Quote Originally Posted by LineageRazor View Post
Well, the nice thing about the 1000 year delay is that it gave the scattered remnants of civilization plenty of time to forget about the hooded hooligans that caused the disaster in the first place.

That, I think, is the biggest disadvantage the Ascians are facing at the moment: normally when the dust settles, the mortal saps they've been playing for fools have been knocked back to the stone age. Even if they figured out they'd been had, there wasn't much they could DO about it (and chances are they wouldn't even figure that out, given that the Ascians only appear to a few, select people who are very likely dead by the time it's all over).

This time around, though, Ascians are starting to become a household name. Nearly every nation's leader seems to know who they are, and that they are not to be trusted (even if the less wise among them choose to work with them anyway). People are successfully developing weapons that can harm them. Yeah, the infrastructure is in place to get a new Calamity rolling earlier, but that's not much of an advantage to a race of immortal beings. Yeah, I'd say that the low-key impact of the Seventh Calamity was way more bad than good for the Ascians. Louisoix, you done good - maybe even better than you realized!
Varis didn't choose to work with the Ascians more than deal with the hand he was dealt and defy when he found a chance, except he kind of lost his marbles at some point and we can't really tell what his end game is anymore.