Politics

[Lady_Silvermoon]

They do this constantly, yes. This is just a particularly efficient form, because we've all played the part of the game they're misremembering/misunderstanding/ignoring like, two days ago.

Will you please stop discussing me as a person. It's weird. If you take issue with the things I say, discuss the things I say.

[Cilia]

Yeah, the 6.x lead writer (or writers) is completely unknown, save that they're working under the same overall system and structure.

My gut says it was a Daichi Hiroi story, because it generally seems to fit what he seems to put in, but that's just vibe. And given that going by 6.0's credits there's forty people that could be called 'writers', it's entirely possible that we just won't have any idea because it could be that unseen rest of the iceberg.

If you sit through the 6.X credits, Hiroi is listed as the lead writer, with Ishikawa and Oda in supporting roles.

A quick Google says Hiroi and Oda are collaborating on Dawntrail's Main Scenario, or Hiroi is otherwise going it alone. (Direction, not literally writing the whole thing.)

Will you please stop discussing me as a person. It's weird. If you take issue with the things I say, discuss the things I say.

I addressed all of your talking points, kiddo!

tl;dr: The Scions as an organization no longer exist, the PC is going to Tural as a freelance mercenary, the contest not only allows but encourages it, Wuk Lamat has shown no ill intent, and Erenville has nothing bad to say about her (even if her boorish manners exasperate him).

We're not a representative of the Eorzean government; we are, at best, a mid-level Grand Company officer acting without orders, and the story is framed very much as us acting in the capacity of a freelance mercenary. The "colonizer" argument makes zero sense; we aren't going there to prepare Tural for colonization or install a puppet ruler, but to support a rightful claimant to the throne who asked us to help her in a culturally appropriate and permissible manner. We have no clue what her policies are, but given Wuk Lamat's exuberant and outgoing personality and condemnation of warmongering I have a very hard time believing she would be a bad choice, inexperience with ruling notwithstanding.

As a freelance mercenary, the PC is free to support (or not support) any claimant to the throne they choose. Furthermore, we have no idea what this contest actually entails, and however powerful the PC may be their martial might isn't likely to be enough to win right out; if that were the case there wouldn't be much of a story.

I... don't know how or why you think the PC acting in the capacity of a freelance mercenary constitutes colonization. I'm genuinely confused. The rest is just paranoia.

[SannaR]

I addressed all of your talking points, kiddo!

tl;dr: The Scions as an organization no longer exist, the PC is going to Tural as a freelance mercenary, the contest not only allows but encourages it, Wuk Lamat has shown no ill intent, and Erenville has nothing bad to say about her (even if her boorish manners exasperate him).

We're not a representative of the Eorzean government; we are, at best, a mid-level Grand Company officer acting without orders, and the story is framed very much as us acting in the capacity of a freelance mercenary. The "colonizer" argument makes zero sense; we aren't going there to prepare Tural for colonization or install a puppet ruler, but to support a rightful claimant to the throne who asked us to help her. We have no clue what her policies are, but given Wuk Lamat's exuberant and outgoing personality and condemnation of warmongering I have a very hard time believing she would be a bad choice, inexperience with ruling notwithstanding.

As a freelance mercenary, the PC is free to support (or not support) any claimant to the throne they choose. Furthermore, we have no idea what this contest actually entails, and however powerful the PC may be their martial might isn't likely to be enough to win right out; if that were the case there wouldn't be much of a story.

I... don't know how or why you think the PC acting in the capacity of a freelance mercenary constitutes colonization. I'm genuinely confused. The rest is just paranoia.

They see it that way cause points to their last reply to Mikko Venat did a bad that's so bad that they're allowing it to affect them to the point where they can't even think about trying to catch the Ruby Dargon (or whatever they set out to do in game) without going oh my law my WoL is an accomplice in Venat's doing a bad. You know the part of a story that normally sets up and isn't explored much if at all by the writers to explain why the world is the way it is at the time frame the story you are reading, watching or playing through is happening. That for the most part is normally again not explored as that is probably the part of the world building that has the most flaws and holes in it. As if one were to do so you will have a high chance of finding out that all the smart leaders of the past and or the present (depending on how far back the TDLR set up happened before the story takes place) were very stupid for dumb reasons. That even if you have qualms about you knew had to happen in some fashion for again the present story you are experiencing to take place.

[ZavosEsperian]

They do this constantly, yes. This is just a particularly efficient form, because we've all played the part of the game they're misremembering/misunderstanding/ignoring like, two days ago.

The issue they are having does not deal with the words on the page, but how it is presented against their own, personal, IRL beliefs. This could be for a variety of reasons, most likely all personal, but the point of the matter is that regardless of the framing the story does, it cannot escape the appearance where we are backing a specific person inside of a presumed contest for power, which is extremely beneficial for the foreign party as they are able to likely receive various concessions, some more significant than the rest, and where personal political favor can occur.

This is not too unheard of in the realm of IRL politics either, as nations or people will rally around someone who they perceive as the best person in regards to their own interests, be it personal or for a wider group of people and they will do this regardless of citizenship, especially with the reach of the internet. Foreign influence in these sorts of political contests, especially when a foreign military/fighting force/etc is involved, is generally not viewed as a good thing at this point in time. Working with foreign allies typically is less of an issue but can still raise a few eyebrows to this day as well. Working with a foreign adversary or someone viewed as an adversary for political gains is HEAVILY scrutinized.

Herein lies the issue. While it is encouraged behavior to speak with foreign powers in the game's setting (as it also typically is IRL for people inside of a democratic system as this happens rather often), us directly picking one side over the other in the setting's case, let alone us (WoL mainly) physically going over to Tural, is like having a world-class military IRL being present inside of the nation where this contest is going to take place. The WoL is also part of one of the three Grand Companies of Eorzea, and thus is actually a member of a formal military and as this cannot be skipped (using a story skip makes you a member of your starting nation's Grand Company), it is canonical. This can be extremely intimidating for anyone who lives in the nation as now a foreign power can project its military within its own borders during this process. And while we ourselves in the setting do not have a nation behind us per say, it is a rather common settlement in some parts of the world where it is the own citizenry of the foreign power who do not want the military to be present in a different nation, particularly if it is for political reasons related to political contests.

I do not know which country you are from, nor do I care. What I can tell is that for people from more war fatigued nations where it is there military conducting missions and being the one used globally, this is an unavoidable interpretation. This can also happen if someone's nation has also been subjected to this sort of behavior in the past, as people do have long memories and can read history.

Now that I have provided a perspective of how Lady_Silvermoon could have interpretations or opinions like she does, you directly attacking her character or making assumptions about her is extremely rude. You appear to demean and use remarks aimed directly at someone's overall character as a means of attempting to win arguments. The use of ad hominem is considered extremely weak in terms of actual arguing since you are directing arguments at a person themselves, hence why I do not like engaging with people who use it as a primary means of debate. From my experience IRL with people who do this, it usually means their arguments are, at best, extremely flimsy and are heavily based on personally held beliefs which do not necessarily reflect the matter being discussed.

Were I to use arguments presented to me from other forum posters, I would have to remind you your WoL does fondly remember characters you may not agree with at all or characters you despise and this is all within canon and directly stated. Emet-Selch seems to be one such character I have seen floating around recently as your WoL recalls him with relative frequency and wants you to remember they all once lived and you were friends with him. Whether you like this or not is a personal opinion, but this is what the game states, and is a reason why it is good to remember people can have different interpretations and feelings about specific events.

Finally, as I believe I have spoken about your behavior once before, I really must thank you for providing evidence backing up my claims without me needing to dig through old messages prior to that initial post. I do not like wasting my time with that. You should probably look that post over again and familiarize yourself with the behaviors I outlined.

[Cleretic]

Finally, as I believe I have spoken about your behavior once before, I really must thank you for providing evidence backing up my claims without me needing to dig through old messages prior to that initial post. I do not like wasting my time with that. You should probably look that post over again and familiarize yourself with the behaviors I outlined.

See, here's the thing that gets me about you: You haven't. You've alluded to me having allegedly unacceptable behavior, but when I've asked for specifics (which I've done several times) you have been completely silent. In fact you've only left me more confused, because you're demonstrably okay with the things that I'm actually not okay that I've said.

I don't expect you to come back. But if you do, could you enlighten me?


As to the actual subject of the thread, I think it's important to remember--and something the people being negative about this seemed to miss or ignore--that our first priority in Dawntrail has been explicitly stated not to be 'immediately go and throw hands'; rather, it's to go and gather information, learn what's actually going on. It's actually a normal thing for the Scions to do, it's just rarely been us doing it. It was normally Thancred's job, although we did see Tataru and Alphinaud try their hand at it at times.

I think that's important because it shows in multiple ways that they're conscious of not going in blind; not only do they want to avoid making a problem worse through not listening, but G'raha also seemed conscious of the notion we could be getting given incomplete or misleading information that gets us manipulated. (Fitting that he, of all people, is aware of that possibility.) I think it's a given that we'll be participating in the rite, just by game design virtue of 'you don't tell players abut a cool thing and then not let them do it', but I think our reason to is unknown right now.

My guess, we'll find something out that forces our hand. Maybe that the warmonger is even more prepared than we first thought, that the Golden City is more than just pretty, or that there's a familiar face outside of Thurianger that we can't in our right minds let go uncountered. ...Granted, the list of candidates for that second one is pretty small unless you go into side-content, but there's still people. If we saw Nero or any of the other Garlean Empire tech-heads (who are most of the ones still alive), we'd probably get involved at least initially because we want to stop them.

I think we'll enter on the side of Wuk Lamat, because otherwise why make her the first one we met, but our motivation will not be 'because Wuk Lamat asked'.

[Cilia]

A few things to remember here:

1. The Scions of the Seventh Dawn have been formally disbanded and no longer act as the (functional) independent paramilitary organization they did from 2.0 until the end of 6.0. (Technically as a combination of the Path of the Twelve and the Circle of Knowing from Legacy, it's been around in some form or another since 1.0, but I digress.) The Scions can't meddle in politics because the organization no longer exists - its former members still associate with one another, natch, but beyond that it's a defunct organization.

2. As such, the PC choosing to go to Tural (and implicitly support Wuk Lamat in her bid for the throne) is nothing more than a freelance mercenary working a job - and probably pro bono at that. (Or getting paid so little it may as well be pro bono, I think I'm only getting paid ~5,000 gil + food per quest right now...) They aren't an Eorzean emissary, dignitary, or envoy, and as such do not and can not represent Eorzean interests beyond, you know... not wanting a warmonger on the throne.

3. The contest not only allows claimants to acquire outside help but encourages it; it's not foreigners "kingmaking" but would-be kings (or queens) working diplomacy to improve their chances of success.

3a. We have no reason whatsoever to think Wuk Lamat is up to no good. While Daichi Hiroi's actual narrative writing skills have thus far left much to be desired from me, he is excellent at creating and introducing interesting and likeable characters and Wuk Lamat is no exception; on the contrary, her openness is likely to be a liability in the political arena (assuming Tuliyollal has the "decadent court" political climate people are so obviously assuming it does). Besides which, while Erenville obviously isn't fond of her... less than regal bearing, he doesn't have anything really negative to say about Wuk Lamat, and we've no reason to suspect him of deception or treachery either (and have known him for a short while to boot).

We're a freelance mercenary going at the behest of someone who personally asked us for help (and was encouraged to do so as per the rules of the game), not a conquistador attempting to install a puppet ruler for imperialistic goals. C'mon guys...

[Hurlstone]

If this is okay why didn't we just overthrow the monetarist when they were giving us trouble?

I mean I have been wanting to do that since ARR so please, lets do it! It's funny how we have no issues interfering with the plights and problems of far out lands, but the three nations problems are just swept under a rug most of the time. I really wanted the fallout from 2.X to be a big change for Ul'dah and its people, but instead its pushed aside in such a weird way for the Ishgard plot (Which is great, do not get me wrong… just wish the former had more of an impact)

[Cilia]

They do this constantly, yes. This is just a particularly efficient form, because we've all played the part of the game they're misremembering/misunderstanding/ignoring like, two days ago.

Patch dropped yesterday.

Though approx. 85% of the complaints about Endwalker's story are people deliberately interpreting things differently to how they are presented... but I digress.

I mean I have been wanting to do that since ARR so please, lets do it! It's funny how we have no issues interfering with the plights and problems of far out lands, but the three nations problems are just swept under a rug most of the time. I really wanted the fallout from 2.X to be a big change for Ul'dah and its people, but instead its pushed aside in such a weird way for the Ishgard plot (Which is great, do not get me wrong… just wish the former had more of an impact)

The Scions primarily dealt with existential threats, stuff nobody else could deal with thanks to having lots of Echo users (on account of Minfilia's Path of the Twelve from 1.0 being rolled into it) until Alphinaud decided to take them out into the open... and even then, they still operated as paramilitary special forces.

The 2.X plot is awkwardly resolved and largely forgotten about because it was just filler to get Heavensward written; since A Realm Reborn was kind of proof of concept, the suits needed proof it would succeed after the bungling of 1.0 before greenlighting an expansion. So we got the political drama that went nowhere until the end, and the writers just kind of... forgot to give it a proper conclusion, hence awkwardly jumping back and forth between Ishgard and Ul'dah with no real change to the status quo (except Teledji Adeledji being dead and Raubahn losing an arm, but neither have had significant narrative consequences).

[EdwinLi]

The Scions primarily dealt with existential threats, stuff nobody else could deal with thanks to having lots of Echo users (on account of Minfilia's Path of the Twelve from 1.0 being rolled into it) until Alphinaud decided to take them out into the open... and even then, they still operated as paramilitary special forces.

The 2.X plot is awkwardly resolved and largely forgotten about because it was just filler to get Heavensward written; since A Realm Reborn was kind of proof of concept, the suits needed proof it would succeed after the bungling of 1.0 before greenlighting an expansion. So we got the political drama that went nowhere until the end, and the writers just kind of... forgot to give it a proper conclusion, hence awkwardly jumping back and forth between Ishgard and Ul'dah with no real change to the status quo (except Teledji Adeledji being dead and Raubahn losing an arm, but neither have had significant narrative consequences).

The whole political plot in 3.X era for Ul'dah felt a bit rushed more as a result they were not prepared for it so they tried to get it over with fast since they did not know where to take this plot.

Heck the two NPCs that were always with Ilberd were literally removed from the story offscreen with a very simple one time dialogue saying if they should spend life in Prison or instantly executed. These two actually had good potential to be used much longer post-Ilberd's death to show off the different reasons why people sided with Ilberd since the lalafell was doing it more out of the enjoyment and sharing the same belief as Ilberd but the Midlander was a young person who was gaslighted into believing what they are doing is the right choice. Given the chance to talk with the Midlander, he probably would have been convinced to change sides since he was always conflicted with what Ilberd order them to do.

[SannaR]

The whole political plot in 3.X era for Ul'dah felt a bit rushed more as a result they were not prepared for it so they tried to get it over with fast since they did not know where to take this plot.

Heck the two NPCs that were always with Ilberd were literally removed from the story offscreen with a very simple one time dialogue saying if they should spend life in Prison or instantly executed. These two actually had good potential to be used much longer post-Ilberd's death to show off the different reasons why people sided with Ilberd since the lalafell was doing it more out of the enjoyment and sharing the same belief as Ilberd but the Midlander was a young person who was gaslighted into believing what they are doing is the right choice. Given the chance to talk with the Midlander, he probably would have been convinced to change sides since he was always conflicted with what Ilberd order them to do.

I'm not sure Laurentius was truly being gasslighted. Just that he finally saw what kind of problems his actions could and did end up causing. Remember he is the Woodwailer who was supplying the Garleans with old maps and getting paid for it because he felt he wasn't getting paid enough by the Woodwailers. Then said he changed his ways after finishing his punishment when we recruited him as a Crystal Brave. Only to choose to back stab the Scions because Teledji Adeledji's pay was seen as being worth it. He probably thought he could continue to make sweet bank through the revolution. Only at the end to finally realize he was ruining people's lives for his selfishness.