How did Omad's machine fill 3 entities with magic at once?

[Hofulu.7325]

It still makes no sense. It was supposed to take Primordus magic and shoot it at jormag, and then vice versa right? (unless im already wrong there).

So, how did balthazar give both dragons enough magic to put them to sleep, without stunning or killing them, AND giving himself magic? Did he just magically know how to use this brand new technology to do his exact bidding? Either way it just makes me even more glad that it was immediately destroyed, and here's to hope that this incredible story that began in gw1 won't just end on some be-all-end-all that gets introduced 1 chapter before the very end.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Taimi ex machina

[derd.6413]

if i remember correctly the machine fired magic at the dragon and then absorbed some magic to shoot at the other dragon while balth was in the middle of the magical beam absorbing some of the magic.

as how he knew how to operate it: taimi probably designed the interface to be used by the commander and balt is both a magic caster and a war god so a magic-based weapon shouldn't be difficult for him to figure out

[Healix.5819]

Magic is fuel. The dragons remain dormant until they can accumulate enough magic to awaken, which they siphon from the ambient magic in the world. The machine was designed to siphon the magic the dragon's had accumulated and clash them together, killing both Primordus and Jormag, since their weakness is to each other. Balthazar was using the machine as designed, but was intercepting the flow of magic, absorbing it for himself. Enough magic was siphoned from the dragons to put them back into their dormant state.

[SpaceRaccoon.9684]

Normally dragons follow a cycle of consuming magic while they are awake, hibernating when they are sated, dissipating magic as they sleep, and rising when they hunger. This should mean that under normal circumstances, if a dragons energy is depleted it should rise again, not go into hibernation. However what happened with Primordus and Jormag was not normal circumstances. Each dragon got struck with the force of the other dragon's magic which for both of them represents their greatest weakness. They did not go into hibernation so much as they were knocked unconscious. That's why they are now dormant despite Balthazar absorbing their magic. Perhaps, since they are low on magic, they will awaken again when they recover from the impact.

 

It's not unusual that the two dragons were knocked out by the machine, after all it was designed to kill them! Really the machine was not doing anything unintended here. Balthazar did not need to have some great understanding of it and did not need to modify it at all. He just activated the machine and intercepted the streams of magic being channeled, absorbing the magic instead of allowing it to transfer between the dragons. We intervened by overloading the machine which caused the dragons to be struck with a burst of magic, knocking them out, but with Balthazar absorbing most of it in the aftermath.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Hofulu.7325" said:

> It still makes no sense.

 

The whole storyline connected to that (namely LWS 3) was utter nonsense.

[Blocki.4931]

He absorbed magic from it?

 

I was sure he was feeding the machine with his magic to be able to use it. The beams fired at the other dragons should have been magic from the opposing dragon fired at the other, channeled through the machine and him. Makes perfect sense to me. That was the entir epoint of the machine to begin with,no? To be able to use the magic of the dragon to kill the other.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"Hofulu.7325" said:

> So, how did balthazar give both dragons enough magic to put them to sleep, without stunning or killing them, AND giving himself magic?

 

> @"SpaceRaccoon.9684" said:

> Normally dragons follow a cycle of consuming magic while they are awake, hibernating when they are sated, dissipating magic as they sleep, and rising when they hunger. This should mean that under normal circumstances, if a dragons energy is depleted it should rise again, not go into hibernation.

 

Common misconception (largely due, no doubt, to the metaphorical wording that Anet loves Glint and the Exalted to utilize) is that the Elder Dragons fall asleep when they have an excess of magic. Honestly, the ending of Season 1 and Path of Fire should have been a clear sign that this belief is wrong. It isn't "the Elder Dragons go to sleep when they've eaten a lot of magic", but rather it is "the Elder Dragons go to sleep when there is no more magic to eat" which happens to occur when they've eaten a ton of magic. Nor is it that they "hibernate when they are sated", because the Elder Dragons are never sated (the entire reason why we need to replace them).

 

They hibernate when there is no more magic left to eat (or it is so scarce so as to make it difficult), which coincides with them having a lot of magic themselves. They hibernate until magic has risen to a certain point (hence why the magic unleashed by Abaddon's death woke them up, despite being quickly absorbed by Kormir), which tends to coincide with them becoming low on magic. _Them "being sated" and "being hungry" are not the causes of their hibernations and rises, but rather correlations._

 

In fact, the Elder Dragons require magic to rise up. Almost every Elder Dragon has had a confirmed or suggested "herald" champion (to use the terminology used for the Great Destroyer) which gathers magic for their master to use to wake up. Primordus had the Great Destroyer, Jormag had Drakkar, Kralkatorrik had Glint, Mordremoth had Scarlet, and Zhaitan had the risen Giganticus Lupicus. Glint's betrayal and the Great Destroyer's death forced Kralkatorrik and Primordus' awakening to delay (and Mordremoth likely would have too if he hadn't gotten a hold of Scarlet, an impromptu herald).

 

Jormag and Primordus went to sleep because they were injured after being paralyzed (they **were** stunned so I'm not sure why the OP suggesting they weren't).

 

What the machine was supposed to do per Taimi's design was to take X value of Primordus energy and send it to Jormag, and take X value of Jormag energy and send it to Primordus. This would have resulted in the two Elder Dragons dying. But Balthazar inserted himself into the machine to absorb a portion of that X value, turning it into X-Y value. This difference was enough so that Primordus and Jormag were gravely wounded, but not fatally so.

 

> Did he just magically know how to use this brand new technology to do his exact bidding?

Balthazar didn't change the functionality of the device. Taimi did (hence why the new device was dubbed Taimi's Machine).

 

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> He absorbed magic from it?

>

> I was sure he was feeding the machine with his magic to be able to use it.

 

He was indeed absorbing the magic. It was why he was so much more powerful in Path of Fire than during Season 3. During GW2, Balthazar is a former god, a fallen deity and immensely weak. He regained a portion of his power by absorbing the Maguuma Bloodstone's magic after forcibly making it explode (it had already become unstable due to a decade of White Mantle tampering but he accelerated it exponentially). He then used Taimi's Machine to absorb magic from Primordus and Jormag, allowing him to become the threat we see in the expansion.

 

His absorption of the magic is also a good reason why the Elder Dragons survived the ordeal, presumably.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

His absorption combined with the Commander interrupting to process. Had Balthy continued, they would both have died.