Book 2 - Text Updates 004

[MarbitChow]

I think it's pretty obvious that Charlie was involved in Saline's fall.

I think the opposite, that's it's pretty obvious Charlie was not involved in Saline's fall. If he had that kind of pull over the Hobgobwins, why would he have left them with Stanley? More importantly, what is Charlie's motive behind having a side allied with GK kill its ruler and then stay allied with GK afterwards? Charlie's motives in tempting the Western Giants to join Jillian are easy to understand, but if Charlie is the mastermind behind Stanley's rise to power, then his motives are utterly inscrutable to me.

If Charlie did not know that Stanley was an heir, he would have assumed that Stanley would just disband when Saline IV died.
Since it's likely that the Arkenhammer would not have disbanded with Stanley, an Archon could have just swooped in and grabbed it.
It's an easier way to kill someone who is attuned than a direct confrontation, and if it fails, they can't trace the attack back to you.
That seems like Charlie's style to me completely.

[the_tick_rules]

We're thinking Charlie is involved in that now?

[Nows7]

AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHH MY MIIIIIIIIIIIND!!!!!!!!!!!! IT"S SCARRED FOR EVEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First post, and I inspire brain bleach. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

[AllPurposeNerd]

It's probably best to assume that Charlie knows everything than that Charlie doesn't know a crucial piece of information.

Why? He didn't know what was going on with Wanda and the Arkenpliers until a few turns into her crusade. He didn't know about the bracer until Parson offered him its services. He's smart, but he's not omniscient. If it had just happened a turn or two prior and they didn't make a big announcement about it, how would he know?

[Sinrus]

It's probably best to assume that Charlie knows everything than that Charlie doesn't know a crucial piece of information.

Why? He didn't know what was going on with Wanda and the Arkenpliers until a few turns into her crusade. He didn't know about the bracer until Parson offered him its services. He's smart, but he's not omniscient. If it had just happened a turn or two prior and they didn't make a big announcement about it, how would he know?

But why wouldn't they announce it? An anyway, Charlie hacked the eyebooks.

[crazyguy_co]

Okay, here's what we know:

• Stanley was a piker who got promoted to warlord. As a warlord, he found the Arkenhammer and won a lot of battles.
• Saline named him chief warlord, then heir designate, then he croaked, making him an overlord.
• The Gobwins broke their alliance.
• Charlie appears to have some influence over natural allies based on Parson's calculations about the Gobwin shortage and Jillian's acquisition of the Giants.
• Stanley hates Charlie.
• Stanley liked Saline.

One of your points is wrong, and you left out a very important one.

We have no evidence Stanley liked Saline. None. We have no clue what Stanley thought of Saline, or, for that matter, what almost anyone else did. We have no way to know if he was a raging despot, a pacifist, a genius, a moron... we know next to nothing about the man.

Secondly, we have Ansom directly claiming that Stanley got his position through regicide. Now whether Ansom is biased, or has bad information, or is making a fair accusation, we don't know. We do know its his reason for not liking Stanley.

I think the evidence points towards Stanley, but certainly confirms nothing.

I also don't think the evidence is very strong of Charlie manipulating natural sides through special powers rather than smart politics, but that is another debate

[Gez]

3. The hobgobwins could capture Parson and pop more of him.
This is incorrect because A: Sides can only pop units designated by a city that they own. I'm not sure how that translates into tribe terms, but GK now owns archons, but they can't pop more, and B: A Parson isn't a type of unit. He's a warlord, and all warlords are unique.

They don't own archons. They own decrypted archons. They keep their archon powers, but they just count as "Gobwin Knob units", not as archons. Same deal with their gobwins. They do have decrypted gobwins.

The Tool had wanted to bitch about the usual: their situation with natural allies.

It was a weird problem. All the Gobwins and Hobgobwins were croaked in the eruption, of course. Wanda decrypted most of those, but they no longer counted as a separate tribe. They were just units of Gobwin Knob's side now.

As tribes, natural allies could pop new units if they had extra Shmuckers. So Stanley had used the intervening turns and a notable chunk of the treasury to repopulate the Hobgobwin tribe from the lone remaining Knight to around two hundred units, about forty or fifty of them Knights. But there were no Gobwins in Gobwin Knob.

And for some reason, they couldn't find any, anywhere.

And now, for something different:

All this talk about having more Parsons pop... I think his "special" skill is that on the turn after he makes it with a female unit, a heavy warlord-like unit pops on his side. Wait until Stanley finds about that.

Lord Hamster, you just popped a daughter. She calls herself Ashna. (http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F015.jpg)

Blog: Is it incest to like a girl who in this world somehow became my daugher?

Aaaargh! The stupid, it burns!!!!

No, seriously, listen to yourself a bit. First you're dead set on Parson making babies, as if it would make sense in any way in a setting such as Erfworld, then you invent contrived situations to try to rationalize it ("maybe the summoning spells counts as making natural allies", come on!) and now you want to make the thing squicky.

Can't you just please stop with this? It's not going to happen.

Secondly, we have Ansom directly claiming that Stanley got his position through regicide. Now whether Ansom is biased, or has bad information, or is making a fair accusation, we don't know. We do know its his reason for not liking Stanley.

And you're yourself forgetting that Vinny instantly reacted by countering that the real reason is that Stanley isn't a royal; and also casting doubts on Stanley's own involvement in the regicide. (By the way: A king got croaked. That's a regicide, by definition. Even if the King's successor isn't involved in the murder. Saying Stanley got his place through regicide does not actually mean that Stanley is responsible for that regicide.)

About Saline's character, we know that Sizemore liked him. Natural signamancy, for what it can be trusted, does not show him as the sinister evil despot type. And why wouldn't Stanley like him? It's the guy who promoted him from Piker to Warlord to Chief Warlord and to Heir Designate. That Stanley would have liked such a guy seems a lot more probable, and a lot more in character, than to think someone with all the cleverness, ruse, and thoughtfulness that characterize the Tool could have planned a coup successfully.

[robak]

Technically, Vurp pops Hobgobwins, not gobwins.

About this...
Sizemore said the gobwins broke alliance, not the hobgobwins. The picture seems to show a hobgobwin though, so I guess it really was Vurps tribe.

[Megaduck]

I think it's pretty obvious that Charlie was involved in Saline's fall.

I think the opposite, that's it's pretty obvious Charlie was not involved in Saline's fall. If he had that kind of pull over the Hobgobwins, why would he have left them with Stanley? More importantly, what is Charlie's motive behind having a side allied with GK kill its ruler and then stay allied with GK afterwards? Charlie's motives in tempting the Western Giants to join Jillian are easy to understand, but if Charlie is the mastermind behind Stanley's rise to power, then his motives are utterly inscrutable to me.

Do we know if the fact that Stanley was heir was common knowledge?

Try this (WAG) scenario) Charlie wants the Arkenhammer but can't be seen trying to grab it for himself. King Saline IV is weak in combat. Stanley leaves GK and takes the majority of it's combat power with him. Charlie organizes the uprising, Saline IV can't fight off the gobwins and is croaked. Charlie expects all forces outside GK (Stanley) to promptly depop, the Arkenhammer falls to the ground and a Archeon flies in to pick it up. That's not what happens however, Stanley is the heir, becomes the sides new ruler and promptly retakes GK. Charlie can't pull the same trick again because Stanley is much more powerful in combat and there would be a good chance he'd simply croak the gobwins solo or stanley never stripped GK of its defenses again.

[factotum]

And you're yourself forgetting that Vinny instantly reacted by countering that the real reason is that Stanley isn't a royal; and also casting doubts on Stanley's own involvement in the regicide. (By the way: A king got croaked. That's a regicide, by definition. Even if the King's successor isn't involved in the murder. Saying Stanley got his place through regicide does not actually mean that Stanley is responsible for that regicide.)

Sizemore also said that he and Stanley were off on a special mission when Faq fell, so Stanley can't have been directly involved in the regicide in any case. Unless Sizemore was lying, but that then raises a heck of a lot more doubts than what Stanley was up to the day Saline died!

[Black]

I don't see why there's so much confusion and speculation.

My personal impression was that Stanley arranged with the gobwins (hob and regular type) to break alliance while he took the casters on a 'special mission'. Stanley took all the casters with him so that there was no one to defend Saline when the gobwins broke and attacked him. Stanley then became the overlord of Gobwin Knob.

Maybe it wasn't Stanley's idea. Maybe it was Wanda's idea. Maybe it was Charlie's idea. Is there any way to tell? No. You can build elaborate hypothesis on top elaborate hypothesis, but none of it stands or falls on its own merit, just how the story unfolds. We only know that it is an interesting plot point because the text update reminds us of it. Just keep it in mind as the updates roll in.

[theseus2x]

We're thinking Charlie is involved in that now?

Okay, look :

1) The Gowbwins/Hobgobwins are natural allies to GK.
2) Turning Natural Allies is very rare.
3) Charlie has demonstrated the ability to alter Natural Allies. (see Jillian and the giants)
4) The cause of the Saline uprising is unknown/mysterious, even to a guy like Sizemore
5) Charlie is clever enough to pull something like that off without being caught
6) Charlie's motives for doing so at the time? We can speculate, based on those who benefitted. (Wanda seems more likely than Stanley...)

Do we KNOW Charlie was responsible? No.
Is there a lot of circumstancial evidence implicating Charlie? Yes.
Is Saline's fall important to the grand plot? Obviously, Baldur is telling us Yes.

[joosy]

It is probably unlikely that Stanley was involved directly in the plot against King Saline IV.

He was not just the Heir Designate but ALSO the Chief Warlord.

Duty affects all warlords/commanders - Chief Warlord most of all. He cannot withold information and cannot conspire against the ruler.
http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F084a.jpg

Notable exceptions are if they believe they are doing it for the Overlord's benefit or if they don't think it will make a difference. Examples are Wanda not revealing her stash of spells and Parson not revealing what he suspects about Charlie and the Gobwins (of course the latter could just be Parson unconsciously balking against Erf's rules and the former being that Wanda is loyal to Fate not Stanley) Parson could also have lower Duty due to his no longer being Chief Warlord. (side comment: I wonder if Parson would be compelled to obey a command from Ansom now, similar to his involuntary reaction from Stanley. Parson does not view him as a superior and I doubt would obey him. Maddening, as Ansom would say.)

Thus, it makes sense to have your heir designate also as your Chief Warlord - hopefully with a backup heir as Chief Warlords probably get croaked more often than not. (see: Jetstone, Royalty) Now an Heir who is NOT a Chief Warlord has a lesser sense of Duty and can probably conspire to some degree against the throne (see: Transylvito, former Royalty)

So.. unless Stanley justified offing Saline for the 'greater good' then he was just being used by Wanda or Charlie or whomever. My thoughts on who is responsible have me asking "Cui Bono?" Who Benefits? So far very good arguments have been laid out for both Wanda and to some degree Charlie. Maybe there was some unmentioned benefit for the natural allies as well. TIme will tell.

[Justyn]

Maybe there was some unmentioned benefit for the natural allies as well.

Maybe it was their attempt to become a capital side?

[theseus2x]

It is probably unlikely that Stanley was involved directly in the plot against King Saline IV.

He was not just the Heir Designate but ALSO the Chief Warlord.

Duty affects all warlords/commanders - Chief Warlord most of all. He cannot withold information and cannot conspire against the ruler.
http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F084a.jpg

I am not convinced of this. Loyalty, Duty, etc. have ratings. They can be altered. They can be messed with. Units in Erfworld consider betrayals rare, but not impossible.

Look at pre-decrypted Ansom. He never went "Wait - Stanley was GK's CW when Saline died. He couldn't have been involved", he went "Saline died! Stanley MUST have been involved!"

I take Loyalty with a grain of salt.

[joosy]

It is probably unlikely that Stanley was involved directly in the plot against King Saline IV.

He was not just the Heir Designate but ALSO the Chief Warlord.

Duty affects all warlords/commanders - Chief Warlord most of all. He cannot withold information and cannot conspire against the ruler.
http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F084a.jpg

I am not convinced of this. Loyalty, Duty, etc. have ratings. They can be altered. They can be messed with. Units in Erfworld consider betrayals rare, but not impossible.

Look at pre-decrypted Ansom. He never went "Wait - Stanley was GK's CW when Saline died. He couldn't have been involved", he went "Saline died! Stanley MUST have been involved!"

I take Loyalty with a grain of salt.

Take it up with the writer then, those are mostly his words regarding Duty.

And I gave a possible out: If Stanely believed it was for the greater good he may be able to go along with it if not outright conspire against Saline.

Also keep in mind that, according to Sizemore, the gobwins(and hobgobwins?) broke their alliance and Stanley had to come back and retake Gobwin Knob. http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F079.jpg That gives more credence to Charlie given what we are led to believe he can do with natural alliances. Wanda is still in the game of course given her penchant for manipulation; magical and otherise. I wonder what the 'special mission' was that needed valuable casters being taken from the safety of a city.. perhaps that's not important.

Of course, Sizemore could be lying, it could have been an elaborate plot wth Stanley and the Gobwins, it could also have been monkeys flying from Bogroll's zhopa as well but isn't it fun to wildly speculate?

[gameboy1234]

We're thinking Charlie is involved in that now?

3) Charlie has demonstrated the ability to alter Natural Allies. (see Jillian and the giants)
...
Is there a lot of circumstancial evidence implicating Charlie? Yes.

Personally I don't subscribe to this point of view. Sure it's fine to speculate. But lots of folks have demonstrated an ability to turn allies: Jillian and Vanna, Wanda, etc. We don't even know for sure that it was Charlie who turned the Giants. I think the text said it was his idea, but Jillian may have made the actual offer.

Turning maybe rare or a big deal for a natural ally, but it still happens, and I think it happens a lot more than we know about right now. The evidence is far to circumstantial to implicate sides that weren't even known to be involved in the conflict at that time.

My 2 schmuckers. All in fun for speculation too.

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

He didn't. Level 1 cities pop infantry, and Level 2 cities pop warlords, according to Sizemore.
(My question is, "What does it even means to be from a tribe given how units pop?")

Plaid units have a funny round nose that sticks out, croatons have triangular heads.