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The Empire Strikes Back


Goldengirl

Imperial Inquiry  

24 members have voted

  1. 1. Shapers vs The Empire

  2. 2. Shapers vs The Pact

  3. 3. Empire vs The Pact

  4. 4. Shapers vs The Empire vs The Pact



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Erika, Rentar-Ihrno, and Garzahd all have good arguments for that title. Erika appears to have the edge with raw power and combat magic; Garzahd with wards and enchantments; Rentar with barriers and transformations. They all have well-rounded magical ability with few weaknesses, which puts them squarely ahead of those who have comparable power in one or two areas, like Aimee and Solberg. But I'm not sure there's a clear winner between those three, particularly given that in all three cases, we're not really sure if all of their greatest accomplishments were theirs alone (e.g., the dispute over Erika's claim to the glowing fungi; the possibility of Garzahd and Rentar receiving assistance from underlings or Crystal Souls).

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Oookay folks, so then I toss you this: could the personalities that wield the power in the world of Avernum ever put their own fights aside and unite against the Shapers and the Pact? This is a question for all 3 game worlds, of course.

 

By default, yes. If the Shapers/Pact attacked the different powers of Avernum, by default they are united(ish) against them. It is something of an understatement to say that the UK, US and USSR had problems getting along before and after WW2, but being at war with the Axis powers meant things were different during.

 

Of course, this requires the Shapers/Pact to be sufficiently powerful to threaten them all, and foolish enough to attack each at the same time.

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WW2 - good analogy.

 

The question of if the Empire could form a real alliance with Avernum to fight the Shapers and Pact is interesting. Would they have a War Council with the king of Avernum and the Emperor in the same room? To what degree could they trust each other? In terms of political turmoil (and of real fear and hatred of those who have been seen as enemies for many years) that would have to be somehow settled, at least nominally, before each game world could go offensive against the other 2 - the Pact/Avadon would have a slight edge here.

 

...at least if we look at Pact/Avadon during A1. Which for the purposes of this thread I guess we have to: during Warborn it sounds like it's gonna be full-out world war between Pact and Tawon, so this sort of alliance would be impossible.

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Avernum as a whole is not anywhere near Empire, Shaper, or even Pact power

Indeed. While it is certainly true that the average Avernite is a lot stronger and more skilled in combat than the average surface-dweller, the flipside is that Avernum is basically frontier land, even by Valorim standards (compare the space between and number of settlements bet. the original A2 and A3). Almaria, the most populated city, is basically like a medium-sized town to the surface In addition, Avernum suffers from a severe shortage in certain important resources, such as ferrous metals. Which really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, to be honest. You have large volcanic zones-- those would be full of iron ore. Not to mention that the mantle is made mostly of nickel iron, which Avernum just so happens to be situated a LOT closer to than the surface.

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Avernum as a whole is not anywhere near Empire, Shaper, or even Pact power

Indeed. While it is certainly true that the average Avernite is a lot stronger and more skilled in combat than the average surface-dweller, the flipside is that Avernum is basically frontier land, even by Valorim standards (compare the space between and number of settlements bet. the original A2 and A3). Almaria, the most populated city, is basically like a medium-sized town to the surface In addition, Avernum suffers from a severe shortage in certain important resources, such as ferrous metals. Which really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, to be honest. You have large volcanic zones-- those would be full of iron ore. Not to mention that the mantle is made mostly of nickel iron, which Avernum just so happens to be situated a LOT closer to than the surface.

 

Not sure being closer to the mantle would help much. In any case, if Avernum short of ferrous metals, or the people or Avernum? Perhaps they don't have the resources to exploit what is there very effectively.

 

(Also, do we know if metallugry works the same in Avernum as in the real world? Giant caves nations can live in requires a lot of differences)

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The mantle consists primarily of nickel iron, which is responsible for the Earth's magnetic poles. Aluminum is also somewhat abundant (though it's that way on the surface, as well). The iron ores would consist primarily of magnetite and pyrite, while the aluminum would be in the form of pyroxenes.

Precious metals, lead, and tin are much less common.

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They don't need to.

 

Still not with you on this. How does being a few miles closer to the mantle mean you have more iron available?

 

Also, I think that perhaps Jeff underestimates just how much iron is on the surface of the earth's crust. Seriously, there is a lot of it.

 

Eh, no reason that should be true of Ermarian, or Avernum in particular, though.

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When the planets are formed (and early in their life when they're mostly molten), the heavier elements sink to the bottom. Granted, the mantle and core are still composed predominantly of nickeliron (the core moreso than the mantle, which has more water and silicon in it)

Also, I'm pretty sure that Avernum is more than just a "few miles" underground. Hell, the portal in the Fort Emergence region is probably more than a couple miles underground (Fort Emergence itself would be just below the surface)

Avernum is much more volcanically active than the surface, per square mile, and both the Slith and the Vahnatai evolved to inhabit areas warmed by strong geothermal activity (which IIRC usually means that the mantle is only around 5~10 miles below the surface, like at Yellowstone or in submarine breaks in the mantle. Compare that to the terrestrial average of 30~50.)

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With 22 answers, the poll results are consistent with having 9 respondents rank the three powers Shapers-Empire-Pact; 7 rank them Empire-Shapers-Pact; 3 rank them Empire-Pact-Shapers; 2 rank them Shapers-Pact-Empire; 1 ranks them Pact-Shapers-Empire; and no-one picks Pact-Empire-Shapers.

 

The poll results for these four questions provide enough information to work out exactly how many people believe in each of the six possible rankings — if one assumes that everyone has answered in terms of a single-valued power ranking of all three powers, and has kept all their answers consistent. If someone answers inconsistently, it is not necessarily apparent in the results of a poll like this. Some possible poll results could be manifestly inconsistent, though. If everyone voted SEP in the first three questions, but then picked Pact for question 4, it would be obvious that something fishy was going on.

 

I, on the other hand, can't answer the poll at all, because I can't answer the fourth question.

 

I believe the Shapers would defeat the Empire because the Empire is vulnerable to monster plagues and the Shapers are all about that.

I believe the Empire would defeat the Pact because the Empire is very much like the Pact, except bigger and better, and the Empire's vulnerability to adventurers (like Hands of Avadon) is limited. They might lose an emperor, but not the war.

I believe the Pact would defeat the Shapers, because you just know that Redbeard would get his hands on a Geneforge.

 

So for me the fourth question is like Rock vs. Paper vs. Scissors. I'm stumped.

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You should read the comments as well. Just going by poll results is basically going by the bandwagon fallacy. Just saying.

 

Also, I disagree with your pact analysis-- why would Redbeard journey all the way to Terrestria.

Also, we decided that this would take place with each power at its peak-- Between A1/A2, between G2/G3, and during A1, so there would be no Geneforge in Terrestria for Redbeard to get his hands on at that point. Really, I have to say it's really annoying for you to come to this conclusion without even bothering to read the comments, because we've all done a LOT of in-depth analysis.

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No no, I'm right. You just don't know it yet.

 

Seriously though, chill people, this is all very hypothetical. There is no more validity to this poll than any other public poll. It either is or isn't, no poll numbers can change this.

 

Weirdly though, the Empire had a massive six point lead way back at the beginning of the poll. I wonder what happened.

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Seriously though, chill people, this is all very hypothetical. There is no more validity to this poll than any other public poll. It either is or isn't, no poll numbers can change this.

It just rubbed me the wrong way, that he would just ignore all of the discussion. My meds wearing off for the night didn't help matters :\

 

 

So where do all three of these global powers fight? Are they all ripped from their planets and transported to some kind of Q-Bert planet or a 3-D chess board or what?

That... we never did decide upon. Hence the argument early in the thread about whether or not magic functions the same way on different worlds (taking a page from the Ultima series, which was one of the primary inspirations for Jeff's games)

Geneforge and Avadon you could at least pretend are on the same planet, since they're just continents. The Empire, however, spans the entire globe.

 

This thread is much less interesting when it's arguments for "who would win?" than it is when it's a discussion of various factors that would play into the battles between the 3.

They're one and the same.

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  • 3 weeks later...
This thread is much less interesting when it's arguments for "who would win?" than it is when it's a discussion of various factors that would play into the battles between the 3.

They're one and the same.

 

They haven't been. The first one's amounted to "I say these guys win because they have X factor or X character and I say that's the best." It's zero-sum and doesn't go anywhere. You can agree or disagree -- so what?

 

Discussing how the battles stack up and how X effect or character could be levied against the other powers -- more interesting.

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