Why is Anet playing with us like that?

[draxynnic.3719]

Where Cantha is concerned, Devona (or rather Mhenlo) and co are likely _enough_. Elona, on the other hand, shows clear signs of having cultural exchanges with Tyria - one of Varesh's generals, for instance, is Ascalonian. It might not be talked about onscreen, but I'm quite sure that Elonians and important Canthans at least knew about the war - and it's likely that there'd be a general feeling that it's a tragedy that the Ascalonians are being overrun and eaten by the charr and they'd want to do something about it.

 

Just... not something that involves too much effort. They have their own problems, and Ascalon is so far away, and Adelbern is refusing the assistance of foreign troops anyway... but hey! We can send weapons! That way we can tell ourselves we're doing something, without actually doing more than donating goods! (Or even exporting, if Ascalon retained the ability to pay.)

 

With respect to the bombards: I was thinking of the Vabbian example, where we really don't see much of what's actually going on - whether it's actually a magical weapon, or a big mortar on a floating platform. Either way, though, the weapons mounted on Siege Turtles are clearly cannons of some description.

 

Now, the ghost cannons we see are clearly a different and more compact design to those mounted on Siege Turtles, but this could be where we invoke ~~laziness~~ not wanting to go to the effort of creating a new model when an existing one is close enough.

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

Conversely, though, it's also mentioned that Bayel had to work twice as hard to prove himself due to being Ascalonian, suggesting that there was some degree of stigma attached. Nor did we see Elona intervene in the Krytan Civil War, even at its apex, even though as a coastal nation Kryta would've been much more accessible. After all, a heretical cult turning against the true gods and sacrificing hapless humans to non-human tyrants (or demons, if they'd been exposed to the Shining Blade propaganda, which would've had a certain resonance after Nightfall) has every bit as much pathos attached as a country being overrun by a monstrous horde. Now, maybe they simply didn't have time, maybe Salma had things well in hand by the time they'd recovered enough to send help... but that cuts both ways, too. The cannons would've had to reach Ascalon early enough to heavily fortify Grendich, a relatively exposed position well north of Adelbern's line at the Great Northern Wall.

 

It's not impossible, of course, but the amount of hurdles that would needed to have been cleared leaves me thinking that the balance of probability is against foreign import.

[Avador.8934]

Well since this was at first about Scarlet, I just found a Breachmaker hologram in one of the Inquest labs in the new location.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

Noticed that as well. Given the lab was focused on ley energy / ley line studies, it wouldn't be surprising they'd study something that diverted ley lines.

[Arden.7480]

Confirmed: https://imgur.com/a/TPdUU

[Jaken.6801]

Meh, I am mostly annoyed that they established "Cool teleport everyhwere portals" with Scarlet, had a professor Asura who was proficient with them, had a way to block portals established and then never use it again.

 

Suddenly stuff like Joko and his new teleport army is suddenly "OMG we are screwed" instead of getting proactive and block these things.

[draxynnic.3719]

ArenaNet does have a tendency to forget things every so often, unfortunately.

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

It's been a long, long time, but I don't believe we ever found a way to disable her portals. Vorpp was able to reverse-engineer a way to _open_ them, and get us into the Pavillion, but we didn't stop the invasions there. They went on for at least another month, and then just quietly vanished.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"Jaken.6801" said:

> Meh, I am mostly annoyed that they established "Cool teleport everyhwere portals" with Scarlet, had a professor Asura who was proficient with them, had a way to block portals established and then never use it again.

>

> Suddenly stuff like Joko and his new teleport army is suddenly "OMG we are screwed" instead of getting proactive and block these things.

 

It actually didn't begin with Scarlet:

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Professor_Portmatt%27s_Lab

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gate_Keno_Decca_Five

 

And as Aaron said, we didn't block her portals - remember that the invasion events kept happening up until the Origins of Madness patch (maybe Escape from Lion's Arch?), nearly 6 months later, and those portals were used in said Battle for LA releases as well (and the Twisted Marionette). All Vorpp did was reverse engineer the portals to allow us a way into the Crown Pavilion that Scarlet had sealed off.