What did we lose? What did we gain? 4th Inv aftermath

[songqu88@gmail.com]

According to some involved in the organization of 4th Inv, those books had questionable reliability. Since they were written quite obviously from the perspective of the Invader to which the book applied, more people probably should have been skeptical.

[Tom]

Yeah, what Artemesia said. The books were in way authoritative, I thought The Dream made it pretty clear - you find each on in the lair of that faction. Hello? How could it have screamed "propaganda!" any louder? :-)

But, that exactly, was a main part of the plot for the 4th - that these invaders aren't unlike the humans in one aspect: They have reasons for what they do, and they think of themselves as the good guys.

[^ban^]

But, that exactly, was a main part of the plot for the 4th - that these invaders aren't unlike the humans in one aspect: They have reasons for what they do, and they think of themselves as the good guys.

The Many only want to help! Really!

not many remember the path of law leads to evil as well as good though...

[songqu88@gmail.com]

What?! The Undead were the Knight Templar faction?! Preposterous! 

Though if I think about it now, from a surface perspective, it appears that the factions have an interesting D&D alignment concept. Whether this is actually the case, I'd never know, nor would I ever know if it was intended, if the connection is true.

At first glance, the daimons were concerned with destruction, which is often a clear label for chaotic evil. The monsters appeared concerned with...conquest? Not really sure, it seemed like Epic was mostly a conqueror much like the human conquerors of legend, so neutral evil I guess because... One interpretation of ^ban^'s post could be that the Pact was some immutable law from which humans of the present could not deviate, so lawful evil.

But this is just me making wild guesses. Oh, and the Light...meh. Probably meant to be some sort of Good.

[Geronus]

People allied with the invaders because to not do so was death. The realms that did not ally with an invader faction were mostly destroyed. Riombara and Thlamarkin survived quite literally by the skin of their teeth, and both realms could have fallen but did not because invaders chose to pull punches (or went inactive at a bad time, maybe). Both realms lost battles in their *last* region at which point the invaders oddly did not begin a TO, or abandoned one in progress (I think thats what happened in Unger). The realms that weathered the storm best were either in the undead corner of the map, where the local invaders were inexplicably merciful compared to their southern and western counterparts, or were firmly allied to one faction or another. The lesson drawn I would say is that discretion is the better part of valor. Honestly if all the human realms had resisted to the end, the invaders would have probably conquered the map. It's not like human armies were capable of stopping them. Realms survived by taking sides and avoiding the wrath of the invaders closest to them.

[De-Legro]

People allied with the invaders because to not do so was death. The realms that did not ally with an invader faction were mostly destroyed. Riombara and Thlamarkin survived quite literally by the skin of their teeth, and both realms could have fallen but did not because invaders chose to pull punches (or went inactive at a bad time, maybe). Both realms lost battles in their *last* region at which point the invaders oddly did not begin a TO, or abandoned one in progress (I think thats what happened in Unger). The realms that weathered the storm best were either in the undead corner of the map, where the local invaders were inexplicably merciful compared to their southern and western counterparts, or were firmly allied to one faction or another. The lesson drawn I would say is that discretion is the better part of valor. Honestly if all the human realms had resisted to the end, the invaders would have probably conquered the map. It's not like human armies were capable of stopping them. Realms survived by taking sides and avoiding the wrath of the invaders closest to them.

I think we needed to have allied with each other and faced the invaders much earlier in the war. Once they had claimed regions easily off realms like us in DoA they had that much more scope to recruit armies. We were told that the way to fight them was not necessarily with our own armies, but it always seemed to me that very few characters were willing to co-operate to work out what the other means may have been.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Leave it to humans to subvert each other in times of crisis. But in this case, this was still a game, and one that I think engenders subversion. In the north, ^ban^ did hint that the Undead didn't have as a goal the destruction of the human realms. In the case of the daimons, I have some confidence that among their goals was in fact destruction which explains ICly the large swath of land the Netherworld was responsible for blighting. The monsters, I can have a somewhat educated guess that they sought conquest as one of their goals so taking over regions furthered those ends.

There was something about the Light, but I will defer to Anaris as to whether he is willing and/or allowed to reveal that alternative.

[Iltaran]

For those who don't know me, I play Askarn, who was King of Old Grehk during the War of the Nine Realms and the Fourth Invasion.

Given that we were in the middle of a fairly bitter continent wide war until about a week before the invasion began in earnest, I think the realms allied up about as well as could be hoped. What went wrong was, in my view, a combination of overconfidence and a lack of leadership. The general opinion amongst the Rulers (with the obvious exception of Sint) seemed to be that we'd be able to hold our own for a couple of months at least. Needless to say... this wasn't the case and Heen, Alluran and Mesh were doomed within weeks. After that it became more of an "every man for himself" situation.  None of the rulers stood up and offered any sort of plan on how to get through the invasion alive (or if they did, it was hopelessly tainted with self interest).

[Tom]

The realms that weathered the storm best were either in the undead corner of the map, where the local invaders were inexplicably merciful compared to their southern and western counterparts,

Bwuahahaha... merciful. The undead. You've not seen the Beyond trailer yet, have you? Merciful. That made my day. Still laughing from that. Oh, dear creation.

Try: So cunning that even now you don't realize the full extent of their victory.

[Revan]

Really enjoyed Aelradir's post. It's very interesting, especially as someone who had some power in Heen back in the third invasion. There actually was a strong effort to make Martana cut you adrift and turn on Sint for their alliance with daimonry but she managed to weather the storm and stay the course. She wasn't ready to risk daimonic assault and even as the invasion finished, she wasn't interested in punishing invasion transgressions.

It's also very interesting to see Tom's post about the daimons. Glad to know I wasn't wrong in opposing daimons from the Third Invasion but Beluaterra as a whole wasn't all that worried about daimonry. In the time between invasions I spent a lot of time decrying dragon worshippers and trying to help people see why Sint ought to have gone the way of Vlaanderen too but didn't get far. It was really frustrating to see Mesh talking about the Blood Cult and daimonry whilst forging an alliance with Sint, who had had daimon lords walking among them. Mesh seemed to be striking the wrong enemies and Sint's friends ought to have abandoned her. When daimons turned up again, I flexed every sinew in Bara'Khur to make them see daimons were the true enemy and that Bara'Khur had to work for the good of all human realms but ended up going into exile after failing utterly.

Even now, I stick to the view that the daimons were the real enemy, or at least no more a friend of humanity than any other faction, but most people seem to think I'm slightly mad. To some extent though, I wonder if the daimons had it easier due to the time between invasions. In some areas, there seemed to be surprisingly few veterans of the Third Invasion and even then, unless you were in the north-west the daimons weren't as life altering or fearsome as perhaps they could have been. What I remember and experienced of daimonry in the Third Invasion just didn't chime with the experience some people were having of daimons at the start of the Fourth and so it was very easy to write off those opposing daimonry as being ridiculous very early on.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

I think at this point it's fair to say that there were no "real" enemies, or rather, all enemies were quite real.

[Haerthorne]

I think at this point it's fair to say that there were no "real" enemies, or rather, all enemies were quite real.

It didn't help that many of the human realms saw the invaders at the outset as not so much allies, but creatures that could be used to their advantage.

I played as King of the Dominion of Alluran at the outset, later Duke of Fwuvoghor and General of the Meridian Republic. I worked with Duke Khaludh of Rines to create MR and Mordred was interested in seeing it created as well, so for anyone who still says that MR was purely opportunistic I'll remind them that there were two major factions, the Fwuvoghor remnants and the rest, both who wanted to play the invaders against each other whilst we could build up our strength to a point where we could more effectively fight back. There were fallouts with the monsters which didn't really eventuate into much because they suffered pretty badly from someone getting sick and inactive. At the end of the day most of the military action we saw was 1) when we took over the rogue regions of the isles and were attacked by the combined forces of Avalon and Bara'Khur and 2) when we had to defend our lands against the daimons who snuck past Fwuvoghor and teleported into our core food producing regions.

A fair bit of that is stuff I've said before, but I do notice MR still has a tarnished reputation from people who decided to wear themselves down on us before the monsters attacked them, as well as Riombarans who were angry to see a city of theirs leave. Haha man I'm such a broken record. To be fair I bailed out when the monsters ate most of Fwuvoghor's population and Celyn went crazy.

I think we needed to have allied with each other and faced the invaders much earlier in the war. Once they had claimed regions easily off realms like us in DoA they had that much more scope to recruit armies. We were told that the way to fight them was not necessarily with our own armies, but it always seemed to me that very few characters were willing to co-operate to work out what the other means may have been.

A lot of the time we either made the wrong assumption or wait you know what its 9:45pm and I have at least a hundred pages of crap to read and write an essay on and I feel like crap so ima cut this short.

[Geronus]

Bwuahahaha... merciful. The undead. You've not seen the Beyond trailer yet, have you? Merciful. That made my day. Still laughing from that. Oh, dear creation.

Try: So cunning that even now you don't realize the full extent of their victory.

Be that as it may, I can only assume that this is because they had other goals than mere conquest, goals they managed to fulfill in some way. I'm simply pointing out that of all the invaders, they were the only ones who did not destroy a single realm. With the exception of Thalmarkin, they didn't even really do that much permanent damage to any one realm. Even more than that, they let several realms off the hook when they could have destroyed them. Thalmarkin definitely, but also probably Melhed and OG.

[Tom]

It didn't help that many of the human realms saw the invaders at the outset as not so much allies, but creatures that could be used to their advantage.

We totally lured them into that trap, though. All three factions had instructions from me to make it look like they could be used, and to make allies, and then betray them. They all did it in their own ways, but the basic message should've reached you by now that all three are inhuman and don't see humans as equals, so there can be no real alliances, except temporary alignments of goals.

Be that as it may, I can only assume that this is because they had other goals than mere conquest, goals they managed to fulfill in some way. I'm simply pointing out that of all the invaders, they were the only ones who did not destroy a single realm. With the exception of Thalmarkin, they didn't even really do that much permanent damage to any one realm. Even more than that, they let several realms off the hook when they could have destroyed them. Thalmarkin definitely, but also probably Melhed and OG.

Yes, they had other goals. And they reached them. Most of the bill is still open on that. But payday will come. After all, we have to have something for the 5th invasion, whatever form it may take.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Ha, don't tell me that the entirety of Melhed and Old Grehk has doomed themselves to supply the Undead with corpses in agreeing to that elusive "Pact".

But you know, I don't think the Light really fulfilled its "ultimate" purpose, if it could be called that.