Inquest in Rata Sum

How come there's an Insect section in Rata Sum?I mean, they try to murder the player character and zojja multiple times, constantly murder other people, stage attacks in Rata Sum....what gives?

I guess since most of it can't be proven they're allowed representation? There are also Svanir in Hoelbrak… Think Count Dooku - everyone knows what he's up to, but nobody can prove its him 100% for sure

@Fenom.9457 said:I guess since most of it can't be proven they're allowed representation? There are also Svanir in Hoelbrak… Think Count Dooku - everyone knows what he's up to, but nobody can prove its him 100% for sure

That makes no sense ;x

A lot of what we see in cities in rooted in an older time before they present a direct problem to us (although timelines do get a bit mixed in cities). The Inquest are also quite entrenched within Asuran society and also I think have a council member. They also work towards the betterment of Asurans, it's just their methods which are questionable, although Asuran morality and ethics can differ at times from humans, so you can't necessarily judge them in the same way.

Plus, like the Svanir example, sometimes it is better to keep such groups close by for easier monitoring

@Amaranthe.3578 said:

@Fenom.9457 said:I guess since most of it can't be proven they're allowed representation? There are also Svanir in Hoelbrak… Think Count Dooku - everyone knows what he's up to, but nobody can prove its him 100% for sure

Ehh, very little

Re: Sons of Svanir: The norn, in general - and this is strictly inforced in Hoelbrak - judge under a "deeds of the individual, not the group" mentality. If ten Sons of Svanir attack folks, then the two who didn't are free of charges despite being friends with the ten. Not all norn follow this idea, but Knut Whitebear does, and by extension, all of Hoelbrak must.

Re: Inquest: This ultimately seems to come down to High Councillor Flax. He holds an "asura above all" mentality, and is more than willing to work with the Inquest (at least during 1325 AE, when the game begins and where core maps are (mostly) set in). The Inquest aren't outlaws because no proof is ever sufficient in whatever variant of the court of law that asura have. And this is largely because the Inquest are very good at manipulating the system, in large due to having a member of theirs in the Arcane Council, and having Flax's support so long as non-Inquest haven't found a means to do the same as Inquest but with fewer, shall we say, 'lab accidents'.

With Zojja, she has a very well known issue with Kudu, who is a member of the Inquest. So most of her attempts to prove Inquest (especially Kudu's) wrongdoings ends up being dismissed as "grudge induced discrediting attempts". For example, in the weather changing device storyline, when Kudu sets it up for the device to wipe out the Arcane Council and Zojja comes in, after being rescued, Flax basically says "for all we know, the machine tried to kill us not because Kudu set it to do so, but because you made it malfunction after you showed up!"

This probably changed in late 1325 AE, after the events of Crucible of Eternity story, where Zojja gathered hard evidence of the Inquest's actions at CoE, kidnapping folks and turning them into dragon minions for experimentation. But without any real showing of asuran politics since then, and with Kudu who was the lead of said operation dead, it's hard to say.

Personally, I imagine it hasn't. Zojja's threat was to take the information to the Council... the same Council that's deeply invested in long-term asura domination of the other races, the same Council that freely turns a blind eye when the Inquest abuse other asura much closer to home, the same Council that has no qualms about ruthlessly suppressing inconvenient information, the same Council that shrugs off even attempts on their own life as something that just happens. Like Konig said, there's no telling for sure until ANet heads back that way, but given everything we know about Rata Sum politics, and given that the Inquest councilor still had his position intact late in S1, when they touched on him briefly to let him disavow Scarlet, I would be rather surprised if we learned that any measures had been taken to rein them in.

political corruption

When the game first came out it made some sense to have this kind of organisation legal.

Nowdays it does not. Simply there is too much that this organisation has done that it goes way beyond just what Asuran government thinks of them. At this stage of the game they are very much a recognized international criminal organisation.

Honestly, i would like a living story that deals with this issue because as it stands right now Asuran government is essentially sponsoring the most criminal organisation that probably exists in Guild Wars universe.

On topic of evidence. Crucible of Eternity and Rata Primus provide abundance of both material evidence and testimonies. Not to mention how Fractals of the Mist have already been used in game as investigative tools, no less but for investigation of Inquest activity.

To me, it seems that the only reason why Inquest is "tolerated" is because maps are stuck in time and Anet isn't prioritizing Asuran society in their storytelling

Laborer (1): I've heard rumors that the Inquest is recruiting.Laborer (2): I couldn't work for them, no matter how bored or hungry. My tolerance of evil is too low.Laborer (1): They can't be that bad. Genius turned evil is still genius.

According to Zojja the council couldnt even kick them out if they wanted to