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Riot Alice Backstory


Loboling.5293

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The place now known as the Crown Pavilon use to be a giant pit called the Great Collapse that resulted in a entire section of the city collapsing into a pit.

It was just one big giant hole in the ground when GW2 started and use to be the Canthan residential area of the city.

You can find out a bit more here....

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Crown_Pavilion

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It's interesting that it's said how the district collapsed naturally due to being built on an unstable foundation (above vast caverns that housed tombs of some humans who had lived in the area before the Rising of Orr), but conflicting stories from citizens and Shining Blade (and how the Shining Blade were seemingly at the site in advance as if they had expected something bad to happen while not telling concerned citizens like Alice what was going on while odd sounds are coming from the sinkhole) suggests that Riot Alice's conspiracy theory may have some merit.

Ree Soesbee: It's true. When they built Divinity's Reach, they built it rather quickly. Lion's Arch had just been flooded by the rise of Orr. A lot of the land all along the coast line was ruined. The villages had to move. There was no where to build. So they built on a site that seemed to have a strong foundation when the built the city of Divinity's Reach. But because they didn't have a lot of time they didn't have a lot of choice. They didn't realize that part of that foundation wasn't stable. The mountain that Divinity's Reach is built on, the Rise is, it's got caverns in it. It's got holes in it. It was used as tombs by some humans in the area before the rise of Orr. And that area became unstable and has collapsed. (Source)

Gossiping Citizen: Dwayna must have been with us that day. If the collapse had been sudden, we'd have lost so much more than just buildings. Still, it's a shame that I won't get to see the Great Symphony Hall again.
Player: How did it start?
Gossiping Citizen: I heard that the cracks started near the markets, but that late at night it's usually pretty empty. The Shining Blade evacuated us all before I saw any of that, thankfully. [...]
Gossiping Citizen: I keep trying to get a closer look at the sinkhole, but those guards won't let me near it. They aren't giving much in the way of answers, either.
Player: What has you so curious?
Gossiping Citizen: That whole area's been a mighty creepy since the first cracks appeared. Weird noises and such. My brother used to tease me about drakes in the sewers. I'm starting to think maybe he was right. (Source)

Gossiping Citizen: I'll tell you what, looking at that sinkhole makes me mighty uncomfortable.
Gossiping Citizen: Yeah. Imagine how many people would've been injured if the queen hadn't evacuated the area before it collapsed.
Gossiping Citizen: It's not just that. I've heard strange noises coming from that place, and I doubt it's just the earth settling. (Source)

Player: What happened here?
Shining Blade Guard: The sewer system collapsed in this area.
Player: Oh dear! Was anyone seriously injured?
Shining Blade Guard: There were no casualties. The Seraph and Shining Blade evacuated all citizens before the situation became critical.
Player: I imagine some people lost a good deal of property, though.
Shining Blade Guard: The queen arranged for them all to be relocated, and most were able to get their belongings out. We had a couple weeks' warning. (Source)

Looking at the quotes above, the Shining Blade mention there were no casualties despite Riot Alice claiming that at least her father perished in the collapse, and how strange noises are coming from the sinkhole. While the Shining Blade mention the Seraph evacuating citizens too, the citizens themselves only mention the Shining Blade being present. The Shining Blade also aren't forthcoming with answers even though there shouldn't be anything suspicious per se with a natural collapse.

Was something unnatural taking place in the tombs underneath the Canthan and Arts district before the collapse? Are the strange sounds somehow related to the collapse? If something happened down below, what could it have been?

Interestingly we have this bit from Marjory's origin story telling us how something shady is going on in Divinity's Reach, and we even got a later comment from devs that they'd intend to resolve it (but haven't yet due to changing focus in story):

My voice didn't sound like my own. "We were just supposed to take him in for questioning."
"Those might've been your orders, but they weren't mine." Baker had the nerve to sound pleased with himself, as if he'd one-upped me. "It was a need-to-know mission."
The Ministry had heard rumors that the boy had witnessed a gruesome crime. My immediate superior had dispatched Baker and me to bring him in. Bring. Him. In. Not kill him. [...]
"It doesn't matter anymore. Tell me one thing, and then I'll send you to the gods. What crime did you witness yesterday?"The boy's translucence rippled, and I saw the fear in his face. "I...I..."
I directed my magic at him, guided it over him like a mother's touch, and saw him relax. "You can tell me."
He buried his face in his hands. "They took a...woman...into a cellar. They used dark magic on her. She screamed, but it was silent. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her eyes..."
"Okay. Who did this?"
For the first time, the ghost boy looked straight at me, and he said, "Minister—"
Energy crackled behind me a fraction of a second prior to the blast. It shot past my left ear, and instinct sent me rolling to the side. But the spell hadn't been intended for me. It hit the ghost boy square in the chest and threw him back, off his feet, into mid-air.
The ghost boy screamed as his chest imploded, then was sucked into the Mists through a hole torn in the fabric of the world.
I landed on my feet in the next moment, but it was too late for the ghost boy. I shifted into hunter mode. The other necromancer had already turned tail and run, leaving an energy trail I could follow if I hurried. I sprinted. [...]
The next day, I turned in my badge. The day after that, I took my first case as Marjory Delaqua, private investigator: I hired myself to unravel the conspiracy behind the ghost boy's murder. I haven't succeeded yet, but I will. If nothing else, everyone ends up in the Mists eventually, and we necromancers come with a large dose of patience. (Source)

Q: In Marjory’s story we also learn of “unusual” disappearances happening in Divinity’s Reach. We wonder how widespread these disappearances are, and whether the kidnapped people turn up one way or another, if they return at all.
Scott McGough: Well that’s very much part of the mystery. This was the motivating event that prompted Marjory to leave the Ministry Guard, she didn’t want to be part of this corrupted institution anymore. At some in the future we intend to circle back and that will be Marjory’s origin story. How she got to be how she is. The story that Angel wrote, the prose piece, is a hint of that.
Jeff Grubb: So will it be resolved?
Scott McGough: The plan is to. (Source)

While it seems likely that the White Mantle may have been involved in the collapse (or the strange sounds coming from below) or at least in the boy Mendel's murder in Marjory's story (given the hints of a minister being behind the crime and hiring a Ministry Guard and a necromancer with a very White Mantle-ish name Kraig the Bleak to kill the boy witness), it still leaves the question of what the White Mantle (if they were the culprits) were hoping to achieve with these macabre rituals. Unfortunately this plot was never brought up in GW2's White Mantle arc, and thus Marjory's first case remains unsolved to this day and Alice's father remains unavenged. While it's understandable that plot priorities change and the originally planned resolution to Marjory's arc was scrapped, wouldn't it be interesting if Marjory and Riot Alice's stories (and the suggested conspiracy within them) could be tied together in the future to resolve those lingering plot threads?

But if the White Mantle can't be used anymore given what's happened in the narrative since the writing of those stories, who could the culprit be then for the sacrifices and rogue necromancers for hire to make sense?

For a fun theory's sake, let's look at Bobby Stein's response to one of the lore questions from the old Arena Forum Chats (which have sadly been discontinued since although I'd love to see them or the old Dolyak Express dev lore answer threads to return one day):

Verata and his guild (or cult or whatever you want to call it), like many of the side stories in GW1, haven't extended beyond their original purpose. The story was told and then we moved on. Is it possible that part of that society survived? Maybe. But speaking in development terms, we'd only continue that storyline if we felt it was really interesting and/or it tied into the other stories we're doing these days.
If, for RP purposes, you want to imagine that guild existing in present-day Tyria go right ahead. I bet there'd be some cool themes to explore. [emphasis mine] (Source)

Verata was a member of the Order of necromancers until he went rogue and had a bounty placed on him as the Order didn't want bad publicity from his unprovoked attacks and experimentation on innocent Ascalonians. He escaped during the encounter with the Hero while promising to return one day, and even the Zaishen became interested in stopping him. By this time he had gathered a cult of likeminded people to help him with his experiments, and curiously enough they were found near the Wizard's Tower at Kessex Peak:

Necromancer Morgan: As you've no doubt heard, there have been a number of recent disappearances among the townsfolk. Thus far, we've assumed they fell victim to the Stone Summit or other local menaces. The truth, Grenth forgive us, is something much much worse. One of our Order, a promising Necromancer named Verata, has been experimenting with new ways to enhance and maintain summoned minions. Normally this would be a good thing, however, in his lust for power Verata has been kidnapping Ascalon citizens for use in his experiments! He was also spotted waylaying travelers coming up into the mountains from Ascalon. We must stop him, quickly and discreetly, before anyone can link the disappearances with our Order.
Necromancer Morgan: Now that Verata knows that our Order is after him, he will be careful not to show his face. This was not the desired goal, but it is a result we can work with. (Source)

If we look at the above examples (the site of the Great Collapse having housed many ancient tombs, the strange sounds coming from the sinkhole, Marjory learning about macabre human experimentation with magic while a necromancer in particular targeted the sole witness's ghost, and mysterious disappearances happening within Divinity's Reach), all of these details would neatly connect to a potential resurgence of the Cult of Verata which could've been experimenting on people throughout DR and accidentally (or deliberately?) causing the Great Collapse with their magical interference in the tombs.

While the Zaishen bounty seems to suggest that Verata was ultimately slain, the plot could work either way: maybe Verata was slain and he ended up being buried within the old mausoleum beneath what would one day be DR while his disciples would search for the exact tomb in hopes of resurrecting him, or maybe he survived the encounter or had gotten hold of forbidden scrolls (or whatever other means) to become a lich so he could continue his experimentation beyond the lifespan of his mortal body?

This way Riot Alice's conspiracy theory would have justification. After all, maybe the Shining Blade suspected something foul going on (E certainly seemed aware of stuff as they stopped Marjory from catching Kraig the Bleak while warning about dangers in the city), and it wouldn't surprise me if Anise and Livia (a powerful necromancer with ties to the Shining Blade) knew a thing or two about shady stuff happening beneath citizens' feet, hence that two weeks advance warning of the collapse. The Shining Blade could've erred by believing that the White Mantle were behind the sinkhole while the Cult of Verata would've been the true culprits. Alice could return, having learned something crucial from her bandit contacts in Prosperity in Dry Top before her disappearance.

Marjory's separate investigation of the murders could lead the two women to meet and realize they were after the same source. Verata's cult could've dabbled in Majesty's Rest, perhaps attempting to resurrect the bone dragon Rotscale or be after some magic artifact hidden within the tombs there if the story wanted to take us to a new zone in GW2 with GW1 roots before ultimately leading us to the tombs beneath DR in a unique instance where Alice, Marjory and the Commander would face lich Verata and/or his cult and stop whatever they're hoping to accomplish (which might also involve seizing the Wizard's Tower if it was no accident that they just happened to hang around near that location back in GW1 before being driven underground).

This way Alice could finally unravel the conspiracy involving Verata's cult and the necromancer's secret supporter in the Ministry and avenge her father, while Marjory would avenge Mendel and finally solve her first case to bring some neat closure to both women's story arcs. As an added bonus the writers could even use this potential Verata conspiracy (especially if he became a lich) as a means of finally revealing how liches are made in GW verse as they differ from the stereotypical liches in that they don't always have phylacteries and require specific means to kill them (and how at a few known liches, such as Palawa Joko and Vizier Khilbron, had possessed the fallen god Abaddon's scrolls at some point so there's a chance that Abaddon's forbidden magic may have been involved in the creation of liches somehow unless that's just a happy coincidence). It could lead to lots of juicy story opportunities while also closing the chapter on some of them at the same time. :)

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This is all very interesting, especially the bit about her father. I'm really wondering if he died or abandoned her. And did the crown prevent people from going to the location, because it was unstable, or was there really some conspiracy to steal his plays?

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@"Kossage.9072" said:It's interesting that it's said how the district collapsed naturally due to being built on an unstable foundation (above vast caverns that housed tombs of some humans who had lived in the area before the Rising of Orr), but conflicting stories from citizens and Shining Blade (and how the Shining Blade were seemingly at the site in advance as if they had expected something bad to happen while not telling concerned citizens like Alice what was going on while odd sounds are coming from the sinkhole) suggests that Riot Alice's conspiracy theory may have some merit.

Ree Soesbee:
It's true. When they built Divinity's Reach, they built it rather quickly. Lion's Arch had just been flooded by the rise of Orr. A lot of the land all along the coast line was ruined. The villages had to move. There was no where to build. So they built on a site that seemed to have a strong foundation when the built the city of Divinity's Reach. But because they didn't have a lot of time they didn't have a lot of choice. They didn't realize that part of that foundation wasn't stable. The mountain that Divinity's Reach is built on, the Rise is, it's got caverns in it. It's got holes in it. It was used as tombs by some humans in the area before the rise of Orr. And that area became unstable and has collapsed.

Gossiping Citizen:
Dwayna must have been with us that day. If the collapse had been sudden, we'd have lost so much more than just buildings. Still, it's a shame that I won't get to see the Great Symphony Hall again.

Player:
How did it start?

Gossiping Citizen:
I heard that the cracks started near the markets, but that late at night it's usually pretty empty. The Shining Blade evacuated us all before I saw any of that, thankfully. [...]

Gossiping Citizen:
I keep trying to get a closer look at the sinkhole, but those guards won't let me near it. They aren't giving much in the way of answers, either.

Player:
What has you so curious?

Gossiping Citizen:
That whole area's been a mighty creepy since the first cracks appeared. Weird noises and such. My brother used to tease me about drakes in the sewers. I'm starting to think maybe he was right.

Gossiping Citizen:
I'll tell you what, looking at that sinkhole makes me mighty uncomfortable.

Gossiping Citizen:
Yeah. Imagine how many people would've been injured if the queen hadn't evacuated the area before it collapsed.

Gossiping Citizen:
It's not just that. I've heard strange noises coming from that place, and I doubt it's just the earth settling.

Player:
What happened here?

Shining Blade Guard:
The sewer system collapsed in this area.

Player:
Oh dear! Was anyone seriously injured?

Shining Blade Guard:
There were no casualties. The Seraph and Shining Blade evacuated all citizens before the situation became critical.

Player:
I imagine some people lost a good deal of property, though.

Shining Blade Guard:
The queen arranged for them all to be relocated, and most were able to get their belongings out. We had a couple weeks' warning.

Looking at the quotes above, the Shining Blade mention there were no casualties despite Riot Alice claiming that at least her father perished in the collapse, and how strange noises are coming from the sinkhole. While the Shining Blade mention the Seraph evacuating citizens too, the citizens themselves only mention the Shining Blade being present. The Shining Blade also aren't forthcoming with answers even though there shouldn't be anything suspicious per se with a natural collapse.

Was something unnatural taking place in the tombs underneath the Canthan and Arts district before the collapse? Are the strange sounds somehow related to the collapse? If something happened down below, what could it have been?

Interestingly we have this bit from Marjory's origin story telling us how something shady is going on in Divinity's Reach, and we even got a later comment from devs that they'd intend to resolve it (but haven't yet due to changing focus in story):

My voice didn't sound like my own. "We were just supposed to take him in for questioning."

"Those might've been your orders, but they weren't mine." Baker had the nerve to sound pleased with himself, as if he'd one-upped me. "It was a need-to-know mission."

The Ministry had heard rumors that the boy had witnessed a gruesome crime. My immediate superior had dispatched Baker and me to bring him in. Bring. Him. In. Not kill him. [...]

"It doesn't matter anymore. Tell me one thing, and then I'll send you to the gods. What crime did you witness yesterday?"The boy's translucence rippled, and I saw the fear in his face. "I...I..."

I directed my magic at him, guided it over him like a mother's touch, and saw him relax. "You can tell me."

He buried his face in his hands. "They took a...woman...into a cellar. They used dark magic on her. She screamed, but it was silent. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her eyes..."

"Okay. Who did this?"

For the first time, the ghost boy looked straight at me, and he said, "Minister—"

Energy crackled behind me a fraction of a second prior to the blast. It shot past my left ear, and instinct sent me rolling to the side. But the spell hadn't been intended for me. It hit the ghost boy square in the chest and threw him back, off his feet, into mid-air.

The ghost boy screamed as his chest imploded, then was sucked into the Mists through a hole torn in the fabric of the world.

I landed on my feet in the next moment, but it was too late for the ghost boy. I shifted into hunter mode. The other necromancer had already turned tail and run, leaving an energy trail I could follow if I hurried. I sprinted. [...]

The next day, I turned in my badge. The day after that, I took my first case as Marjory Delaqua, private investigator: I hired myself to unravel the conspiracy behind the ghost boy's murder. I haven't succeeded yet, but I will. If nothing else, everyone ends up in the Mists eventually, and we necromancers come with a large dose of patience.

Q:
In Marjory’s story we also learn of “unusual” disappearances happening in Divinity’s Reach. We wonder how widespread these disappearances are, and whether the kidnapped people turn up one way or another, if they return at all.

Scott McGough:
Well that’s very much part of the mystery. This was the motivating event that prompted Marjory to leave the Ministry Guard, she didn’t want to be part of this corrupted institution anymore. At some in the future we intend to circle back and that will be Marjory’s origin story. How she got to be how she is. The story that Angel wrote, the prose piece, is a hint of that.

Jeff Grubb:
So will it be resolved?

Scott McGough:
The plan is to.

While it seems likely that the White Mantle may have been involved in the collapse (or the strange sounds coming from below) or at least in the boy Mendel's murder in Marjory's story (given the hints of a minister being behind the crime and hiring a Ministry Guard and a necromancer with a very White Mantle-ish name Kraig the Bleak to kill the boy witness), it still leaves the question of what the White Mantle (if they were the culprits) were hoping to achieve with these macabre rituals. Unfortunately this plot was never brought up in GW2's White Mantle arc, and thus Marjory's first case remains unsolved to this day and Alice's father remains unavenged. While it's understandable that plot priorities change and the originally planned resolution to Marjory's arc was scrapped, wouldn't it be interesting if Marjory and Riot Alice's stories (and the suggested conspiracy within them) could be tied together in the future to resolve those lingering plot threads?

But if the White Mantle can't be used anymore given what's happened in the narrative since the writing of those stories, who could the culprit be then for the sacrifices and rogue necromancers for hire to make sense?

For a fun theory's sake, let's look at Bobby Stein's response to one of the lore questions from the old Arena Forum Chats (which have sadly been discontinued since although I'd love to see them or the old Dolyak Express dev lore answer threads to return one day):

Verata and his guild (or cult or whatever you want to call it), like many of the side stories in GW1, haven't extended beyond their original purpose. The story was told and then we moved on. Is it possible that part of that society survived? Maybe.
But speaking in development terms, we'd only continue that storyline if we felt it was really interesting and/or it tied into the other stories we're doing these days.

If, for RP purposes, you want to imagine that guild existing in present-day Tyria go right ahead. I bet there'd be some cool themes to explore. [emphasis mine]

was a member of the Order of necromancers until he went rogue and had a bounty placed on him as the Order didn't want bad publicity from his unprovoked attacks and experimentation on innocent Ascalonians. He escaped during the encounter with the Hero while promising to return one day, and even the Zaishen became interested in stopping him. By this time he had gathered a cult of likeminded people to help him with his experiments, and curiously enough they were found near the Wizard's Tower at Kessex Peak:

Necromancer Morgan:
As you've no doubt heard, there have been a number of recent disappearances among the townsfolk. Thus far, we've assumed they fell victim to the Stone Summit or other local menaces. The truth, Grenth forgive us, is something much much worse. One of our Order, a promising Necromancer named Verata, has been experimenting with new ways to enhance and maintain summoned minions. Normally this would be a good thing, however, in his lust for power Verata has been kidnapping Ascalon citizens for use in his experiments! He was also spotted waylaying travelers coming up into the mountains from Ascalon. We must stop him, quickly and discreetly, before anyone can link the disappearances with our Order.

Necromancer Morgan:
Now that Verata knows that our Order is after him, he will be careful not to show his face. This was not the desired goal, but it is a result we can work with.

If we look at the above examples (the site of the Great Collapse having housed many ancient tombs, the strange sounds coming from the sinkhole, Marjory learning about macabre human experimentation with magic while a necromancer in particular targeted the sole witness's ghost, and mysterious disappearances happening within Divinity's Reach), all of these details would neatly connect to a potential resurgence of the Cult of Verata which could've been experimenting on people throughout DR and accidentally (or deliberately?) causing the Great Collapse with their magical interference in the tombs.

While the Zaishen bounty seems to suggest that Verata was ultimately slain, the plot could work either way: maybe Verata was slain and he ended up being buried within the old mausoleum beneath what would one day be DR while his disciples would search for the exact tomb in hopes of resurrecting him, or maybe he survived the encounter or had gotten hold of forbidden scrolls (or whatever other means) to become a lich so he could continue his experimentation beyond the lifespan of his mortal body?

This way Riot Alice's conspiracy theory would have justification. After all, maybe the Shining Blade suspected something foul going on (E certainly seemed aware of stuff as they stopped Marjory from catching Kraig the Bleak while warning about dangers in the city), and it wouldn't surprise me if Anise and Livia (a powerful necromancer with ties to the Shining Blade) knew a thing or two about shady stuff happening beneath citizens' feet, hence that two weeks advance warning of the collapse. The Shining Blade could've erred by believing that the White Mantle were behind the sinkhole while the Cult of Verata would've been the true culprits. Alice could return, having learned something crucial from her bandit contacts in Prosperity in Dry Top before her disappearance.

Marjory's separate investigation of the murders could lead the two women to meet and realize they were after the same source. Verata's cult could've dabbled in Majesty's Rest, perhaps attempting to resurrect the bone dragon Rotscale or be after some magic artifact hidden within the tombs there if the story wanted to take us to a new zone in GW2 with GW1 roots before ultimately leading us to the tombs beneath DR in a unique instance where Alice, Marjory and the Commander would face lich Verata and/or his cult and stop whatever they're hoping to accomplish (which might also involve seizing the Wizard's Tower if it was no accident that they just happened to hang around near that location back in GW1 before being driven underground).

This way Alice could finally unravel the conspiracy involving Verata's cult and the necromancer's secret supporter in the Ministry and avenge her father, while Marjory would avenge Mendel and finally solve her first case to bring some neat closure to both women's story arcs. As an added bonus the writers could even use this potential Verata conspiracy (especially if he became a lich) as a means of finally revealing how liches are made in GW verse as they differ from the stereotypical liches in that they don't always have phylacteries and require specific means to kill them (and how at a few known liches, such as Palawa Joko and Vizier Khilbron, had possessed the fallen god Abaddon's scrolls at some point so there's a chance that Abaddon's forbidden magic may have been involved in the creation of liches somehow unless that's just a happy coincidence). It could lead to lots of juicy story opportunities while also closing the chapter on some of them at the same time. :)

Wow very detailed response, thanks a lot. It gave me a lot to think about. Really makes me wish I could take a sidetrack from the story and investigate this.

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@"Loboling.5293" said:I was just replaying the street rat human story line, and got to a conversation with Riot Alice where she talks of her father's disappearance during "The collapse", and how the Queen and her Shining Blade won't let anyone near "the fissure".

What the kitten is she talking about?

https://imgur.com/xgVplEE

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Crown_Pavilion#History

Originally, there was six full districts in Divinity's Reach. The sixth, now known as The Crown Pavilion, was the Canthan district and also the district of Arts. Shortly before the events of the game, however, the district collapsed in the middle of the night. The Shining Blade showed up on the scene moments before the collapsed and evacuated the place - official reports say there were no casualties, but Riot Alice, as you say, claims her father died in the collapse. After this, the district was dubbed "The Great Collapse" and was prominent in a couple original release teasers,

. Dozens of people were left homeless in the event.

During Season 1, Queen Jennah had the Great Collapse renovated into the Crown Pavilion, there was even a brief preview of its reconstruction in the 2 week period of Cutthroat Politics. It was reconstruction for the Queen's Jubilee event, celebrating Jennah's 10th anniversary as queen.

There's several speculations on what caused the collapse - destroyers and White Mantle have perhaps been the largest theories. The answers remains a mystery, sadly. It's also left unknown what happened to those left homeless in the event... or what happened to Riot Alice.

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@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"Loboling.5293" said:I was just replaying the street rat human story line, and got to a conversation with Riot Alice where she talks of her father's disappearance during "The collapse", and how the Queen and her Shining Blade won't let anyone near "the fissure".

What the kitten is she talking about?

Originally, there was six full districts in Divinity's Reach. The sixth, now known as The Crown Pavilion, was
. Shortly before the events of the game, however, the district collapsed in the middle of the night. The Shining Blade showed up on the scene moments before the collapsed and evacuated the place - official reports say there were no casualties, but Riot Alice, as you say, claims her father died in the collapse. After this, the district was dubbed
and was prominent in a couple original release teasers,
.
were left homeless in the event.

During Season 1, Queen Jennah had the Great Collapse renovated into the Crown Pavilion, there
of its reconstruction in the 2 week period of Cutthroat Politics. It was reconstruction for the Queen's Jubilee event, celebrating Jennah's 10th anniversary as queen.

There's several speculations on what caused the collapse - destroyers and White Mantle have perhaps been the largest theories. The answers remains a mystery, sadly. It's also left unknown what happened to those left homeless in the event... or what happened to Riot Alice.

Wow thanks a lot for this! I really feel like I've been pulled into a conspiracy in the land of Kryta. Normally so much of the in-game NPC's are quite favorable to the Queen. But there are so many strange questions that have arisen since I've started playing.

I mean, just realizing the extent of her powers as a mesmer opens up a lot of questions. What happened here to Riot Alice... It even calls into question why Caudaceus was trying to overthrow the current regime. He saw the queen as a bigger threat than the dragons, to the point he'd sacrifice his wife and daughter to fight against her. By the end, he seems absolutely mad, and has both a strange admiration for Captain Thackeray, and distrust of the charr. I mean, look what the leadership of the charr did first time they felt the threat of the dragon's diminish slightly. They aim to tame a dragon and likely use it for war. Maybe Caudacause started his campaign for good reasons?...

All I'm saying is the storyline which seems quite black and white at times, might have quite a bit of grey, hidden under the surface. The Queen may become a threat in an upcoming chapter, and it would mean the commander had helped her ensure her powers in Kryta many times over. Would be a great plot twist! And we already know there is another heir to the thrown, as pointed out by the order of shadows representative during the final human story chapter at level 30.

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@Loboling.5293 said:Maybe Caudacause started his campaign for good reasons?...

Not really. Caudecus didn't try to overthrow Jennah because of any actions on her part - he was vying for the throne while his father was in power too. He used and abused the White Mantle for leverage, he sacrificed countless soldiers and citizens by escalating the war with the centaurs, and is a bonafide racist (it isn't just charr he's distrusting of - centaurs, which he readily used to further his position, as well).

He's basically Tyria's Emperor Palpatine, but far less effective.

Despite the apparent coverup of deaths in the Great Collapse (maybe Alice's father was a White Mantle cultist and that's why he died and it wasn't an accident at all but Riot Alice was lied to / misunderstood the situation?), there's no reason to suggest Jennah is at all evil or has a hidden agenda. Her mesmer powers are grossly overstated by the community compared to other spellcasters, too. Yeah, she triggered spells that defended the city from a siege - but she didn't cast it out of the blue, it was prepared beforehand and has guardian magic in it so it wasn't even prepared by her alone.

And we already know there is another heir to the thrown, as pointed out by the order of shadows representative during the final human story chapter at level 30.A drop plot arc, sadly, but it was only hinted never confirmed that there's another heir. But this heir could be some distant cousin of Jennah's - her lineage goes back over a thousand years, after all.

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

He's basically Tyria's Emperor Palpatine, but far less effective.

Haha, nice comparison, he certainly seems about as deep.

I was just supposing. And it's not so much the powers she's shown that worry me, it's what mesmers can do as a whole. I mean if any class has the force, it would be the mesmer. One of the story chapters can even have you kill your allies in confusion because of a powerful mesmer. With both the queen and her closest guard being very powerful mesmers, nothing can easily be trusted without a bit of hesitation.

Your explanation though may be right, it would be possible that Alice's father was White Mantle, and his death and disappearance was never reported officially. Would make a lot of sense, based on some of what she believes. She may have heard some of these ideas at a very young age, and clung to them after her father was gone. ("The queen isn't all that. The people should be free of this oligarchy." )

It would wrap things up nicely without needing to cast a dark shadow over the queen, but I'd love a story chapter where we discover that the queen had been using an ancient device to manipulate the dragons, maybe she even helped send scarlet and bengar where they needed to go. ;P

Anyway, I doubt it, but it's fun to imagine if Queen Jenna actually turned out to be the Palpetine of the story.

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