Speculation on the goals of the invaders

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Because I can't believe it took this long for us to start this thread.

Monsters: I think Epic's whole reason for going to BT was to have his name echo across the land, like some sort of legend among beasts. He might have wanted to make BT his glorious land, where his beats could roam free, and his warriors could be nutured and grown. He seems to me to resemble someone like Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan. His goals seemed to be most direct, and most..."heroic" and "noble", though unfortunately those being conquered happened to be humans. Their blight message suggests that there are many monsters swarming, possibly to swell Epic's ranks.

Daimons: With all the lies they spout it's hard to figure out what their goals were. Having had a peek at some of their elders' orders (These special messages to the NPC realms. I believe each faction had different ones.) I strongly suspect that they sought to destroy humans or at least get rid of their presence so that they could transform the land into one more suitable for them. Their blight message suggests as much, that they have transformed the landscape to resemble their alien netherworld.

Undead: Somehow these dudes' goals are hard to imagine. I think they might have something to do with remembrance. But what is to be remembered? I've not a real clue, but I can imagine stuff. The dead that comprise the Many may have indeed once been among the living men who fought alongside the One, who might be the same One referenced by the Light. Whatever had been the cost, whatever darkness shredded the souls of the living, the dead bodies may have retained some memories. And perhaps the dead who roamed in the 4th Inv sought some form of absolution, for those of the living who have a future to pay proper respect to the sacrifices of their ancestors, and to do as they had done. In my opinion, the Undead were the most complex of the factions to consider during the Invasion.

Light: Er...fight the darkness?

That brings up the next point. The Light referred to the three other NPC factions as the Darkness, implying that they are each aspects of the same overarching power. So here goes my wild mass guessing machine!

There is this power known as the Darkness by the Light. Who knows what it really is. That's not important, let's focus on the three NPC factions. The daimons might be the soldiers, or perhaps their elders are even the leaders of this alternate world filled with darkness. The Netherworld is never really explained, though Seer once described her mind as connecting with the void. The monsters were called the dogs of darkness by the Light, and I think that if we equate the Darkness with, say, Hell/Underworld/something similar for simplicity, then the monsters would have been descended or derived from the guard dogs of the Darkness or something. So that would make the daimons in fact somewhat close to the modern popular interpretation of western demons, or the denizens of this underworld. The undead that appeared in the 4th Inv may be the escaped damned souls that inhabited the empty bodies of corpses.

Ok, wild mass guessing off. Your thoughts?

[^ban^]

I believe "the Few" would be more reasonable in your guesses regarding the undead and the One than the entirety of the Many.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

By that I take it you mean the dudes you actually played?

It would be kind of hard to gauge the goals of thousands maybe millions of dead. Then again it's also not easy to identify what binds the undead to be led seemingly by the few in 4th Inv.

Of course the same complexity could be said for all other factions. The monsters have been portrayed as showing the same or nearly the same scope of emotion as humans, and the passions can often lead to unpredictable ambitions. I would liken their faction to something out of The Iliad. Just replace Agamemnon with Epic, Achilles with Sword, etc I guess. Not perfect comparison but I am reminded of a possible adaptation of the poem with animals as the characters.

The daimons pose an interesting puzzle as well, for why exactly did they transform some regions to resemble another world? If Prudent is really a scientist, is our world our species some experiment? Was Sherilynn really a goddess or someone propped up by the daimons to manipulate the faith of humans?

Finally there is the Light. While they are a late arrival they pose interesting questions when compared to the story of the One. While it appears rathet clear that they were there to fight the other NPCs there is no clear reason why. Just what makes the Light want to help humans? Perhaps they are an embodiment of the hope maintained through faith that is found in metaphor? Or more disturbingly, what if their main goal was to repel the Darkness and humans happened to be the only convenient agents to perform the task?

[Tom]

Oh, there are secrets within the Light that may never be revealed. But some might. Hop over to the Beyond forum if you want to speed it up.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Yay! Secret finding time!

[Sypher]

I seem to recall reading some stuff on the wiki regarding what the Daimons thought of the Light. Can't remember where though...

[Indirik]

For those of us not on BT during the invasion, the efforts to compile the various information onto the wiki was a lot of fun. Sadly it kind of fell off and disappeared as the invasion progressed.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

The stuff the daimons said about the Light were more or less fabrications I'd imagine. All I know about them apart from the demonstrated stuff is that supposedly if all three temples' powers were combined then the other NPCs couldn't gain any reinforcements. For that reason the daimons, monsters, and undead probably all said the Light was evil and wanted humans to get rid of them.

[Glaumring the Fox]

I like how you have dug much deeper into this, I only know of Daimons from my(Gathleds) service to Arcane in Vlaandaran. That was alot of fun but we sure took a pounding in the end for that. Damn you Arcane for leaving us!

[Chenier]

I like how you have dug much deeper into this, I only know of Daimons from my(Gathleds) service to Arcane in Vlaandaran. That was alot of fun but we sure took a pounding in the end for that. Damn you Arcane for leaving us!

Arcane was awful. I played in Vlaanderen in the days, and I was part of the group that pressured Arcane to leave "to later return with amazing forces to punish these evil people", while being quite intent on closing that portal behind his ass. We all figured it was in his plans to leave and never return anyways, but we tried to get it done as soon as possible. That's where the Blood Cult blossomed.

Arcane was dooming Vlaanderen in a most frustrating way. He'd use his mighty forces to go annoy all of our neighbours, but just enough to piss them off, not to cripple them. He then basically left the realm to defend itself from the attacks as he continued to taunt everyone else with his daimons. And he never spoke a word. He may be a god and all, but silent rulers are lame regardless. He pissed everyone off so much that there was simply no way for the realm to survive anymore, he basically single-handedly destroyed Vlaanderen by using the neighbours' armies as his tool.

I'm not sure what all of the factions' goals were, but I got a feeling that complacent realms like Riombara, and extremely complacent realms like everyone north of Enweil short of Thalmarkin, will still get away with the least harm.

[Geronus]

I'm not sure what all of the factions' goals were, but I got a feeling that complacent realms like Riombara, and extremely complacent realms like everyone north of Enweil short of Thalmarkin, will still get away with the least harm.

Complacent? We fought the monsters to the bitter end... Twice. The first time Lance won a battle IN GREHK before suddenly going inactive for a few days, which gave us time to raise militia and get the walls back. The second time only the arrival of Gerontius saved us, and there were literally monsters at the gates in the hours before we managed to get our own Temple of Light set up there. Riombara never compromised, and I like to think we were a bit of a thorn in the monsters' backside. After they left us alone the first time, we eventually went back to war and started taking all our regions back.

[Tan dSerrai]

Regarding Riombara being 'complacent':
During the end of the invasion the Temple of Light in Riombara did destroy at least 60000 CS of monsters...more probably closer to 90000. These would have in large part otherwise be thrown against Enweil. Without the temple Riombara would surely have been destroyed. Note also that Riombara went to war against the monsters for the second time /before/ we had an inkling that the third temple of light would be constructed in Grehk.

It would be good to see these facts being taken into account before Riombara is labeled as 'complacent'...grin. If we would have been more complacent I think that Enweil would have had considerable larger troubles towards the end of the invasion.

[Chenier]

Regarding Riombara being 'complacent':
During the end of the invasion the Temple of Light in Riombara did destroy at least 60000 CS of monsters...more probably closer to 90000. These would have in large part otherwise be thrown against Enweil. Without the temple Riombara would surely have been destroyed. Note also that Riombara went to war against the monsters for the second time /before/ we had an inkling that the third temple of light would be constructed in Grehk.

It would be good to see these facts being taken into account before Riombara is labeled as 'complacent'...grin. If we would have been more complacent I think that Enweil would have had considerable larger troubles towards the end of the invasion.

Think of it from Enweil's PoV. The monsters declare war on the SE, don't really bother Enweil much at first. Then they come to "test" us, and we kill one of theirs, much to their displeasure. Since we can't get the SE to actually sign peace with us in order to coordinate any cooperation (not that we had much sympathy at the time for your two realms), we contended ourselves with telling the monsters to "stay out of our turf" while we bid our time and prepared. Then, out of the blues, they attack us with full force, and start making demands.

Enweilian pride kicks in. "They dare launch a sneak attack and then ask us, the continent's superpower, to serve them? I think not!" If any realm could make a dent in their war machine, Enweilians were convinced they'd get the glory of it. And we couldn't stand dropping from continental superpower to vassal state in one fell swoop. So we declared all-out war on the monsters, and marched our forces against them. Our armies got slaughtered in an ambush, and many nobles, some very prominent, were killed in the battle. The monsters demand submission again. Enweilians know what it would mean, though, and were both not willing to turn on Avalon and Bara'Khur, and were much too prideful to submit to threats, even by invaders.

So we turned for help. We sought to improve relations and coordination with Riombara, with much greater interest than at first. We got an alliance with the Daimons in order to use their might to get some payback. We suffer massive losses, but the thirst for revenge fuels us against the stronger foe, the comfort of daimonic backing crystallizes our determination. But as we strike serious blows against the monsters, and push them back on many occasions, we turn to the realm at the beasts' core and see it doing nothing. Not only that, but we see that its council is paralyzed by people wanting Riombara to ally the monsters and use them against us, to actually march their army against us. And then a bunch of Riombaran dukes and lords seceded to form a realm with the sole purpose of fueling the monsters' war against us. And Riombara sits by and does nothing, even when the monster sympathizers are gone.

By the time Rio declares it'll do something, the invasion draws near its end. But even after the declaration, they don't actually send troops. They just let the Servants flash their death ray. Enweilians lost a great number of greatly valued nobles fighting the monsters, and while we continue to struggle, we see Riombara just sitting there letting the Light, which we greatly distrusted, zap away at nearby monsters.

Then, when the invasion ends, we get hit by a second invasion, of undead this time. By the looks of the stats, Enweil is hit severely, while Riombara not so much in comparison. Instead of helping, we see Riombara expanding, and even taking a city that was previously ours, and that we had lost because of the monsters, as happened with others.

From Enweil's POV, Riombara did too little, too late, and even that too little was mostly letting others do their thing while sitting back itself. The monster servants seem to have the re-integrated Riombara, who took advantage of the situation to take away for good yet another city of ours (Ete being blighted). We fought Riombara a lot, so we knew what she was capable of. But when the invasion struck, we only saw that in regards to defending DoA, and never afterwards.

[Geronus]

That's just silly. Riombara fought hard. The Meridian Republic seceded because they couldn't get the rest of Riombara to side with the monsters, and let me assure you, that break was not a political ploy. There was real animosity over that move. Evander certainly hated them for their betrayal, and he will never respect the decision they made, though I as a player recognize that it very likely saved Riombara as it is now. It was a bitter break, and there was definitely talk of attacking MR instead of the monsters in the middle of the invasion. We accepted Rines and Athol Margos back into the fold because we're pragmatic, and because the then-Duke of Rines (Khaludh Telrunya) offered to step down after he returned his stolen Duchy, which he did. Ercole was allowed to keep his because he did not go along with the original secession plot, and we decided that what he did, he did for Athol Margos. He was right too, even though his principles are suspect. If he'd stayed with Riombara, Athol Margos would probably be either completely destroyed or blighted at this point.

From what I have heard Enweil made an early deal with the monsters that essentially ceded them the southeast, i.e. the lands of Riombara and DoA. You hardly bothered to help us or DoA when we were in the line of fire, are you really going to piss and moan that we didn't help you when you were in the same boat? Riombara was more than half-wrecked and DoA was dead by the time Enweil ended up on the wrong end of the stick and came looking for help. Frankly you deserved it. Did you think the monsters would stop when they'd conquered us? We literally had *nothing* we could offer you by the time you were asking for help. We were down to a handful of regions, and we'd lost nearly all of our strength when MR seceded. You should be glad that we declared war on them a second time. We didn't have to, and I can confidently say that it commanded the attention of nearly their entire force for at least a month of real time, during which time we employed the Temple of Light to disintegrate numerous armies. That's a month that Enweil had to recover. And since then Riombara has sent Enweil aid on several occasions (at Evander's urging I might add), though it seems that doing so was pointless if your character's attitude is indicative of Enweil's as a whole.

Besides, it's not like Enweil ever came to OUR aid. I have a hard time taking you seriously when you are prepared to criticize Riombara for not helping Enweil, when at the same time we've received next to no help from you in return. In fact we never received any military aid from Enweil at all at any point during the entire invasion. Riombara was in far worse straits than Enweil during the invasion, having been reduced to a single region TWICE. I fail to see how this made us 'complacent'. I fail to see how this justifies some sort of Enweilian grudge against us. We had our own damn problems, no thanks to Enweil, and we fought hard in our own right without any help from anyone except Gerontius.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

What Chenier and Geronus have said about each other's realms makes me think that such was exactly the thing the NPCs were trying to exploit in their bid to fulfill whatever conditions they had on BT.