Bozja: enjoyable lore, a GREAT start...

Hear me out, but the Blades should not have been tempered - or if there were, not transformed (rewrite the lore of Trinity Seeker, the Royal Guard and Trinity Avowed to be ancient Bozjan war machina meant to counter the Allagan war machina - it'd fit, given the ancient Bozjans created the original gunblades).
Except Lovro, him being ambushed and tempered outside of CLL in the field makes sense and plays into a later point.

Because if any tempering succeeded in CLL, there's no reason in-story why Bajsaljien and Marsak should've escaped. Even if Misija knew the plan she still fired up a second round of aether to temper Bajsaljien and Marsak. Which makes sense in-story: remove Bajsaljien and Marsak, the Bozjan Resistance is done, delaying tactic accomplished.

But really, no one needs to be tempered for the Queen to be used as a delaying tactic: the threat of being ambushed and tempered is enough, especially as the WoL can't be everywhere, so it would be logical for the Resistance to be in nigh-on full retreat.

All this could be accomplished by removing the section of the cutscene between the Queen forming her tempering blades and the WoL firing up the anti-tempering barrier, plus rewriting some field notes (using the above point and maybe have the Blades elsewhere working on securing/ motivating people to rebuild in other regions of Bozja).

Now, for the transformations, two points:
If you're using a primal as a delaying tactic, why waste the aether? Everyone else we've seen transformed by a primal - such as those in Sastasha (Hard), Nael, the Heaven's Ward (debatable) and some Imperials - is still recognizably human, and even then, these are people who have usually been around primals for years.
I'll give the rapidly-transformed Imperials a pass because of the sheer number of tempered followers from most loyal imperials and countless members of the beast tribes Anima has plus towers world-wide channeling aether into said primal, so Anima has aether to burn. The Queen doesn't have such a massive following, nor even that many crystals to empower her.

Further, Trinity Avowed and Trinity Seeker are mergers of the Blades, something which no Primal has been shown to be capable of doing. Only those with the Echo/ Resonant and rituals for summoning/ creating primals have shown such ability, at least while the body exists (we've seen that the free aether of the soul is more easily absorbed), but that would involve killing the Blades, which is a waste - especially considering that three people as in-sync as each trio is could easily accomplish what the single entity they become could not.

Not saying remove or change the bosses in DL, either, they don't have to be transformed Blades.

Alright, I've made this long enough, I'm happy to discuss any points that anyone brings up in other posts.

For the merging of the Blades, I can see precedent for where that's possible. It's known that primals can effectively change the forms of their tempered minions (as seen by the pirate captain in Sastasha HM), so combining them into a new changed form is not out of the question.

Also, it was stated by Matsuno that had he known they planned on curing Tempering, he never would have killed off the Blades like he did. Yoshi-P and the other devs kept that fact close to their chest, and so Matsuno had us save the only Blade left unused, Lovro.

Tempered altering form isn't deliberately caused by the Primal, but because they have been overtempered, namely their aetherial aspect has been dangerously pushed towards the element of the Primal in question (i.e. Leviathan's tempered such as the aforementioned Captain Madison, had their aether's elemental alignment over aspected to Water - when this happens the body itself is irrercoverably warped into an abomination).

This is similar to what happened to those unlucky enough to be caught up in elemental Flood, such as the Flood of Darkness that turned the Thirteenth into the Void (and thus birthed the Voidsent), and the Flood of Light that similarly erased most of the First (and mutated those unlucky enough to have been caught in it's wake into Sineaters). It's all to do with aether.

Also, don't forget, a Primal's whole reason for tempering in the first place is to create more devoted followers, thus increasing their power, as a Primal's power comes from faith and worship; making more followers means more worship, more worship means more power, and so it goes in a never ending cycle. This is why Primals were so dangerous.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

For the merging of the Blades, I can see precedent for where that's possible. It's known that primals can effectively change the forms of their tempered minions (as seen by the pirate captain in Sastasha HM), so combining them into a new changed form is not out of the question.

Also, it was stated by Matsuno that had he known they planned on curing Tempering, he never would have killed off the Blades like he did. Yoshi-P and the other devs kept that fact close to their chest, and so Matsuno had us save the only Blade left unused, Lovro.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Tempered altering form isn't deliberately caused by the Primal, but because they have been overtempered, namely their aetherial aspect has been dangerously pushed towards the element of the Primal in question (i.e. Leviathan's tempered such as the aforementioned Captain Madison, had their aether's elemental alignment over aspected to Water - when this happens the body itself is irrercoverably warped into an abomination).

This is similar to what happened to those unlucky enough to be caught up in elemental Flood, such as the Flood of Darkness that turned the Thirteenth into the Void (and thus birthed the Voidsent), and the Flood of Light that similarly erased most of the First (and mutated those unlucky enough to have been caught in it's wake into Sineaters). It's all to do with aether.

Also, don't forget, a Primal's whole reason for tempering in the first place is to create more devoted followers, thus increasing their power, as a Primal's power comes from faith and worship; making more followers means more worship, more worship means more power, and so it goes in a never ending cycle. This is why Primals were so dangerous.

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I don't disagree that the alteration of form can and does happen - we have plenty of evidence for that. However, all indications are that it either takes a significant amount of time or a large overwhelming surge of aether. Given that not a lot of time passes in the Bozja story (months at most, I think), wouldn't it have to be the latter? Otherwise the high priests who conduct the beast tribes' summonings would be exhibiting alterations as well.
And while nothing has been said on this in the lore panels I'm aware of, I would currently conclude the degree of alteration would depend on the extent of aetheric alteration in the tempered.

What The Queen does is a more radical alteration than any transformation we've seen thus far: the Blades aren't even remotely recognizable and their souls are merged.
This sort of alteration has only been seen with an elemental Flood, yes, but not by a primal. It seems to be a whole different magnitude.

Also, RyuDragnier, you have a point about how Matsuno handled it, but SE has gone back and corrected dialogue and cutscenes that were problematic when it can to lore or story (the ending cutscene after the Vault is a more recent example).

Something to keep in mind about the Blade itself, it was made by the Allagan Empire with Auracite, and basically corrupts the desires of the user. As we've seen with Auracite from Ivalice and Bozja, it can completely warp the user and the aether in the area. Fusing of souls isn't out of the ballpark considering how little we actually know of how Auracite itself functions. Hell, all we know is that it came from Ultima, we don't know it's original world of origin.

I concede that's possible - hypothetically, it's equally as valid to say auracite could fuse souls as not, and rituals to summon primals can achieve the same (and individuals with the Echo/ Resonant).

But it takes aether to fuel the process - regardless of the power The Queen might gain from such alteration and fusing, it is using the aether stored within the Blade/ focus to do so, aether which is limited in its supply. And that was my main point: is there sufficient aether in that single shard of auracite to do so, considering that it was apparently low enough on aether the IVth dared not take any offensive actions despite catching the Resistance on the back foot? Low enough on aether where it was left powerless by the end of the story?

The transformed Blades in Delubrum Reginae are the most understated horror in the game, it's earnestly fantastic. That moment of 'oh god, OH GOD' when it really dawns on you just what you're dealing with is something that the game usually doesn't touch.

I'd also point out that Misija isn't exactly the world's most rational actor. She's got a completely understandable and even agreeable central motive--if you read through the field notes for extra info, she's absolutely right, the IVth Legion were providing better chances and living conditions to the lower classes. But she's also spiteful, vindictive and hateful, and her stunt with the Queen is just as much about hurting those who've wronged her as it is about bringing what she sees as a better Bozja. It's no surprise she falls in with the Garleans; like them when Solus gave them the ability to fight back, she took one look at the power that Save the Queen offered her and realized that she could take revenge.

Yes, I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that those transformations were ultimately a bit of a waste of Save the Queen's aetheric reserves. It wouldn't even be the only self-defeating thing she does in that one instance: if you read the Queen's Guard entry, you'll find out that one of them probably would've been a staunch ally of Misija, but wasn't given the time of day to show it. (Specifically it's the Queen's Warrior, the axe-wielder.) But Misija is not smart, even if she's surprisingly cunning; she's an imperfect actor making mistakes, and one of those mistakes is being wasteful.


Also, on a more metatextual level: Delubrum Reginae came in the exact same patch cycle as Matoya's Relict and the curing of the tempered kobolds. There was now a confirmed and functional cure for tempering, albeit one with the limitation of there being a point where they're too far gone. Suddenly, Bozja's problem of 'the blades are tempered' feels like a lot less of a problem, because it's now completely fixable. Therefore, if that problem is to remain a problem, then it needs to escalate to the point where it's not fixable. And that limitation on the tempering cure provides one: if there's physical changes, then the cure can't help. The horrible transformations in Delubrum Reginae were likely written in because of that: if the Blades were still human, you could just say 'well it's fine we can fix that', but if they're like THAT, there's nothing you can do but stop them and mourn them.

Incidentally, there's an interesting part where there's uncertainty about how the tempering cure actually works regarding that 'point of no return', and it's something where the DR bosses cover all bases anyway, which is quite clever. It's not clear if the tempering cure just doesn't work at all on transformed people, or if it works but doesn't fix the body. If it's the latter, we could've theoretically helped the Queen's Guard, although they would probably beg for death afterward; however, even if we could do that, Trinity Seeker and Trinity Avowed would still be an unfixable mess.

That plot point didn't make sense to me either when they gone off as saying the blade was spent of aether, yet they had to have been created after she entered Delubrum Reginae.

Though that's hardly the first time the storyline just does stuff for the sake of plot given other nonsense like Mikoto's future sight that just works and obeys almost none of the established logic behind the Echo.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

That plot point didn't make sense to me either when they gone off as saying the blade was spent of aether, yet they had to have been created after she entered Delubrum Reginae.

It really did feel like a sudden adjustment made in response to the whole "tempering is fixable now" element but without considering the logic behind it.

Though that's hardly the first time the storyline just does stuff for the sake of plot given other nonsense like Mikoto's future sight that just works and doesn't obey any of the established logic behind the Echo.

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No its cuz COVID had them scrap an entire planned zone for Bozja. They were initially written to be saved but the story they had going in that direction was scrapped entirely when they had to sit down and make cuts to what they had planned into what we ended up with post Southern Front (whenever they decided all they could get out the door on relative schedule was DR/S Zadnor and Delrida/S is when they had to do the rewrites to fit that structure accordingly), I forget which Live Letter it was but Matsuno and Yoshida were talking about developing the Bozja content in the midst of COVID protocols requiring work from home measures and such when they bring up what was initially planned and what they had to adjust.

I agree Misija is spiteful and hateful - which is why it makes no sense that she didn't temper Bajsaljien and Marsak right away, which wrecks the consistency in-story.

However, after CLL, she's supervised by Lyon at least - plus she's back in a military setting. Neither of those are conducive to her being able to act out her revenge fantasies, especially since the IVth is starved for resources.

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Originally Posted by HaveAltWillFun

IWhat The Queen does is a more radical alteration than any transformation we've seen thus far: the Blades aren't even remotely recognizable and their souls are merged.

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Nitpick: their bodies are merged but their souls seem to be separate and switching around which one of them is in control.

But I agree, it feels too far beyond what we've seen tempering do in other cases. This isn't just individuals being warped from human(ish) form into monsters, or even somehow getting entwined into one monstrosity with the three people tangled together, but completely merged into one new form. It isn't satisfactorily explained or foreshadowed by previous cases of tempering.

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Originally Posted by HaveAltWillFun

I agree Misija is spiteful and hateful - which is why it makes no sense that she didn't temper Bajsaljien and Marsak right away, which wrecks the consistency in-story.

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She tried. We stopped her. Also, her first angle was more of a poetic justice thing; temper Gunnhildr's Blades to make them what she feels they're meant to be, which is 'servants of Gunnhildr'. Bajsaljen and Marsak were priority two (possibly also because they aren't as capable in combat), and yes, it probably would've been smarter to just swing at them first, but again: she's not smart. (Also while I'm not about to check the cutscene, I'm pretty sure B&M were behind the Blades, so there's a few people in the way.)

Lyon is technically her commander, but remember that Lyon is also not a perfect rational actor. He clearly keeps Misija on a loose leash and thinks she can handle herself, and is also clearly someone who thinks what Misija's pulling is, in short, cool as hell--he does not disapprove, even if he recognizes it's shady. He wouldn't have told her not to do that because he thought that it was a good idea, he recognizes fear tactics and that she's pretty capable; really, his only mistake was thinking she'd win. But even then, he's also someone who believes in acceptable losses; if Misija falls while achieving something, even if that thing is just buying time for the Dalriada to turn up, then that itself is acceptable.

Ironically, it feels like your disagreement about Misija turning the Blades into perfect robots is because you want different characters to be different kinds of perfect robot. A lot of what you're saying is... well, correct, they are doing things that make no logical sense and making mistakes that they could've easily just not made. that's the point; they're not perfect, they're not geniuses, they made mistakes.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Nitpick: their bodies are merged but their souls seem to be separate and switching around which one of them is in control.

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Ah, I misinterpreted that or mis-remembered someone saying they were merged into one soul.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

She tried. We stopped her. Also, her first angle was more of a poetic justice thing; temper Gunnhildr's Blades to make them what she feels they're meant to be, which is 'servants of Gunnhildr'. Bajsaljen and Marsak were priority two (possibly also because they aren't as capable in combat), and yes, it probably would've been smarter to just swing at them first, but again: she's not smart. (Also while I'm not about to check the cutscene, I'm pretty sure B&M were behind the Blades, so there's a few people in the way.)

Lyon is technically her commander, but remember that Lyon is also not a perfect rational actor... he recognizes fear tactics and that she's pretty capable; really, his only mistake was thinking she'd win...

Ironically, it feels like your disagreement about Misija turning the Blades into perfect robots is because you want different characters to be different kinds of perfect robot. A lot of what you're saying is... well, correct, they are doing things that make no logical sense and making mistakes that they could've easily just not made. that's the point; they're not perfect, they're not geniuses, they made mistakes.

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Bajsaljen and Marsak are part of the Blades - they're wielding the reforged weapons, they're the commanders of the unit.
As for the positioning - the same point could be raised for the Blades themselves: they're in a staggered formation, so some of them are behind the others - Bajsaljen and Marsak are no more protected from The Queen than about half the Blades are, from what I can tell (also, the tempering blades are guided, they don't fly in straight lines).
I did have to check the cutscene, because you raised a good point that I couldn't recall precisely, Cleretic.

As for rational actors and perfect robots... as we have seen, both in-game and in lore Garlean soldiers obey orders from superiors even if they don't want to (Julles being a recent example). That is how the Empire tends to employ their troops, as robots. But even so, considering Noah's plans for Bajsaljen to take up his cause, Misija's attempt to or success at tempering him because of her prettiness and spite would be an enormous mistake and would fit because she wouldn't necessarily care about how capable Bajsaljen and Marsak are in combat. The use of fear tactics can be better employed by having the Blades themselves do the attacking, not unknown abominations - which Lyon would probably recognize, rational or no, because it's one of the oldest military tactics around. I don't expect geniuses, but consistency of character is important.

Oh, but we did recognize them; we recognized EXACTLY what they did, and it genuinely upset at least Mikoto. By all appearances, the fear tactics worked, they just didn't work well enough. But again, you're falling into the same mistake: you're declaring that they could have done better, rather than that they would have. I think they're perfectly consistent, it's just that every member of the IVth Legion is consistently flawed. Misija would've transformed them because it makes them 'better' while also being pretty horrifying, and Lyon would've let her because he broadly approves and kept her on a loose enough leash that he wouldn't have been around for that decision anyway.

Also, Bajsaljen and Marsak actually aren't in Gunnhildr's Blades! The Blades were a small group of the Resistance, basically elected entirely for political reasons. Bajsaljen is the leader of the Bozjan Resistance as a whole, but not a member of the Blades, and Marsak is his right-hand man. They also don't wield the resistance weapons themselves (which would for their respective jobs have been Ingrimm and Crownsblade). Apparently, their weapons are actually custom models we don't get at all, but I believe there's 'close enough's. The Blades themselves don't appear to have an internal leader, probably because a lot of them were solo fighters, but the most capable of them at leading would probably have been Adis, who was a commander before being tempered and became the Queen's Knight (the PLD among the Queen's Guard).

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Also, Bajsaljen and Marsak actually aren't in Gunnhildr's Blades! The Blades were a small group of the Resistance, basically elected entirely for political reasons. Bajsaljen is the leader of the Bozjan Resistance as a whole, but not a member of the Blades, and Marsak is his right-hand man. They also don't wield the resistance weapons themselves (which would for their respective jobs have been Ingrimm and Crownsblade). Apparently, their weapons are actually custom models we don't get at all, but I believe there's 'close enough's. The Blades themselves don't appear to have an internal leader, probably because a lot of them were solo fighters, but the most capable of them at leading would probably have been Adis, who was a commander before being tempered and became the Queen's Knight (the PLD among the Queen's Guard).

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To add to this, there are exactly 12 Blades (13 technically if you include our character). 10 were transformed into the bosses of Delebrum. The remaining 2? Lovro, and his apprentice Meryall, the only 2 survivors.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

They also don't wield the resistance weapons themselves (which would for their respective jobs have been Ingrimm and Crownsblade). Apparently, their weapons are actually custom models we don't get at all, but I believe there's 'close enough's.

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I'm not sure about gunblades, but Bajsaljen's staff just seems to be the Prester from Sohm Al. I haven't compared pictures directly but I don't think they'd changed the colour scheme or anything. Seems a bit strange for them to need custom models.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

To add to this, there are exactly 12 Blades (13 technically if you include our character). 10 were transformed into the bosses of Delebrum. The remaining 2? Lovro, and his apprentice Meryall, the only 2 survivors.

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Where do you get that number from? If you're just arriving at it by counting how many characters we are aware of, then of course your total can be "all accounted for" because you haven't allowed for any characters that we didn't directly meet.

I would expect the total number to match the total number of weapons, at least.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Where do you get that number from? If you're just arriving at it by counting how many characters we are aware of, then of course your total can be "all accounted for" because you haven't allowed for any characters that we didn't directly meet.

I would expect the total number to match the total number of weapons, at least.

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Meryall's field record specifically says she was the only Blade not Tempered.

When the Resistance stormed Castrum Lacus Litore, a detachment was tasked with cutting off the imperials' Dalmascan supply line by means of a surprise attack at the port city of Kralja. This joint mission was headed by Meryall of Gunnhildr's Blades. With calmness and composure well beyond her years, she led the operation to a rousing success. And it was because of this mission that she is the only of Gunnhildr's Blades who escaped the influence of Queen Gunnhildr.

We've only seen 11 Tempered Blades. 10 of whom we fought and killed in Delebrum, and the last we successfully saved in Zadnor during a Critical Engagement.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Meryall's field record specifically says she was the only Blade not Tempered.

When the Resistance stormed Castrum Lacus Litore, a detachment was tasked with cutting off the imperials' Dalmascan supply line by means of a surprise attack at the port city of Kralja. This joint mission was headed by Meryall of Gunnhildr's Blades. With calmness and composure well beyond her years, she led the operation to a rousing success. And it was because of this mission that she is the only of Gunnhildr's Blades who escaped the influence of Queen Gunnhildr.

We've only seen 11 Tempered Blades. 10 of whom we fought and killed in Delebrum, and the last we successfully saved in Zadnor during a Critical Engagement.

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That still doesn't tell us that twelve was the total number. There could have been additional members captured and/or tempered off-screen - not that it really matters in the end, but I still wouldn't definitively say there are only twelve altogether.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I'm not sure about gunblades, but Bajsaljen's staff just seems to be the Prester from Sohm Al. I haven't compared pictures directly but I don't think they'd changed the colour scheme or anything. Seems a bit strange for them to need custom models.

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Specifically I got that from checking Garland Tools; if something's not attainable, they list it as 'Custom'. But that's any level of custom, so they wouldn't be able to recognize it if it were, say, an existing model but textured differently, which I think is what happened here.

Marsak's weapon actually looks to be a mashup of the Molybdenum and Nabaath gunblades, which share the same model but different textures; one has a dark blade but colored hilt, the other a dark hilt but a colored blade. Marsak looks to have a version with both a dark hilt and blade. Bajsaljen's Prester I can't really tell, but that might be because all my footage of Bajsaljen with his staff is pretty low-light.

EDIT: Cross-referencing with Gamerescape, it looks like Garland Tools might be getting confused by these two having a weird situation of having weapons but their default appearance not having one, because Gamerescape just lists Prester and the Molybdenum Gunblade. Regardless, neither of them are wielding any of the resistance weapons!

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Cross-referencing with Gamerescape, it looks like Garland Tools might be getting confused by these two having a weird situation of having weapons but their default appearance not having one, because Gamerescape just lists Prester and the Molybdenum Gunblade.

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Good point on that, which made me think to check the "alternate instances" tab for the characters.

So it seems that this version of Bajsaljen for example does simply have Prester equipped, and Marsak has the Molybdenum Gunblade.

I'm not sure why they have custom weapons and offhand weapons in the other scenes, though; NPCs without weapons normally just don't have one equipped. Perhaps these characters are still set up as battle NPCs even in non-battle scenes where they don't have weapons visible, but the system needs something in the slot?

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Oh, but we did recognize them; we recognized EXACTLY what they did, and it genuinely upset at least Mikoto. By all appearances, the fear tactics worked, they just didn't work well enough. But again, you're falling into the same mistake: you're declaring that they could have done better, rather than that they would have. I think they're perfectly consistent, it's just that every member of the IVth Legion is consistently flawed. Misija would've transformed them because it makes them 'better' while also being pretty horrifying, and Lyon would've let her because he broadly approves and kept her on a loose enough leash that he wouldn't have been around for that decision anyway.

Also, Bajsaljen and Marsak actually aren't in Gunnhildr's Blades! The Blades were a small group of the Resistance, basically elected entirely for political reasons. Bajsaljen is the leader of the Bozjan Resistance as a whole, but not a member of the Blades, and Marsak is his right-hand man. They also don't wield the resistance weapons themselves (which would for their respective jobs have been Ingrimm and Crownsblade). Apparently, their weapons are actually custom models we don't get at all, but I believe there's 'close enough's. The Blades themselves don't appear to have an internal leader, probably because a lot of them were solo fighters, but the most capable of them at leading would probably have been Adis, who was a commander before being tempered and became the Queen's Knight (the PLD among the Queen's Guard).

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While I admit I was mistaken about the weapons they wield, both Bajsaljen and Marsak are leaders of the resistance. However, given Bajsaljen founded the Blades and Misija's personality, there's no reason why she wouldn't have tempered him and reasons why she would both irrational and rational. This is not a matter of thinking she could have done better, this is a matter of how people with her personality would act.
As a side note: the Blades were not elected entirely for political reasons, if I recall correctly: they were meant to act as leaders for the Resistance and during the rebuilding of Bozja as well as being recognized as masters of their respective arts. That means that Bajsaljen or the members of the Resistance in general would have to at least have some level of trust in them before they'd be in such a position.

We recognize them, yes, Mikoto recognizes them - but both the WoL and Mikoto have the Echo. How would the rest of the Resistance recognize them? There is nothing recognizable about what they become, they may as well be oddly-designed magitek deployed by the Empire. I have no doubt Misija would transform them (if the Blade/ focus had sufficient aether to do so), as that's entirely consistent with her character. But Lyon keeping her on a loose leash is debatable: he still was present for a minor operation where Misija ambushed three Resistance members out in the field.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Oh, but we did recognize them; we recognized EXACTLY what they did, and it genuinely upset at least Mikoto. By all appearances, the fear tactics worked, they just didn't work well enough. But again, you're falling into the same mistake: you're declaring that they could have done better, rather than that they would have. I think they're perfectly consistent, it's just that every member of the IVth Legion is consistently flawed. Misija would've transformed them because it makes them 'better' while also being pretty horrifying, and Lyon would've let her because he broadly approves and kept her on a loose enough leash that he wouldn't have been around for that decision anyway.

Also, Bajsaljen and Marsak actually aren't in Gunnhildr's Blades! The Blades were a small group of the Resistance, basically elected entirely for political reasons. Bajsaljen is the leader of the Bozjan Resistance as a whole, but not a member of the Blades, and Marsak is his right-hand man. They also don't wield the resistance weapons themselves (which would for their respective jobs have been Ingrimm and Crownsblade). Apparently, their weapons are actually custom models we don't get at all, but I believe there's 'close enough's. The Blades themselves don't appear to have an internal leader, probably because a lot of them were solo fighters, but the most capable of them at leading would probably have been Adis, who was a commander before being tempered and became the Queen's Knight (the PLD among the Queen's Guard).

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While I admit I was mistaken about the weapons they wield, both Bajsaljen and Marsak are leaders of the resistance. However, given Bajsaljen founded the Blades and Misija's personality, there's no reason why she wouldn't have tempered him and reasons why she would both irrational and rational. This is not a matter of thinking she could have done better, this is a matter of how people with her personality would act.
As a side note: the Blades were not elected entirely for political reasons, if I recall correctly: they were meant to act as leaders for the Resistance and during the rebuilding of Bozja as well as being recognized as masters of their respective arts. That means that Bajsaljen or the members of the Resistance in general would have to at least have some level of trust in them before they'd be in such a position.

We recognize them, yes, Mikoto recognizes them - but both the WoL and Mikoto have the Echo. How would the rest of the Resistance recognize them? There is nothing recognizable about what they become, they may as well be oddly-designed magitek deployed by the Empire. I have no doubt Misija would transform them (if the Blade/ focus had sufficient aether to do so), as that's entirely consistent with her character. But Lyon keeping her on a loose leash is debatable: he still was present for a minor operation where Misija ambushed three Resistance members out in the field.

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Originally Posted by HaveAltWillFun

We recognize them, yes, Mikoto recognizes them - but both the WoL and Mikoto have the Echo. How would the rest of the Resistance recognize them? There is nothing recognizable about what they become, they may as well be oddly-designed magitek deployed by the Empire.

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...because they have the same voice, the same techniques, the same weapons, and also outright identify themselves. If you check the dialog, even Mikoto doesn't actually make any sense of the Trinity Seeker's aether until it speaks to give her context, so the Echo didn't help her.

Forget the WoL and Mikoto having the Echo to help them (even though it doesn't really). How did you, as a (presumable) human being on (presumably) Earth, who doesn't have magic powers, recognize them? I know I noticed something fishy the moment I saw Seeker wielding Woeborn in pre-release screenshots. However you realized who they were is how someone like Rostik would've.

Also: the Blades actually were a political move. Kind of a brazen one, too, and outright stated: the Resistance needed something to rally around, and absent a legitimate heir to the throne or anything like that, they instead revived a legendary fighting force, electing warriors that the Resistance already trusted. They were all fairly capable warriors, of course, but the entire endeavor was flatly a political decision to legitimize the Resistance and increase morale; 'we're the real Bozjans, you can tell because we have Gunnhildr's Blades!' (Which incidentally also explains why everyone in the Legion was on board with Misija's ploy, so they can say 'we're the real Bozjans, you can tell because we have Gunnhildr herself!') The political nature of it is outright stated in the field notes for Aggie, the Monk, who actually wasn't the most capable fighter, but was very popular. Politics isn't a dirty word, especially when you're trying to liberate a nation!

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Also: the Blades actually were a political move. Kind of a brazen one, too, and outright stated: the Resistance needed something to rally around, and absent a legitimate heir to the throne or anything like that, they instead revived a legendary fighting force, electing warriors that the Resistance already trusted. (...) Politics isn't a dirty word, especially when you're trying to liberate a nation!

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I agree, politics isn't a dirty word and I didn't intend to treat it as such, I just pointed out that the Blades were not selected for entirely political reasons - and we agree: the Resistance needed something to rally around, people they knew and trusted, who could inspire them. We aren't really disagreeing there: I just said there's reasons beyond politics.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

...because they have the same voice, the same techniques, the same weapons, and also outright identify themselves. If you check the dialog, even Mikoto doesn't actually make any sense of the Trinity Seeker's aether until it speaks to give her context, so the Echo didn't help her.

Forget the WoL and Mikoto having the Echo to help them (even though it doesn't really). How did you, as a (presumable) human being on (presumably) Earth, who doesn't have magic powers, recognize them? I know I noticed something fishy the moment I saw Seeker wielding Woeborn in pre-release screenshots. However you realized who they were is how someone like Rostik would've.

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That's going to depend on the individual. For myself, yes, the voices (well, actually the labels, but that's because I had my earphones off so there was nothing to hear) - but other players didn't realize the Blades were less than simply pilots until they read the field notes.
In the end analysis, that's probably a good partial breakdown of the response: the transformations would create a variety of them - denial's a powerful force, but some will see them for what they are. Those who do will likely have secondary reactions ranging from fear to being all the more determined to bring the IVth down - because they'd conclude that a similar fate awaits them.
You'd get the same effect by having the Blades themselves take to the field, and whether Lyon would stop Misija from carrying out the transformations or not can go either way, given their circumstances, personalities and motivations.

Though it was a bit of a sidetrack from my original points, because of that I did find the conversation interesting, thank you.