What If Joko Modified The Scarab Plague...

I wonder how the game would've turned out if Joko had the Scarab Plague modified to not just infect and kill humans, but any race it came into contact with. Maybe it would've made for a nice plot twist. Maybe not.

The fact that the plague only affected humans in of itself was the retcon and twist. One that destroyed the entire buildup of the previous two episodes by making it a non-threat.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:The fact that the plague only affected humans in of itself was the retcon and twist. One that destroyed the entire buildup of the previous two episodes by making it a non-threat.

Wasn't the idea that Joko hadn't had time to mature his 3rd generation of Scarabs which would've made the Scarab Plague a world-ending pandemic encompassing all races? That most of his scarabs were 2nd generation and all samples of the 3rd generation were destroyed by the PC?

@Yannir.4132 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:The fact that the plague only affected humans in of itself was the retcon and twist. One that destroyed the entire buildup of the previous two episodes by making it a non-threat.

The way I see it, the original Scarab Plague got lost over time, some descendant scarabs survived, but the Inquest had to reverse engineer the plague, which is where the concept of generations comes in. Joko's servants had to breed the scarabs to be hungrier, more aggressive and less picky when it comes to hosts, but I have no data on the original Scarab Plague infecting non humans. The stages however can be traced back to GW1, where we could find an account of Scholar Yomindhe, who wrote a journal on the events during the first plague.

From that information we can gather, that the original plague infected the grain, which would be eaten and the scarabs then consumed their hosts. In fact, the Inquest sample may originate from Scholar Chago's research, which may have led him to Fahranur eventually. The Inquest had modern equipment, so it is likely they arrived at the same time, or soon after they established Rata Primus.

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:The fact that the plague only affected humans in of itself was the retcon and twist. One that destroyed the entire buildup of the previous two episodes by making it a non-threat.

Nah, the 'third generation' were the ones that could spread through humans like wildfire. The devs confirmed later that the species of scarab involved couldn't infest any other race.

That said, while I agree that it was a needless, and aggravating, change to the lore, I don't agree that it robbed the plague of all impact. It still could've depopulated Elona, Amnoon, Ebonhawke, and Kryta, and the swarms of scarabs birthed from that still could've spilled out to eat all other creatures in those regions alive, even if they couldn't have gotten their eggs to hatch in them. Those are no small stakes.

(Or, rather, those wouldn't have been small stakes, if we hadn't discovered an effective countermeasure to the plague scarabs: vigorously jumping in place.)

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:The fact that the plague only affected humans in of itself was the retcon and twist. One that destroyed the entire buildup of the previous two episodes by making it a non-threat.

True, also it also makes no sense that the commander is immune to it just because he died before. I doubt a bug would care about the state of your soul as long as your flesh is good.

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:The fact that the plague only affected humans in of itself was the retcon and twist. One that destroyed the entire buildup of the previous two episodes by making it a non-threat.

Pretty sure at some point it was stated or suggested that third generation would also breed in Awakened, so it seems bizarre that a tiny whiff of undeath on the PC would deter them. They should have just given a human commander a hazmat golem for operations or something.

It's actually worse than you guys think...There's one more detail that makes it worse. According to the lore of GW, Hmans are NOT native to the planet of Tyria. So even with magic, it doesn't really make sense that a species of Beetle existed or was selected that can only consume and/or infect humans and no other species. I mean even with selective breeding and such, they've had to start with a beetle that would have infected something else, even if it was like cows, or something.

@perilisk.1874 said:

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:The fact that the plague only affected humans in of itself was the retcon and twist. One that destroyed the entire buildup of the previous two episodes by making it a non-threat.

Not breed in them, but they did present the idea that if the scarabs had already hatched inside and killed a living host, Joko could Awaken that host to serve as a sort of mobile hive.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:It's actually worse than you guys think...There's one more detail that makes it worse. According to the lore of GW, Hmans are NOT native to the planet of Tyria. So even with magic, it doesn't really make sense that a species of Beetle existed or was selected that can only consume and/or infect humans and no other species. I mean even with selective breeding and such, they've had to start with a beetle that would have infected something else, even if it was like cows, or something.

I've seen the idea thrown around that they might've been carried from the same homeworld that humans came from, which, if true, would neatly solve that problem. We know that the Six did a lot of terraforming, but we don't know how much of that involved porting over/Melandru recreating other species native to their old world, or whether such measures would've opened the door for an undetected parasite to hitch a ride (or be deliberately introduced- some of the lore on Melandru suggests she wouldn't be opposed to vetoing a species just because it preys on humans).

@Malediktus.9250 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:The fact that the plague only affected humans in of itself was the retcon and twist. One that destroyed the entire buildup of the previous two episodes by making it a non-threat.

There's ways to explain that. Many scarabs in the original guild wars used necromantic abilities.

It could be that this species detects its prey by detecting life energy rather than by other senses such as smell or sight, and the recent death of the commander would still linger, making the commander stink of death.

Scarabs using necromantic magic to perceive their victims would see corpses as food, and living humans as hosts and plant their offspring in them.Making offspring is expensive in biological terms, so no creature would want to waste it in an inviable host.

Still, it would have made more sense if they gave the commander a hazmat suit. But that is likely considered impersonal if it has to happen for too long.It would have been even cooler if they had used the mount tech and the boblehead tech to make the hazmat suit into an actual mount:

• Rework the model so the dome is transparent and the character can be seen inside.
• Leash the character model to the hazmat suit so it's inside.
• Shrink the limbs of the model character so they dot clip through the rest of the model.

Then the hazmat suit uses golem animations as usual, and the character is still visible, so it won't be as impersonal as just having a golem model.

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:The fact that the plague only affected humans in of itself was the retcon and twist. One that destroyed the entire buildup of the previous two episodes by making it a non-threat.

No. The larva - that which was the Scarab Plague - is apparently only capable of infecting humans. The adult scarabs are carnivorous that eats all.

If Joko got his 3rd generation, they'd just be a meat-eating swarm of bugs. Not the skin-burrowing horrors of the Scarab Plague. Except in human lands.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:It's actually worse than you guys think...There's one more detail that makes it worse. According to the lore of GW, Hmans are NOT native to the planet of Tyria. So even with magic, it doesn't really make sense that a species of Beetle existed or was selected that can only consume and/or infect humans and no other species. I mean even with selective breeding and such, they've had to start with a beetle that would have infected something else, even if it was like cows, or something.

I pretty much stated this. The fact that humans are non-native is Anet's reasoning for why humans don't have immunity. If anything, it would be humans that do have that immunity due to biological differences in species. Of course, with parasites rather than germs, there should be no immunity anywhere.

@"MithranArkanere.8957" said:Still, it would have made more sense if they gave the commander a hazmat suit. But that is likely considered impersonal if it has to happen for too long.It would have been even cooler if they had used the mount tech and the boblehead tech to make the hazmat suit into an actual mount:

• Rework the model so the dome is transparent and the character can be seen inside.
• Leash the character model to the hazmat suit so it's inside.
• Shrink the limbs of the model character so they dot clip through the rest of the model.

Then the hazmat suit uses golem animations as usual, and the character is still visible, so it won't be as impersonal as just having a golem model.

They could have simply reversed the idea of the first and second generations. The third generation looks like a repeat of the first, visually speaking, anyways.

Thus, so long as the army doesn't eat local food, there'd be no skin burrowing, just flesh eating scarabs. This would mark Joko's experiments with putting scarabs in the wheat fears of Ahjok more important and sinister, since he'd be using that village to breed the entire plague and not just to try and see if that can further it while working on it behind closed doors as well.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:I pretty much stated this. The fact that humans are non-native is Anet's reasoning for why humans don't have immunity. If anything, it would be humans that do have that immunity due to biological differences in species. Of course, with parasites rather than germs, there should be no immunity anywhere.

In the real world, it is very much possible to develop immunity to parasitic infection. In many malaria stricken regions of the world, large numbers of people are "immune" to the condition. They still get the parasites, but never develop any outward symptoms. This is also true for most regions where house cats are common. If you own a cat, you are probably host to the Toxoplasma parasite, and don't even know it.In this context, I'm not sure someone could become "immune" seeing as the scarab larvae physically consume their hosts from the inside, but it makes sense that a species foreign to Tyria (humans) would be more vulnerable to local Tyrian diseases and parasites, as they wouldn't have developed an immune response like a species that evolved alongside the pathogen.Most parasites aren't very picky, and can infect a multitude of hosts, across many species.

This makes me wonder why humans weren't hit harder by possible diseases when they arrived on Tyria. Maybe the isolation of Cantha will lead to a disease outbreak from central tyrian smallpox or something. Such an event wouldn't really get us on the good graces of the Ministry of Purity. But all in due time.

As for the scarabs, is it possible that Kralkatorrik could brand the scarab plague?

@Castigator.3470 said:This makes me wonder why humans weren't hit harder by possible diseases when they arrived on Tyria.

I always figured it was the abundance of healing magic, really. Either as gifted by Dwayna, or learned over the centuries.