Inconsistency in LW4 (LW4 spoilers)

Ok, what gives? In Bug in the System, we find that the inquest were experimenting with the scarab plague on charr. We find their infected, exploded, and eaten bodies. But when playing Long Live the Lich, suddenly charr are immune? No, no, no. This oversight is not ok.

Just because they were experimenting on the charr doesn't mean the charr died due to the scarab plauge experiementation alone.It just as likely that they died due to the inquest over using a subject and keeping them in exteremly poor conditions.

They were likely trying to make a version of the plague that could work on charr (and other races). It's quite likely that they managed to get insects to eat charr, and maybe even successfully host in them when implanted, but not to use them as a natural host to carry out the plague lifecycle.

Gorrik explained this during Long Live the Lich. There are 3 stages to the scarab plague - the one which got out is the second phase which can only infect humans but spreads much faster than the first. The Inquest were experimenting with all 3 but Joko managed to escape with all the 2nd and 3rd phase samples - that's what he throws through the portal just before he leaves at the end of A Bug In the System. That's why Gorrik is so excited when he sees the outbreak at the docks at the start of Long Live The Lich, he's been studying the first phase but hadn't gotten to see a full outbreak of the second phase yet. But that's also what makes everyone realise Joko's managed to breed large numbers of scarabs and if he's got enough of the second phase to start a full outbreak he's only days away from getting large numbers of the 3rd phase. Which is why we have to teleport our armies into Kourna instead of marching there.

It's also mentioned by the two ghostly queens - how the original scarab plague got worse as it went on, from scarabs infecting occasional people and killing them slowly to infecting all humans and killing them quickly to the adult beetles devouring everything.

@Danikat.8537 said:Gorrik explained this during Long Live the Lich. There are 3 stages to the scarab plague - the one which got out is the second phase which can only infect humans but spreads much faster than the first. The Inquest were experimenting with all 3 but Joko managed to escape with all the 2nd and 3rd phase samples - that's what he throws through the portal just before he leaves at the end of A Bug In the System. That's why Gorrik is so excited when he sees the outbreak at the docks at the start of Long Live The Lich, he's been studying the first phase but hadn't gotten to see a full outbreak of the second phase yet. But that's also what makes everyone realise Joko's managed to breed large numbers of scarabs and if he's got enough of the second phase to start a full outbreak he's only days away from getting large numbers of the 3rd phase. Which is why we have to teleport our armies into Kourna instead of marching there.

It's also mentioned by the two ghostly queens - how the original scarab plague got worse as it went on, from scarabs infecting occasional people and killing them slowly to infecting all humans and killing them quickly to the adult beetles devouring everything.

So this is a good thought and proposal for plausible explanation, but, unfortunately, doesn't quite resolve the issue. Gorrik wasn't describing stages of the plague, but generations. Each generation of scarabs is larger than the previous and the scarabs reproduce so quickly that by the 3rd generation, there would be enough scarabs to wipe humanity off the face of Tyria. So first generation, third generation, doesn't matter when dealing with Charr, Asura, etc. So the question remains: if Charr are immune then why were so many of them killed by it in the Inquest Lab?

@Musha.4025 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:Gorrik explained this during Long Live the Lich. There are 3 stages to the scarab plague - the one which got out is the second phase which can only infect humans but spreads much faster than the first. The Inquest were experimenting with all 3 but Joko managed to escape with all the 2nd and 3rd phase samples - that's what he throws through the portal just before he leaves at the end of A Bug In the System. That's why Gorrik is so excited when he sees the outbreak at the docks at the start of Long Live The Lich, he's been studying the first phase but hadn't gotten to see a full outbreak of the second phase yet. But that's also what makes everyone realise Joko's managed to breed large numbers of scarabs and if he's got enough of the second phase to start a full outbreak he's only days away from getting large numbers of the 3rd phase. Which is why we have to teleport our armies into Kourna instead of marching there.

It's also mentioned by the two ghostly queens - how the original scarab plague got worse as it went on, from scarabs infecting occasional people and killing them slowly to infecting all humans and killing them quickly to the adult beetles devouring everything.

Charr are bad hosts. It's as simple as that. They're not 100% immune, especially not when continually exposed to the plague + being experimented on outside of that as well. Since the plague is basically a parasite, you can still force it inside a host and it can still kill you, but that doesn't mean it's good for the parasite. Humans just happen to be the easiest targets and the one that was basically hardcoded into the DNA of the scarabs.

@Musha.4025 said:

@"Danikat.8537" said:Gorrik explained this during Long Live the Lich. There are 3 stages to the scarab plague - the one which got out is the second phase which can only infect humans but spreads much faster than the first. The Inquest were experimenting with all 3 but Joko managed to escape with all the 2nd and 3rd phase samples - that's what he throws through the portal just before he leaves at the end of A Bug In the System. That's why Gorrik is so excited when he sees the outbreak at the docks at the start of Long Live The Lich, he's been studying the first phase but hadn't gotten to see a full outbreak of the second phase yet. But that's also what makes everyone realise Joko's managed to breed large numbers of scarabs and if he's got enough of the second phase to start a full outbreak he's only days away from getting large numbers of the 3rd phase. Which is why we have to teleport our armies into Kourna instead of marching there.

It's also mentioned by the two ghostly queens - how the original scarab plague got worse as it went on, from scarabs infecting occasional people and killing them slowly to infecting all humans and killing them quickly to the adult beetles devouring everything.

I don't see the problem. These beetles were designed to eat humans; the lab was trying to expand that "feature." The fact that charr had died means nothing. Maybe they died to injuries, maybe they died to ancillary infections, or maybe they just weren't fed. Or even, maybe they died, but the beetles died after or didn't reproduce. The Inquest don't seem particularly concerned with getting more test subjects (heck they don't seem at all concerned about their lab techs either).

Plus: the 'eaten' humans become dust; we mostly saw actual corpses of charr.

@"Musha.4025" : Simple, the answer is in your question, "INQUEST", having no morale, compassion and ethics allow you to do anything, they haven't died due to the plague but more in a consequence of their experimentation (injection of scarabs/ several injuries/ undernourishment/ sadistic experiments ). The associated note on the console is "Test failure due to rapid consumption of subject by parasitic insectoids. ", whereas for humans it compromise the dermis, for charrs and others races, scarabs can't develop under the skin and transmit themselves by that mean, they will stay in the host and eat him from inside (the note "loss of body integrity" confirm that), so no effects can be seen from outside of the corpses, maybe blood coming out from any hole? They surely tried with too many scarabs.... or analyzing the skin of various races. Charr are "immune" to the plague until one of these scarabs enter their bodies through the mouth as example, but again they CANNOT became a vector for that disease, only human can. So Inquest can't infect a charr and send it back to the village to contaminate others, will not work.

"No one survives the Asuran Inquisition". think about it.... they wear red, ethically loose or non-existent, consider themselves to be of inherently higher authority and purpose, low survival rates of subjects being investigated (including their own members), and justifies their actions as a necessary and efficient means to an end.

To the inquest, a surviving test subject is only valuable in that getting replacements requires effort and paper work.