Why is killing the Elder Dragons bad again?

[Cristalyan.5728]

@DarcShriek.5829 said:It seems the solution is to build a new bloodstone

I agree We can ask the Asurans to design some Exo Pyramidal Aetheropumps to regulate the absorption of the magic inside the Bloodstone. And other Magical super Valves to regulate the output of the magic from the Bloodstone. If we can find the right amount of the magic into the world, we can keep the Elder Dragons alive but sleeping and in the same time we can keep Tyria alive.Happy ending! Everything has the right to grow !And Evon Gnashblade can make some money by opening a touristic route to the places where the dragons sleep.

[ugrakarma.9416]

The conclusion I reach is that it is far more interesting to combat forces that (for reasons of ambition) threaten the balance of magic (white mantle, balthazar), than elder dragons itself. or "regional villains" like Joko.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Dante.1763" said:Thank you for that, i wasnt aware that Tequatl had "died" either.

I wish theyd at least make the cutscenes viewable in game from season 1(if it was one).

No cutscene. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Origins_of_Madness:_A_Moment's_Peace

@"Cristalyan.5728" said:But to come back to the topic: "Killing the dragons is bad" is a last hour turn in the gw2 lore. Nobody during the 10 000 year of the last cycle hinted to this. Not even Glint - I don't recall Glint explicitly saying this.

If Season 2, that is, 2014 for players, was "last hour" then, sure, I guess?

And the argument of "the last cycle" not talking about it doesn't amount to much since there were literally barely any records from the time, and they were all about the races trying to survive not kill the Elder Dragons (sans the Mursaat but that was S3, after we players learned killing the ED is bad). Glint didn't mention it because she had a way to fix the issue of why killing the ED is bad.

@DarcShriek.5829 said:It seems the solution is to build a new bloodstone

That would only solve the secondary issue of too much magic, while retaining the primary issue of leaving The All imbalanced.

While both are dangerous to the world and potentially cataclysmic, the latter is the more immediate issue. It's why we had to stop Balthazar - even if he had eaten all the magic himself, the world would still crumble from The All becoming imbalanced.

I think an ideal state would be to reduce the Elder Dragons to a point of hibernation and hide all the magic in Bloodstones that they cannot find. That way there'd never be enough magic for the Elder Dragons to rise. But sadly that point has rather come and gone.

[Oglaf.1074]

How do you hide something from an Elder Dragon though? Would concentrating all magic in Bloodstone not just create red, shiny and convenient “candy” for them to find and eat..?

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Oglaf.1074" said:How do you hide something from an Elder Dragon though? Would concentrating all magic in Bloodstone not just create red, shiny and convenient “candy” for them to find and eat..?

Well, none of them have gone to the four-formerly-five already existing Bloodstones, even when they were right next door, so chances are the Bloodstones have some "this doesn't look yummy" layer of protection. Probably something along the same lines as what Taimi did to the waypoints in Season 2.

[Oglaf.1074]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"Oglaf.1074" said:How do you hide something from an Elder Dragon though? Would concentrating all magic in Bloodstone not just create red, shiny and convenient “candy” for them to find and eat..?

Well, none of them have gone to the five already existing Bloodstones, even when they were right next door, so chances are the Bloodstones have some "this doesn't look yummy" layer of protection. Probably something along the same lines as what Taimi did to the waypoints in Season 2.

Ah, just like Switch cartridges.

[DarcShriek.5829]

Where is it stated that the bloodstone left the all imbalanced? Could it not be the actions of humans and their gods that have caused the current imbalance?

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

It's not, but everything we're told/see about the All tells us that it's the distribution of magic across the Elder Dragons, and maybe their ties to nebulous 'spirit realms', that keep the All balanced. Putting all the magic into a container wouldn't fix the second problem, and if we use just one container, it wouldn't help the first either... although it might be possible that splitting Bloodstone 2.0 the way the gods did the original could get around that, or that magic in the Bloodstones doesn't count towards the balance in the first place. Still far, far too many unknowns here for theorycrafting to be done with any confidence.

[Tyson.5160]

Probably what Sadizi was talking about, True balance. Not this feast or famine for magic, but a consistent flow, like a steady river. Not this raging rapids or dried up river bed balance that the current elder Dragons create.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"DarcShriek.5829" said:Where is it stated that the bloodstone left the all imbalanced? Could it not be the actions of humans and their gods that have caused the current imbalance?

The All's imbalance was caused by Zhaitan's and Mordremoth's deaths. The creation of the Bloodstone didn't affect The All, which is why it wouldn't fix The All's current imbalance.

Same goes with Balthazar nomming a bunch of magic. Even Aurene so far hasn't affected The All.

We aren't sure what ties an Elder Dragon to The All, but what is clear is that it is more than just "has a shit ton of magic".

[Loesh.4697]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"DarcShriek.5829" said:Where is it stated that the bloodstone left the all imbalanced? Could it not be the actions of humans and their gods that have caused the current imbalance?

The All's imbalance was caused by Zhaitan's and Mordremoth's deaths. The creation of the Bloodstone didn't affect The All, which is why it wouldn't fix The All's current imbalance.

Same goes with Balthazar nomming a bunch of magic. Even Aurene so far hasn't affected The All.

We aren't sure what ties an Elder Dragon to The All, but what is clear is that it is more than just "has a kitten ton of magic".

I would add a small bit to that. While we aren't sure what an Elder Dragon is to the All, we do have a couple running theories. People both in the game and out of it have suggested that it's tied to the gods and each in turn is a representative of a larger element, it's suggested that each Dragons physical form is an of itself kind of like an avatar and only representative of much larger cosmic concepts. This is kind of supported by the stargazing Jotun and the Human Gods do, when the Dragons rise and fall it causes the cosmos to realign and reshape to some degree, in the Apostles take on the all 'Thyria' is the center of the universe essentially, and it's possible these wider universe spanning primordial elements are somehow keyed into how everything else in the universe works.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

It's actually been outright proven, stated and every synonym of those words that the Elder Dragons have nothing to do with the Six Gods. I mean, aside from a book in Season 2 suggesting that because players keep on making that theory, and the total lack of any NPC ever suggesting a relation between the two, during a recent forum chat a dev outright stated there was no relation between the two groups.

Jessica Price.1649Elder Dragons are native to Tyria, and the human gods are from elsewhere, so as far as them being related: no.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/494601/#Comment_494601

The only potential relation is that the Six Gods were part of the human homeworld's The All/Antikythera since that is just a global system (and is why The All != Eternal Alchemy despite Scarlet's claim).

@"Loesh.4697" said:the Apostles take on the all 'Thyria' is the center of the universe essentially, and it's possible these wider universe spanning primordial elements are somehow keyed into how everything else in the universe works.

Thyria is just another, older, name for Tyria, which is not the center of the universe - that's The Rift. And as stated above, The All is not the mechanisms of the universe, but a global mechanism/system. The Elder Dragons are part of a global system, not a universal system.

[Moonyeti.3296]

The whole thing is on Glint really. Her plan, based on prophesy because she can see the future. Yet she couldn't see that people trying to defend themselves in a life or death situation would probably choose to kill the aggressor, especially if they had no idea there would be negative consequences? And being prophetic, she knew what those consequences would be but never bothered to tell anyone for what reasons? The scions were planned on being used as Elder Dragon replacements, but they didn't tell anyone that, and this is the result of sitting on that information. But no, it is the commander's fault for doing the logical thing at the time without information that was purposely withheld from them from an organization that had the direct means of knowing for sure if sitting on that information would be a good thing or not.

This is why I think they should never use prophecies in stories like this. It is so unsatisfying either way. Either the prophecy is true, thus immutable and terribly boring to play because there can be no player agency to change the prophecy, or there is a way to 'change fate' and it wasn't a prophecy in the first place.

[Moonyeti.3296]

@Ephemiel.5694 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Ephemiel.5694 said:

@Arden.7480 said:

@Ephemiel.5694 said:

@Arden.7480 said:It is not bad.

The whole point is that it was revealed to be very bad.

As Konig said. Killing them is not bad, killing them without a proper preparation is bad- its cataclysmic.

......Using your logic, if we could replace a person, then killing them isn't bad. Just think whatever you want, i'm done with all this ridiculous trolling.

Using that analogy, killing a mass murderer is bad, even if we can replace them with a model citizen who would help out charities and the like.

Granted,

that

is a bit of a question on morality. Whereas killing the Elder Dragons or not isn't.

Yes, killing a mass murderer is still bad, since you're COMMITTING MURDER YOURSELF.

I'm done with this and all the trolling you two are doing.

Yeah, that isn't trolling. They just are disagreeing with you and you clearly are not comfortable with it. Don't agree with me != trolls.

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

@"Moonyeti.3296" said:Yet she couldn't see that people trying to defend themselves in a life or death situation would probably choose to kill the aggressor, especially if they had no idea there would be negative consequences?As far as we know, she had no reason to believe we could kill an Elder Dragon without her personal intervention. There's no record of it ever having happened before, and at the time of her death, the other races had pretty consistently proven that they weren't willing to work together to save each other. It's obvious to us with the benefit of hindsight, but from where Glint was sitting, the odds of something like the Pact happening must've seemed so slim as to be nonexistent. That said...

And being prophetic, she knew what those consequences would be but never bothered to tell anyone for what reasons? The scions were planned on being used as Elder Dragon replacements, but they didn't tell anyone that, and this is the result of sitting on that information. But no, it is the commander's fault for doing the logical thing at the time without information that was purposely withheld from them from an organization that had the direct means of knowing for sure if sitting on that information would be a good thing or not.

Yeah, all of this is on her. Even if she didn't think a dragon would die, spreading around information as a contingency doesn't seem like a bad idea. As it was, she did tell a few select people at least part of it- the Forgotten, the Brotherhood of the Dragon, the Exalted, the leadership of the Zephyrites- but they all chose to keep it from the Commander. What's worse, it seems like Ogden and the Pale Tree- people we've worked closely with in the past- both had their suspicions, at minimum, and also chose not to tell us anything, with Ogden waving the point off with "Then you're not meant to know just yet. All things in their time."

This is one of the recurring elements in the story that's shaped up into a pet peeve of mine. Everyone jumped on Kormir's case for keeping quiet about information that could've helped us mortals avoid immense trouble, but the game had already had a long history of knowledgeable, benevolent entities stonewalling the protagonists and thereby guaranteeing some of the greatest catastrophes in the game's lifespan would come to pass.

[Moonyeti.3296]

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@"Moonyeti.3296" said:Yet she couldn't see that people trying to defend themselves in a life or death situation would probably choose to kill the aggressor, especially if they had no idea there would be negative consequences?As far as we know, she had no reason to believe we

could

kill an Elder Dragon without her personal intervention. There's no record of it ever having happened before, and at the time of her death, the other races had pretty consistently proven that they weren't willing to work together to save each other. It's obvious to us with the benefit of hindsight, but from where Glint was sitting, the odds of something like the Pact happening must've seemed so slim as to be nonexistent. That said...

And being prophetic, she knew what those consequences would be but never bothered to tell anyone for what reasons? The scions were planned on being used as Elder Dragon replacements, but they didn't tell anyone that, and this is the result of sitting on that information. But no, it is the commander's fault for doing the logical thing at the time without information that was purposely withheld from them from an organization that had the direct means of knowing for sure if sitting on that information would be a good thing or not.

Yeah, all of this is on her. Even if she didn't think a dragon would die, spreading around information as a contingency doesn't seem like a bad idea. As it was, she did tell a few select people at least part of it- the Forgotten, the Brotherhood of the Dragon, the Exalted, the leadership of the Zephyrites- but they all chose to keep it from the Commander. What's worse, it seems like Ogden and the Pale Tree- people we've worked closely with in the past- both had their suspicions, at minimum, and

also

chose not to tell us anything, with Ogden waving the point off with

"Then you're not meant to know just yet. All things in their time."

This is one of the recurring elements in the story that's shaped up into a pet peeve of mine. Everyone jumped on Kormir's case for keeping quiet about information that could've helped us mortals avoid immense trouble, but the game had already had a long history of knowledgeable, benevolent entities stonewalling the protagonists and thereby guaranteeing some of the greatest catastrophes in the game's lifespan would come to pass.

That is my beef with things as well. Wanting to have it both ways, by having people tell the commander "you will know when you need to" and then "why did you do that! EVERYONE knows that's a bad idea!" The poor commander is always left holding the bag because they were just working with what they had at the time.

It would be like watching a blind person in a room full of pits. The blind guy is hungry and there is food placed randomly around the room he can smell. Instead of just telling him where the food is, we wait until he falls in a hole and then call him stupid for falling in.

[perilisk.1874]

So... does the All have six components or twelve? Meaning, if each dragon has two spheres, were there twelve dragons at one point, and the All has been compromised for a long time? Or are the two spheres claimed by each dragon inherently associated in the All? Or is one of them part of the All (the natural one, i.e., plants or weather or geological activity or death and decay) and the other is more the Dragon's own idiom, like hive minds or crystals or whatnot?

[Dante.1763]

@perilisk.1874 said:So... does the All have six components or twelve? Meaning, if each dragon has two spheres, were there twelve dragons at one point, and the All has been compromised for a long time? Or are the two spheres claimed by each dragon inherently associated in the All? Or is one of them part of the All (the natural one, i.e., plants or weather or geological activity or death and decay) and the other is more the Dragon's own idiom, like hive minds or crystals or whatnot?

If i remember correctly its six, just the six primary spheres.

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

@Dante.1763 said:

@"perilisk.1874" said:So... does the All have six components or twelve? Meaning, if each dragon has two spheres, were there twelve dragons at one point, and the All has been compromised for a long time? Or are the two spheres claimed by each dragon inherently associated in the All? Or is one of them part of the All (the natural one, i.e., plants or weather or geological activity or death and decay) and the other is more the Dragon's own idiom, like hive minds or crystals or whatnot?

If i remember correctly its six, just the six primary spheres.

The map used by the Priory has something like forty-five spheres in varying degrees of overlap, but most depictions do have just seven, one correlating to each of the six Elder Dragons and a seventh that seems to represent Tyria.