Does the Order of Whispers do anything?

[Mic.1897]

Potential spoilers here

 

Does the Order of Whispers ever actually do anything in the story? Been playing through all of the different paths to the core story lately and seems like Vigil and Priority handle essentially everything. Even during Claw Island which is supposed to be the unifying point for the orders in the story - it's all Vigil and Priory.

[Solvar.7953]

My take was that order of whispers was more like a spy/information gathering agency.  As such, they are seldom on the front lines - that isn't their specialty, but rather figuring out what the threats are and how to counter them is.

 

[Mic.1897]

24 minutes ago, Solvar.7953 said:

My take was that order of whispers was more like a spy/information gathering agency.  As such, they are seldom on the front lines - that isn't their specialty, but rather figuring out what the threats are and how to counter them is.

 

But when do they ever do this?

[Danikat.8537]

Is your character part of the Order of Whispers? If not it's a lot harder to tell what they're doing because that's their whole thing: they're spies and infiltrators, if anyone outside the Order can tell what they're doing then they're doing it wrong.

If you are part of the Order of Whispers and you regularly talk to random NPCs you'll find there's a lot who are officially part of other groups who are actually Order of Whispers members on assignment. Some are just gathering information, others will subtly influence events to get an outcome the Order wants. I can't remember if this is a real example, but a plausible one is a Whispers agent who infiltrated a pirate crew and convinces their captain it would be easier to focus on attacking other pirates than merchant ships and settlements. Everyone thinks they're just a lazy pirate, but it means all the pirates in the area are caught up with in-fighting and shipping is safer.

Within the personal story the Order of Whispers mainly focuses on gathering information and ensuring it gets to the right people so other groups in Tyria agree to prioritise fighting the Elder Dragons, and then once the campain against Zhaitan starts they do a lot of battlefield reconnaissance to determine where the soldiers need to be and find weaknesses to target.

Probably the most obvious example is near the end of the story, where you get to pick whether to support the Order of Whispers, Priory or Vigil assault plan. The Vigil are sending heavy artilary directly into Orr, the Priory are looking for missing scouts and the Whispers are sneaking into an Orian lighthouse to use it to redirect Zhaitan's ships onto the shore, where they can be easily commandeered and used to sneak soldiers further into Orr.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

You ever heard of little things such as indirect action and propaganda which just so happen to have won WWII and pretty much every major and minor conflict since... ?

Go to Snowden Drifts, in an outpost, in the back behind a door, there's a Whispers FOB with a printing press.

Stuff like that can be found in many places in Tyria, happy hunting.

[DaZeeHero.5210]

They do many things. all of which are classified. Shhhh!

[Poormany.4507]

They sell apples. iykyk

[Kalavier.1097]

Order of whispers characters can find npcs who will have extra dialogue, usually a pass-phrase that has them talk about what they are doing.

[Mic.1897]

6 hours ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

You ever heard of little things such as indirect action and propaganda which just so happen to have won WWII and pretty much every major and minor conflict since... ?

Go to Snowden Drifts, in an outpost, in the back behind a door, there's a Whispers FOB with a printing press.

Stuff like that can be found in many places in Tyria, happy hunting.

How did this help with anything in the story though?

At this point it seems like the Whispers is all just an idea but no actual impact on the world... at all lol

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

How did this help with anything in the story though?

At this point it seems like the Whispers is all just an idea but no actual impact on the world... at all lol

Lots of (apparently) little things across the world that add up to big things.

I'd note that if you haven't played as an Order of Whispers character, the personal story arc for the Order of Whispers is something that gets referenced in various ways that are important at various points, some of the ramifications of which have yet to fully play out. It's probably more significant than the Priory and Vigil arcs which, when you get down to it, are basically just putting down one bad guy before his plans come to fruition.

And that's just what a Whispers PC is involved in personally. There's references throughout the world to things they've been pulling off, and only the Master of Whispers knows the full picture of anything, including projects that the PC has been personally involved in, since things the PC does might be followed up on by other agents.

Something to keep in mind is that there's a common observation in black ops that failures are known, successes often are not. There's probably a lot that was arranged by the Order of Whispers, but that we don't know was arranged by them.

[Kalavier.1097]

5 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

How did this help with anything in the story though?

At this point it seems like the Whispers is all just an idea but no actual impact on the world... at all lol

If you can, without inside knowledge, point at something and go "It was order of whispers!" that defeats their entire point. Seriously, a chunk of the npcs in order of whispers wiki page are just regular clothing (even other orders) characters hanging out in various places keeping an eye on things.

The ones in order of whispers armor and weapons? They want you see them. It means you don't see the other agents around you.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

7 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

How did this help with anything in the story though?

At this point it seems like the Whispers is all just an idea but no actual impact on the world... at all lol

Oh my sweet summer child, if I need to explain the impact intelligence officers have on warfare you and I need to have a sit down for a chat because that is one pandora box like you have no idea...

[Mic.1897]

1 hour ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

Oh my sweet summer child, if I need to explain the impact intelligence officers have on warfare you and I need to have a sit down for a chat because that is one pandora box like you have no idea...

I know how useful it is

But it's not used in this particular story

[draxynnic.3719]

On 8/20/2024 at 10:18 PM, Mic.1897 said:

I know how useful it is

But it's not used in this particular story

Most of what they do is on a need-to-know basis and the PC doesn't always need to know.

We can extrapolate from what we have seen, though.

[Squee.7829]

On 8/20/2024 at 8:18 AM, Mic.1897 said:

I know how useful it is

But it's not used in this particular story

I think this is one of those things where if you don't see something, you assume it's useless or isn't happening. We don't SEE the whispers doing anything because it's implied off screen. Kind of like how Queen Jennah rules and entire kingdom, but all we ever see her do is stand around in a room.  All the political stuff isn't shown in game because it isn't relevant to us as player characters. At best, you might get a reference to something if it pertains to what we are doing.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

As someone who joined the Order of Whispers AND talks to npc's whereever possible: boy are there many agents all over the place, collecting intel and influencing things and that is just the tip we can see. 

[Laken.9018]

The short and skinny is most of the OoW stuff and what they do is in lines, set dressing and background fluff. There's no big obvious neon sign "THIS IS A ORDER OF WHISPERS OPERATION. LOOK WE ARE THE ORDERS OF WHISPERS"
After Heart of Thorns  though they did kind of oddly get underused. Priory is always used when they want researchers and Vigil when they need soldiers to get bodied for stakes.

Another big part of it is as we move away from Tyria, The Order has less reason to be present and thier narrative function often gets used by other groups or they can't turn up
In Elona it's the Order of Shadows
Cantha and SoTO kind of make it hard to use them properly
Ash Legion took thier role in Icebrood Saga.

So yeah it's a mixture of those two things.
 

[Kalavier.1097]

4 hours ago, Laken.9018 said:

Another big part of it is as we move away from Tyria, The Order has less reason to be present and thier narrative function often gets used by other groups or they can't turn up
In Elona it's the Order of Shadows
 

It is implied IIRC that the OoW was very limited in Elona because OoS kept blocking them, or outright killing them around path of fire event time.

[Jobber.6348]

They handle operations that need spying and subterfuge, either out of necessity or because it's the way they operate. 

If you never heard of them, they're doing a good job. Also if you join Order of Whispers, it triggers dialogue options with many random NPCs who reveal themselves to be part of the Order. They have people seeded everywhere.