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If charr and human went to war, which faction would support which side?


Cerioth.7062

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and the origin matters in which way?

None at all? Yeah, as expected.

If the charr went to war, everyone would realize that after a maybe victory against the humans, they are next. Also don't underestimate the humans, they still are pretty good with their magic. At the end, the charr first had to fight through a hostile environment to get to the humans, they would face an alliance of advanced species AND they would have a southern flank where the elonian humans can push in at any given time. Strategically not a promising concept. All the while domestic problems (grawl, ogres, harpies) would still be annoying. Not on the 'they win great battle X' scale of annoying but on the 'our supply lines took a hit' scale.

It might be surprising for some, but tactics do not win wars, logistics and supply do. You might have a huge advantage in numbers, but what is that worth, if your soldiers are weakened from starvation?

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@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:and the origin matters in which way?

None at all? Yeah, as expected.

If the charr went to war, everyone would realize that after a maybe victory against the humans, they are next. Also don't underestimate the humans, they still are pretty good with their magic. At the end, the charr first had to fight through a hostile environment to get to the humans, they would face an alliance of advanced species AND they would have a southern flank where the elonian humans can push in at any given time. Strategically not a promising concept. All the while domestic problems (grawl, ogres, harpies) would still be annoying. Not on the 'they win great battle X' scale of annoying but on the 'our supply lines took a hit' scale.

It might be surprising for some, but tactics do not win wars, logistics and supply do. You might have a huge advantage in numbers, but what is that worth, if your soldiers are weakened from starvation?

Or, maybe all will recall that humans and their gods brought nothing good to Tyria?

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Making a couple assumptions here:-The targets are constrained to the other side. There've been several posts here that assume the charr suddenly go to war with every other race within reach all at once, but I'm working on the basis of no one getting attacked outside the charr, humans, and races/individuals explicitly coming down on one side or the other.-Cantha and any other hypothetical human populations outside Kryta, Ebonhawke, Amnoon and Elona aren't involved.

@"Cerioth.7062" said:How would each faction react to this?Not entirely sure what you mean by faction, so I'm just going to guess it's the mixed-race entites:The Pact, and Vigil, would be outspoken advocates of a peace process, but would not intervene militarily on either side. This is exactly the sort of conflict they were intended to ignore.The Priory would grumble privately about the idiocy of the chest-beating generals, and would suspend any dig sites too close to the battlefields (and shuffle personnel of one race out of the other's territory), but otherwise would carry on like nothing was happening.The Whispers would be pulling strings behind the scenes, trying to rein back both sides far enough to give the peacemakers room to do their thing.Lion's Arch would make the token signs of support towards Kryta to keep their neighbor from bothering them and then not follow through, same as with the centaurs.

Would other races go support the charr or the humans, assuming their earlier grievances with either race? Who would stay neutral?The sylvari would push hard for peace, which wouldn't get anywhere. If the war seems to be a clear case of charr aggression, they'll give up and come in on the human's side. Otherwise, they remain on the sidelines, tuned out by the combatants. (Even in a case of clear human aggression, the charr aren't the type to ask for sylvari assistance.)More norn would come in on the charr's side than the humans (and the charr would make better use of their norn), but we're still talking individual decisions, not a commitment that could reflect the race as a whole.The asura extend non-military aid to both sides, profiting while weaseling out of anything that'd commit them to one side or the other. If forced to choose, they'd go with the charr, but neither side has the means or skill to put them in that corner.The only other race that might intervene in a significant way is the centaurs. After using the human distraction early on to back off and regroup, if conditions permit, they could down hard on the Krytan flanks during a moment of vulnerability.

What would be the outcome?

*If it's just Ebonhawke and Kryta, Ebonhawke falls. They made an amazing stand during the earlier sieges, but the move towards aerial warfare bypasses too many of their strengths, and Kryta isn't going to over-commit to make up the difference. The charr then mount an invasion of Kryta over the Shiverpeaks, which proves unsustainable and gets beaten back. The mountains become a stable border between the two, as a matter of practicality.

*If Amnoon and Elona come in on the human side, the increase of manpower, and the availability of a second supply line that doesn't rely on the gates, probably allows Ebonhawke and a handful of their new outlying territories to hold. The war turns into a bloody stalemate across the Fields of Ruin, a quagmire with no easy way out until something unexpected shakes up the balance.

(Elona would suffer for the war, but in its current state, there's not enough accountability built in for that to neccesarily recall their forces from Ascalon.)

*If Kryta is the inciting aggressor, without necessarily involving Ebonhawke from the outset, than it winds up much like the above, except split between two fronts, the FoR and a Krytan beachhead in Fireheart Rise. Even if Elona and Amnoon stay out of it, the need to split their forces between two theaters and remain on the defensive may prevent the charr from leveraging the overwhelming force they'd need to close one down, unless they abandon everything east of the Brand long enough to beat the Krytans back and gamble on being able to retake the territory afterwards.

(As a minor side note, I think kodan culture would require them to come in against the charr, but they aren't in a position to make much difference.)

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@Syronus.7605 said:Even in the previous war they made it all the way to Orr so what is to stop them wiping humanity out this time?

Things are a bit different now, though. In the last war, the humans weren't coming in fresh; they'd been killing each other for sixty years, and the militaries and treasuries of all three nations were explicitly running on empty. Add in Kryta's additional problem of losing their king, and the position they're in today is much, much stronger than the first time they beat back the charr.

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@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:again, why should the norn support the charr?

there is no glory in supporting the supposedly dominant side. Winning is not everything, at least for norn. And glory can not be earned if you roflstomp around.

In short? Because the norn are buddy-buddy with the charr, while their general racial attitude towards the humans is gentle contempt. (The best place to see this is Hoelbrak, not the article, but I'm not picking through and then linking a dozen different dialogues today.) We see the norn and charr getting on better than any other pair of races except the humans and sylvari.

As for the glory thing- I don't believe the charr are in a dominant rofl-stomp position, regardless of how the chips fall with the other races, but even if they were. Norn aren't in for glory, they're in for legends; legends mean being remembered. Most norn combatants, I suspect, would get drawn into the fight through either happenstance or personal connections- and again, both of those will tilt the overall population towards the charr- but for the ones who do enter as a calculated choice to feed their legends, they need to consider more than just which side has the advantage. The best outcome would be joining the underdogs and pulling out a win, but that only works if there's a reasonable chance of winning. If you join the losing side, the only way you get remembered is if your heroic last stand allows for some of your allies to escape or if it impresses the enemy enough to earn their admiration- and charr don't admire resistance. Conversely, there is material that can feed a legend even in an overwhelming victory. Because it's an individual thing, your story doesn't have to acknowledge that the enemy never had a chance at winning the battle; all you have to boast is that you mowed through fifty battle-hardened soldiers in the course of the rout.

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@phs.6089 said:

Or, maybe all will recall that humans and their gods brought nothing good to Tyria?

Again: probably > 90% of the people in Tyria of ALL races, INCLUDING humans, don't even know that humans aren't originally native to Tyria. And those that do know don't care, because humans have been in Tyria so long that history has completely forgotten when they arrived or where they came from. All the humans presently in Tyria were born in Tyria, from lines of ancestry that have been in Tyria for thousands of years; the fact that their distant ancestors came from Somewhere Else is largely forgotten and utterly irrelevant in the present. Humans today are accepted as native and consider themselves native, whether their species actually is or not. Now give that a rest already.

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@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:again, why should the norn support the charr?

there is no glory in supporting the supposedly dominant side. Winning is not everything, at least for norn. And glory can not be earned if you roflstomp around.

In short?
(The best place to see this is Hoelbrak, not the article, but I'm not picking through and then linking a dozen different dialogues today.) We see the norn and charr getting on better than any other pair of races except the humans and sylvari.

As for the glory thing- I don't believe the charr are in a dominant rofl-stomp position, regardless of how the chips fall with the other races, but even if they were. Norn aren't in for glory, they're in for legends; legends mean being remembered. Most norn combatants, I suspect, would get drawn into the fight through either happenstance or personal connections- and again, both of those will tilt the overall population towards the charr- but for the ones who do enter as a calculated choice to feed their legends, they need to consider more than just which side has the advantage. The best outcome would be joining the underdogs and pulling out a win, but that only works if there's a reasonable chance of winning. If you join the losing side, the only way you get remembered is if your heroic last stand allows for some of your allies to escape or if it impresses the enemy enough to earn their admiration- and charr don't admire resistance. Conversely, there is material that can feed a legend even in an overwhelming victory. Because it's an individual thing, your story doesn't have to acknowledge that the enemy never had a chance at winning the battle; all you have to boast is that you mowed through fifty battle-hardened soldiers in the course of the rout.

As a Norn RPer once said to me, "You don't build a legend by kicking Skritt." Just like in real life, you don't get better at anything by taking the easy path. You take the tough opponents, the difficult problems, the impossible solutions, and you put your name on them. That's the Norn way.

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And for the norn who want to get better, that's what they do. But for the ones who think they're already good enough to deserve their legends? The ones who think that their legend will come to them whichever choice they make? The ones who don't mind stepping away from the legend-building for a bit to help a friend? The ones who pick and choose their fights, figuring a thousand careful victories carves out a more glorious sage than one grand defeat? The ones who like this legend-building idea in principle, but also want to stay alive to enjoy it?

There's no one way to be norn, or even to strive to embody the ideals of norn culture, the same way there isn't for humans or charr or any other race. Some norn would side with the humans, yes. But it's ultimately an individual decision, and there are as many reasons for those as there are different individuals. I just happen to think most of the reason that broadly apply across norn culture as a whole happen to favor the charr.

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The Shiverpeaks aren't really a factor in this, apart from the difficult terrain. The Norn let charr forces pass through their territory last time they invaded Kryta, presumably so long as they didn't interfere with anything on the way. Were hostilities to resume, it's highly likely the mountains would be neutral ground again, particularly now that the Norn control Borlis Pass.

It is more than possible that any renewed fighting would fracture the Legions as well, with the Iron Legion a little more likely to avoid war due to their ties to other races. Notably, they're the ones in the front line, and also the ones who have all the adversaries to deal with already. The Blood Legion, to my knowledge, just has Kralkatorrik's minions to deal with and probably a handful of Flame Legion. Ash has basically nothing.

Ebonhawke's fate would likely determine the progress of the war. Its fortifications are still quite daunting, and to a large degree the outcome would depend on how each side is matched in aerial combat. Iron and Blood would both be inclined to besiege the city again and throw resources at it, hoping not to fight to a stalemate again. Ash, I suspect, would be more inclined to feign weakness by allowing the front lines to withdraw quite a long way from Ebonhawke, spread the human forces thin, and go for the head.

With Ebonhawke standing, I don't imagine the charr - and certainly not the Iron Legion - sending too many forces over the Shiverpeaks. Even if it were taken, though, it's quite possible the Iron Legion would stop there, as Kryta isn't really viewed as ancestral charr territory, except by a few extremists who like to look a bit too far back into history.

And unless the war did cross the Shiverpeaks, I don't think it's likely any other factions would pick sides. They're all too distant, or in the case of the Norn, skritt, ogres etc. they have no loyalties to either side.

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All other races would be neutral, except maybe norn, who would probably join both sides to get some glory, probably as mercenaries. They have never had too many qualms about fighting each other.

But realistically speaking, the accumulated influence of the truce, the BLTrading Post's profits, the orders (especially the whispers) and the newfound connections to the Olmakhan would probably cause a slow and quiet revolution within the legions, and eventually move their main culture from a mostly militaristic organization to a meritocratic industrial society, and probably begin to slowly discard the fahrar system in favor of families and schooling systems.

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My prognostics for charrs VS humans:

-Sylvaris, Quaggan, Kodans, Tengu, Hyleks would not hear the battle call. BUT They will kick knees of anyone who would try to fight them.-Skritts will group themselves to have a better hive mind and will figure that they have to join charrs or asuras. Will also take in account who offer more shinies.-Asuras as always feel very superior and secured concerning their position. Would simply activate their force fields, lightning cannons and army of golems; waiting tranquilly for the end of the fight.-Considering their locations, Norn will join charrs, seriously because free weapons! And the love of drinking/ having big feasts.-Elonians are far and don't care at all, same for choyas or awakened.

-Other races: Kraits will enslave some quaggans because why not? As long as they can make prisoners they join charrs transitionally. Grawls defend the norn territories in the back front. Jotun are acting the same. Because both of those races want to defend their homeland. Ettins joined norn, because of lion's guards and humans exploiting them. Centaurs don't care, but if they can smash humans they are happy, they joined norns too. Dredges don't care and will hide themselves. Nightmare court is doomed. Sons of Svanir are okay ignoring the situation.

-Charrs got several allies, and peaceful ones like olmakhan are allowed to live on charrs lands as long as they don't oppose themselves to other charrs. Norns and Skritts decided to join them. Asuras labs on their road assure to participate creating some weapons to avoid enslaving or lab destruction, Inquest will gather every weapons and last high-tech golems marks to help charrs, because they definitely need some funding for their "research", also require some test subjects, everything is welcomed.

-Humans are alone and will be eradicated by others because no-one very love them. They are surrounded by enemies: Norn+Charrs at east and at the south, asuras will shoot at them if they are trespassing. Sylvaris will try to pacify the situation by interfering and will be eradicated by asuras, they will simply finish what they started doing on sylvaris since the beginning: experimentation on talking trees. Ebonhawke retreat to elona sealing the gate. Letting the city to charrs after loosing too many soldiers. Bandits will for the first time help other humans making solid outposts, but are rapidly submerged by charr tanks and asuran golems.

The outcome: Humans are pushed back north to woodland cascades and maguuma wastes, charrs and norns own now queensdale, gandarran field and divinity reach.Asuras own the whole maguuma forest, from metrica province to Brisban wildlands/Silverwastes. As a reward, charrs decided to cut divinity reach in half, one part for charrs, one for norns.

Humans are still very present in Elona but only there.Tengu done nothing and got 0 losses. Same with kodans. Quaggans villages got ravaged because they were on the road. No more sylvaris apart some in exodus, some decided to travel to elona.Orders got destabilized from the inside and several divided themselves in two parts, one with only asuras but it fusion with colleges or create more departments within their society; and one with norns/charrs more concentrate on war councils and exploration. The pact assure the security in Orr, Canopy and Mount Maelstrom, considered as an independent organization, all races are welcomed and considered as peaceful, orr is purified and became the new home for sylvaris who survived.

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again, everybody who thinks that asura or sylvari will be neutral or side with the charr need to rethink the whole thing. If charr attack, it is because they want to rule the whole continent again, just like in the glorious distant history before humans appeared.

That means, there is no room for asura, sylvari, norn or tengu. After the humans they will be next. And they know it.

Case closed, charr will face EVERYBODY. Also while they do have some impressive machines, those were never good enough to take on ressource starved Ebonhawke. What do you think will happen when the seraphs with their (we know from the books they have them) magical users get on to it? Bandits are gone. White mantle are gone. Centaurs are broken.

The charr will march into a fight, they can not win. Against everybody else, people who can and will use brutal magic the charr have nothing to put against. The charr have another problem: they are land locked. Please have a look at history what that means for a nation fighting another one who has access to the seas.

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@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:again, everybody who thinks that asura or sylvari will be neutral or side with the charr need to rethink the whole thing. If charr attack, it is because they want to rule the whole continent again, just like in the glorious distant history before humans appeared.

That means, there is no room for asura, sylvari, norn or tengu. After the humans they will be next. And they know it.

Case closed, charr will face EVERYBODY. Also while they do have some impressive machines, those were never good enough to take on ressource starved Ebonhawke. What do you think will happen when the seraphs with their (we know from the books they have them) magical users get on to it? Bandits are gone. White mantle are gone. Centaurs are broken.

The charr will march into a fight, they can not win. Against everybody else, people who can and will use brutal magic the charr have nothing to put against. The charr have another problem: they are land locked. Please have a look at history what that means for a nation fighting another one who has access to the seas.

How do you figure it'd go if the humans attacked?

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From lore prespective, I don't see many races siding with charr, given that the legions would be existential threat to them after Kryta's fall. Some might maintain neutrality officially, while supporting humans by unofficial channels.

From the gameplay perspective, if such thing happens it will be charr vs all playable races (including iron legion/PC starting in Iron Citadel). So that should give you an idea as to how the main races will react.

On a less serious note, since 60% of the population are human females anyway, Blood and Ash legions will be crushed by a sheer swarm of HF commanders. That, and we might have a friendly elder dragon by the time that happens (although I would be curious to see if Aurene would interfere in such affairs, as that would push her into a permanent policing force).

On a speculative side, I would not mind having the pre-assembled invasion force having to deal with Kralk or another Elder Dragon. Kinda like we utilized the Awakened against the Forged.

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I still think people are massively underestimating Kryta and Ebonhawke here. Let's have some context:

Ascalon, Kryta and Orr were far from their glory days when the charr began their war against humanity. They had been riven by literal centuries of infighting and wars thus drained of manpower and funds.

It took the Searing to bring Ascalon to its knees after decades of conflict - by itself, with all the handicaps mentioned above - and even then it still took the full united might of the charr time to overcome the Ascalonians, and then after two centuries of sieging a singular city, cut off from aid and supplies, they could not manage to take that.

Kryta was suffering from poor morale after their king fled, and even if the mursaat offered help the charr simply could not counter, the majority of the fighting in throwing back the charr was performed by a, most critically, devoted, fanatical and motivated force of humans. Kryta was also, at the time, far less developed and populated than it is in modern GW2. Divinity's Reach is essentially Ebonhawke on steroids in terms of defensibility if the charr even got that far through forts, havens and hostile territory the humans know far better than they do.

Orr was not even fully conquered by the charr when it was sunk by Khilbron. Orr was a decaying kingdom far passed it's prime, hit even worse by the Guild Wars than either of the other two, and likely significantly depopulated.

More to the point, no kingdom aided any of the others at any point. The charr took Ascalon and Orr (thanks to Khilbron, mostly) out piecemeal. And then when they went up against Kryta to do the same, they failed.

The charr didn't attack humanity when they were at their apex, they attacked them after humanity had knocked itself down far from it's pinnacle.

It is quite clear that Kryta is well positioned to fight the charr to a standstill without the aid of any of the other races. They are united, consolidated and motivated, with a far more stable position in the world. On the offence I very much concur that they would not make much headway against the charr - But they don't need to. They just need to hold on to what they have, the charr need to take land to fuel their war machine, whilst the humans can subsist on what they have. That's what they have adapted to do, whilst the Legions need to expand to justify their existence, especially during wartime. For every day, month or year Kryta denies the charr their expansion, the more unstable the Legions become.

(Gonna shill the Templin Institute here, their video is great

)
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@"ThatOddOne.4387" said:A lot of good points. Read his post, it's worth it.(Gonna shill the Templin Institute here, their video is great)

Before the fall of Lion's arch in 1219 AE, Divinty's Reach was a mere outpost with a tomb north of Shaemoor. Divinity's Reach replaced Lion's Arch as a capital and the Krytan Ministry was founded because the king's centralized seat of power broke down. As a city, Divinity's Reach is younger than the Black Citadel (1112 AE). Old Lion's arch was not quite as strong as modern Divinity's Reach and was conquered by Queen Salma and her band of supporters, the Shining Blade, in 1079 AE.

But that was after 1070 AE, where the humans and charr both were weakened. Remember, the charr took massive losses in Orr and Ascalon, so when they went for Kryta, their morale and war support was waning as well. The other legions were already growing discontent with Flame's rulership, as each defeat was seen as Flame wasting the other legion's soldiers and resources.Orr would have fallen to Flame Legion had Khilbron not nuked the Kingdom.As for Kryta, I suspect the population boost from Ascalonian settlers made current Kryta possible. They built many new settlements, growing the Kingdom's economy early on, which likely compounded over the following 253 years. So current Kryta is far more powerful from a magical, cultural, military, economic and diplomatic perspective.

Same with the Iron Legion. They have not been slacking off either, while Iron is not well versed in magic, their military and economy are top tier and their diplomacy, while not human level amazing, is fairly solid. Sadly we don't know all that much about Blood and Ash legion territories.

But most people here assume the charr attack. That's likely because the best chance for a human attack was Caudecus, but the Krytan line has somehow spawned Oswald Thorn, so if another such king were to inherit Kryta, he might attempt to wage war against centaurs (for tradition's sake), Lion's Arch (Kryta's old capital), the charr (He might claim Ascalon) and even the hylek (because their croaking annoys him).

Though the most likely scenario involves a cold war situation, where Kryta implicitly supports all things that annoy the charr, while the legions, Ash in particular, might prop up all threats to Kryta. Lion's Arch would be the centre of all the required money laundering, weapon smuggling and espionage, so it would become immensely wealthy, while Krytan nobles and Charr officers pretend that they have no connection to all these activities while trying to one up each other at every turn. Ebonhawke might even try to play both sides, hoping to gain independence from Kryta, and seeking to gain the best of deals from the Iron Legion.

Edit: The Video is okay. Did the Templin guys ever plan to analyse the Legions and the Asura society?

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