the Machiavellian world. If it was used it in explanation of Charr-relations, then I could follow the logic more.

Machiavelli’s opinion is this: If you don’t have power yet, act like Caesar Borgia to seize power. If you already have power, defend yourself against guys like Caesar Borgia.

Queen Jennah is the latter case.

“Pessimistic view on human nature” isn’t a bad thing. The LA’s council is a clear example:

Players: Scarlet is coming to attack LA!!!
LA Council: No she won’t! We are optimistic about the future. Nothing bad will ever happen. “My Little Pony!”
Players: Great. Now we have to clean up your mess.

Kryta is indeed Machiavellian. Caudecus is as Machiavellian as it gets. Queen Jennah will be foolish not to remove this threat asap.

You miss my point. Because of his view on the human nature it tells us what kind of political system you will preach. My main question is why we are talking about Machiavelli, and not Plato, St.Augustine, John of Salisbury, Marsilio of Padua, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquiu, Hume, Rousseau, Burke, Kant etc etc. All these had different political system that in their eyes would be ideal, and none of them is more right than the other one.

I for example want to erase your Prince ideal with a Krytan nation based on Schumpeters elite society. Where the Queen is overthrown and there is installed a way to elect the top leaders. This is however not a democracy in the classical sense, rule by the people, but just a rule approved by the people. The mechanism to make competent bureaucrats elected will make them legitimate. It would be a competitive elitism. Would it be “better” then Machiavellian version? Well, it would have elements from Kant and others when it comes to a democratic society and research shows that democracy is more capable to be fighting wars than other nations (source: almost everything in the academic field of Political Science discussing the Democratic Peace)

I don’t want to write much about this, since it completely the wrong place to do it.
I agree however that the GW-universe needs more depth when it comes to the political stage.
Introducing an oversimplified version of Machiavelli is however not the way to go.

Regarding your last point, act of one man does not define a system.

Machiavelli isn’t talking about political systems in The Prince. He is talking about how to get power and then held onto power.

BTW, Machiavelli supports the idea of Republic.

She is a monster that killed thousands of women and children, and threatens thousands more by waking up an Elder Dragon. No jury is needed and we are the judge. This sword is for monsters.

According to Lore of the Rings, they simply call people “Son Of”.

E.g. Tony, Son of Bob.

Bob maybe from a few hundred years ago. So Tony isn’t actually Bob’s son. But Tony is from the same bloodline.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

CHIPS.6018:

Egon Vidar.9125:

You seem to keep missing the links I keep posting about The Prince being a satire written by a man who was tortured and imprisoned by people who held the very ideals written about in that book.

Therefore I can’t take any references to it in that sort of context even remotely seriously, apologies.

By that argument:

-A soldier is unfit to write a book on battle tactics because he had seen the horrors of war and had suffered during the war.

-A chef is unfit to write a book on cooking because he had been burnt by fire and burning oil when he was cooking.

-A basketball player is unfit to write a book on basketball because he suffered from a career ending injury.

Just because someone suffered due to his experience with a subject, it doesn’t mean that person is unfit to write a book on that subject.

You’re misunderstanding Egon. They’re not saying that Machiavelli was unfit- that’s a term that you brought into this. Machiavelli clearly knew his subject matter, that’s not up for question. The question is why he wrote The Prince.

Egon was saying (as I understand their point) that Machiavelli would not seriously endorse, let alone attempt to encourage, something that had caused him so much needless hardship.

Machiavelli suffered during his career in politics. But that doesn’t mean he hates politics. In fact it doesn’t even mean he disagrees with those who caused him to suffer. Because if given the chance, he may have done the same thing.

There was a phase “This is business. No hard feelings.”

A soldiers who seen all the horrors of war might still love war, and want to teach others the best way to win a war.
A chef who got burnt and injured a lot might still love cooking, and want to teach others the best way to cook.
A basketball player, who after a career ending injury he can’t even walk properly, might still love basketball. He might want to teach others the best way to play basketball.
A disgraced politician who fell from power might still love politics, and want to teach others how to succeed in politics.

If you read The Prince, you can clearly see how much passion Machiavelli have for politics.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In a more broad note on the topic – you seem to be taking the Machiavelli viewpoint as “the best for politicians” when that’s what folks tend to call a tyrant.

What Tyrant? Machiavelli highly recommend that the leader make his subjects fall in love with himself. In fact Machiavelli supports the idea of republic.

It is the political enemies that should be destroyed/intimidated/feared.

“the prince to be generous, merciful and honest when he can. But the prince must be adaptable and ‘know how to do wrong when he must’.”

Treat one’s subjects differently from one’s enemies. Is this so hard to understand?

Egon Vidar.9125:

You seem to keep missing the links I keep posting about The Prince being a satire written by a man who was tortured and imprisoned by people who held the very ideals written about in that book.

Therefore I can’t take any references to it in that sort of context even remotely seriously, apologies.

By that argument:

-A soldier is unfit to write a book on battle tactics because he had seen the horrors of war and had suffered during the war.

-A chef is unfit to write a book on cooking because he had been burnt by fire and burning oil when he was cooking.

-A basketball player is unfit to write a book on basketball because he suffered from a career ending injury.

Just because someone suffered due to his experience with a subject, it doesn’t mean that person is unfit to write a book on that subject.

A lot of teenagers play this game. So marriage/dating is a big no-no.

e.g. 44 year old male player nicknamed “OldGuy” is dating a 15 year old female player nicknamed"MeSoHot".

See a problem?

Egon Vidar.9125:

DarcShriek.5829:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DarcShriek.5829:

The problem you have is that many leaders have successfully led through fear and intimidation, despite your claim of the opposite.

Yup, worked really well for Caligula . . .

Congratulations, you had to go back in time 2000 years to find an example. Here’s a more contemporary example. North Korea is in it’s 3rd generation of terror. Seems to work there. Terror doesn’t work everywhere, but it does work. It has worked and will continue to work despite the claims of the romantics.

I could invoke Godwin’s Law and not have to go back 2,000 years, either.

Oh, Stalin didn’t go over very well, either. How are we measuring success here?

I will set the bar and say that vast quantities of your people dying and absolutely despising you does not count in a success, doubly so if they try to or succeed in getting you killed or yanked (rightfully) out of office. So.

Robert Mugabe, Lenin (so many assassination attempts..), Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Nicholas II of Russia (aka Bloody Nicholas..), Leopold II, Mao Zedong.

There are many more men like these, and history does not look kindly on any of them, for very good reason.

Allow me to point this out a second time regarding Machiavelli.
http://eaglefeather.honors.unt.edu/2007/article/233

DarcShriek.5829:

North Korea is in it’s 3rd generation of terror. Seems to work there.

I think our definitions of “seems to work” might be fundamentally different.

I would link you to the things going on in North Korea right now, but I can’t because the content is too.. extreme to link. I will say “people are starving to death in large numbers in NK and worse things are happening to them than that” and leave it there. You can google if you feel inclined to learn more.

Your example consist of leader who suppress their general population. Machiavelli warned against this by saying “That One should Avoid being Despised and Hated.”

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/machiavelli/works/prince/ch19.htm

“But concerning his subjects, when affairs outside are disturbed he has only to fear that they will conspire secretly, from which a prince can easily secure himself by avoiding being hated and despised, and by keeping the people satisfied with him, which it is most necessary for him to accomplish, as I said above at length.”

A leader always want the majority of the population (e.g. the poor, lower classes) to support him/her. So instead, propaganda should be used to make the general population fall in love with the leader.

Instead, what needs to be suppressed are the directly enemies to the throne. These enemies need to be controlled or destroyed.

General population=>make them fall in love with you.
Powerful enemies=>control/fear/destroy them.

fenre.7891:

I don’t see why Machiavelli is used in this context. Machiavelli was not interested in all forms of state, and not in all forms of power. He was mostly interested in the dynamics of illegitimate power. Hereditary monarchy and other states whose authority was legitimate were in no interest for him. That is evident when you see who The Prince actually is, as is it mostly based on a person he knew personally, named Caesar Borgia, who assassinated his older brother and murdered the husband of his sister.

Also, there is used a lot of quotes from websites to back arguments up here. I absolutely hate using those sites, because they usually take something juicy, and put it out completely out of context.

Machiavelli was a pessimist and had a very pessimistic view on the human nature. However, he is not an extremist and in both the Prince and in the Discourses Machiavelli writes numerous passages were he counsels rulers to be temperate, not uselessly cruel.

Most importantly, stop using Machiavelli like its a statement of fact. In Queen Jennahs example, its not something we want to build up arguments around, because she simply is not a leader in the Machiavellian world. If it was used it in explanation of Charr-relations, then I could follow the logic more.

Machiavelli’s opinion is this: If you don’t have power yet, act like Caesar Borgia to seize power. If you already have power, defend yourself against guys like Caesar Borgia.

Queen Jennah is the latter case.

“Pessimistic view on human nature” isn’t a bad thing. The LA’s council is a clear example:

Players: Scarlet is coming to attack LA!!!
LA Council: No she won’t! We are optimistic about the future. Nothing bad will ever happen. “My Little Pony!”
Players: Great. Now we have to clean up your mess.

Kryta is indeed Machiavellian. Caudecus is as Machiavellian as it gets. Queen Jennah will be foolish not to remove this threat asap.

I rather photo bomb the Braham scene. Its quite sad that he is a Norn like me.

TheSwede.9512:

I think you’re utterly mistaken about Queen Jennah’s intentions. She’s not a “MLP lovey-dovey all is sunshine and rainbows”-kinda ruler. She’s trying to get a dying race back on track, everything’s about as brown as it gets what with the constant war, bandit raids and the occasional Elder Dragon. Everyone is free to bash her all they want, but the simple fact that Human society has not degraded into corruption and savagery already speaks volumes about both Jennah’s and the Ministry’s ability to run a country.

But back to my point, Jennah’s not keeping Caedecus alive out of Compassion or some self-percieved sense of Justice, she’s keeping him alive because of Politics. As has been stated before, you Can’t just kill a politically important figure, covertly or by making it look like an incident, without causing a giant rupture in a frail system. If Caedecus were to die, no matter who caused it, All blame will be thrown at Queen Jennah in one way or the other, because she’s Caedecus’ greatest enemy and the Ministry wants him on the throne.
That’s why Caedecus is so openly “hostile” to the queen, it puts her in a catch 22:

• She can’t remove him, because then the entire Ministry will cry out and turn it against her.
• She’s forced to allow him his position at a place of power as a result of the above statement.

As such, Caedecus being alive has nothing to do with Jennah being soft-heartened. It’s only because Caedecus himself is a political Genius with years of experience on intrigue compared to Jennah. I’m going to use the quote from Sun Tzu here:

“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

Actually I think you mistaken the current situation. Here it is, in your own words:

Queen Jennah is Caedecus’ greatest enemy and the Ministry wants him on the throne. That’s why Caedecus is so openly “hostile” to the queen

Exactly.

The situation isn’t “If Queen Jennah do this, then in the future the Ministry will be her enemy”
The situation is “The Ministry is already Queen Jennah’s enemy”

People will only obey Queen Jennah for two reasons: Either they love her, or they fear her.

These ministers are already enemies of Queen Jennah. There is not appeasing them. No matter what Queen Jennah do they will never love her. Fear is the only thing left to control them.

Machiavelli: “It is far better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”

Next, it is foolish to try to appease the Ministry in hope of preventing a war. Because:

Machiavelli: “There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.”

The power base of the Ministry need to be utterly destroyed to prevent an open rebellion and future revenge. That means the all the figureheads need to be removed. Their followers controlled by fear/intimidation/manipulation to prevent a rebellion.

Machiavelli: “If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”

As for the point of “The Queen cannot do this. The Queen cannot do that.”, here is something to read that may change your mind on the power of monarchy and the fear they can potential do against their enemies.

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

" Typically associated with offenses such as treason, the punishment involved the execution of all relatives of an individual, which were categorized into nine groups.

Typically seen as an inhumane method of upholding rule, where innocent family members are killed for the crime of a relative, the punishment also acts as a deterrent against offenses such as treason, rather than as a punishment itself. As family members have the obligation to maintain the wellbeing of their family, such a punishment would prevent individuals from committing acts of treason. The punishment is also related to the ancient cultural tradition that the action of one shames the whole family, according to the works of Confucius and his disciples, so that in the case of an act of treason, by tradition the family bears the burden of punishment."

Konig Des Todes.2086:

CHIPS.6018:

Think about it. Demmi suddenly decided to offer her services to the Order of Whispers. And she was found captured by pirates (when many bandits/pirates works for her father in the first place). And then her father only send a few guards to chase her down.

Pirates don’t work for Caudecus. Only bandits. And bandits != pirates.

Though they may act the same, and one can call pirates bandits of the seas and vice versa, while traditionally true in the GW2 case it is not. This is the issue with Anet using general terms for the bandits rather than calling them a united faction with a name – but that’s kind of the point behind the bandits’ lore; to everyone other than those who look into it, they appear as just a large number of individual groups of bandits and gangs.

But it is hard to tell though. A person in pirate suite in the game doesn’t mean that person is actually a pirate.

My human character can put on a pirate suit today and he is a pirate. If he put on a bandit suit he is a bandit. If he put on a Separatist suit he is a Separatist. etc etc.

The way I see it all these pirates were (knowingly or unknowingly) hired by Caudecus to kidnap Demmi, to sell her story to the Order of Whispers. So was Landon and his men.

I am indeed speculating. But that’s what Machiavellian should do. These leaders would speculate about who can betray them, what can do wrong and plan for the worst.

Darkbattlemage.9612:

To rule with fear is to become a slave to fear. One will become more and more paranoid of the people they are suppose to lead, which in turn leads them to set the foundations of their own demise.

A truly great leader won’t automatically decide total annihilation for an enemy. They will know what enemies must be completely annihilated and what enemies can be manipulated into actually switching allegiance or at least aiding them in their own plans.

They wouldn’t necessary have plans put in place in case a given person decides to become an enemy, they will however have the mind to quickly adapt to the change in situation.

Fear of dangers and enemies is what keep people alive. Fear is what drove the Ascalonians to build that wall, which was successful in stopping the Charrs until the Searing.

Fear till paranoia is indeed bad. But paranoia only happens if a threat isn’t real. People like Caudecus are real threats. This isn’t paranoia. This is reality that Queen Jennah got to deal with.

As for the second part of your response, that’s pretty much what I said. Kill a few figurehead enemies to set an example. Fear/bully/manipulate the rest into submission.

As for the third part, I disagree. A great leader must always plan for the worst well ahead of time. They don’t start off assuming “this guy” will be a friend. They start off assuming “this guy” will be a traitor one day. What damage can this guy do? What power does this guy have? Who does this guy know? etc etc. Only by doing this can they plan ahead of time.

Fafnir.5124:

I would argue that scarlet said we would regret that she died. So Taimi delving into scarlets research will save the day one day. Therefore Taimi exists so scarlet can die…So don’t diss Taimi’s existence she is a lot better character then scarlet was. Also, Anet cant send children into battle apparently hens can’t design children adventurers.

Most of us were teenagers when the Searing hit Ascalon. That’s why we got strong, fast. Pain and desperation made us grow into adults in a day.

Kryta is a cruel world.

DarcShriek.5829:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

CHIPS.6018:

-And hence, Queen Jennah wasn’t a Machiavellian when she was younger. Of course age isn’t really an excuse, as there were plenty of Machiavellian teenagers in history. But that’s beside the point.

They make it sound like she wasn’t even a teenage, that she had no power. It isn’t a case of a teenager going “my father died, I call the shots now!” but more seemingly a, idk, 12 year old perhaps? Maybe younger? losing her father and all the grown ups outright refusing to let a child on the throne (and rightfully so, since a child couldn’t rule a nation). She was crowned 10 years ago, but that isn’t when her father died.

CHIPS.6018:

If Queen Jennah still isn’t a Machiavellian by now, or at least knows how to defend herself against one, she will be destroyed by Caudecus. Because Caudecus is clearly Machiavellian, and he will eventually win this Game of Thrones. Perhaps Logan and us do good heroes will be able to clean up her mess and save her at the end. But that would be lame, boring and predictable.

There’s a pretty huge difference between being a Machiavellian and being smart. Even then, being Machiavellian does not necessitate being smart. Politics is a battle of brain and subterfuge, not evil deeds.

CHIPS.6018:

-Ruling by fear doesn’t directly mean evil. The leader (Queen Jennah) may have very noble goals. But unless she can suppress, fear and control her enemies, she will eventually face her own demise.

Doesn’t need to be evil. Suppression is what leads to revolts, done for the better or the worse. This is why dystopias are viewed as “bad” even if they really aren’t.

CHIPS.6018:

-Of course at the end it will be some un-linkable guy that do the dirty work, so it cannot be traced back to Queen Jennah. However Queen Jennah will not directly ask the un-linkable guy. Instead she will ask Anise to do it.

E.g.
Queen Jennah: Anise, I believe that Caudecus need to be removed, permanently.
Anise: Yes my queen.

That’s it. The Queen has given his order. Anise will see it though. Caudecus will be found to have hung himself or died of a mysterious disease or died during a robbery. The Queen doesn’t need to plan every single details out. Her underlings will get it done.

It is still more complicated than this, y’know…

DarcShriek.5829:

It’s not enough for just Caudecus to die. He must also be discredited, shown to be a traitor. Also, his wife and children must also die.

His wife is dead. His daughter is working for the Order of Whispers, supposedly having given them dirt on his actions.

Dirt we never learned what it was.

His daughter still needs to die with him. Machiavelli states that the entire family must be neutralized. His daughter can very well become a danger to the queen if the Minister is killed.

Machiavelli actually suggest that a ruler should “assume everyone is evil and wicked, and plan for it.” In GW2, that means assuming Demmi Beetlestone is evil and plan for it.

Think about it. Demmi suddenly decided to offer her services to the Order of Whispers. And she was found captured by pirates (when many bandits/pirates works for her father in the first place). And then her father only send a few guards to chase her down.

There are hints in what she told us, if you read between the lines:

“My father raised me. Even if I dislike him, I still learned from the best political mind in Kryta.”
(But why are you betraying him? It is just because he is evil? Well all politicians are evil.)
“I’m not betraying Kryta! He is! Oh… you wouldn’t understand. Just get me to safety, and I’ll tell the order everything.”
(Oh, look who is getting worked up over the word betrayal.)
“You’re putting your life in danger for my safety. I won’t forget this. Thank you. Thank you all.”
(Yeah, you certainly won’t forget how foolish we are.)
“Absolutely, Never been more sure of anything in my life.”
(Why are you so sure?)
“Do you really think there’s anywhere in Tyria that my father can’t reach? He even has spies in the Black Citadel.”
(Exactly.)
“My father taught me more than he knew, and I’m going to turn all of those lessons to benefit the Order.”
(Yes, we know you are just as dangerous.)

If she can betray her own father so easily, what loyality can she have for the Pact?

Of course, it would be great if Demmi is indeed loyal to the Pact. But a successful leader must plan for the worst. So if Demmi does betray us, we are prepared for it.