When Faction Conflict Goes Hot

Well, as the Faction Conflict lore in the restored Faction Missions points out, the Purple People are plotting to Go to War. Whatever reason that may be behind it, this follows the trend we’ve seen from the pre-launch ARGs to through the story.

My prediction for when it comes: the Templars are going to take it in the shorts. Simply put, this is for the same reason the Atenists planned for Tokyo 2.0 to take place in London.

The Illuminati Labyrinth is hidden below New York with a few clandestine passageways to/from the surface. The Dragon’s base is hidden in plain sight via the twisting alleys of Seoul and their manipulation so that the wrong people aren’t at the wrong places at the wrong times.

Temple Court meanwhile, is amazingly open and accessible from London and not subtle about what it is. It’s an exposed target, and Phoenicians have already demonstrated a willingness to indulge in extreme violence in the vicinity of Templar HQ (see the Saint Nick holiday mission).

All it takes is a second, more calm John, another dangerous artifact (and the Phoenicians have their own hoards after all) and BAM. The Sword and the Cross gets decapitated. It’s not that much better against a conventional assault.

Your thoughts, my friends?

I wouldn’t count out the Templars just yet. While they deny it, it appears they have made some under-the-table deals with the Council of Venice, who is sure to back them up when things go sour with other factions.
Also, I get the feeling that they’re actually the best faction to defend themselves against an attack. Even the Pyramidion had to confess that no one beats the Templars in the art of war and it was pretty clear from the end of the ‘Last Train to Cairo’ storyline in a Templar’s mission report that Temple Hall is equipped to handle an assault. Remember, it’s designed like a fortress.
In fact, I get the feeling that if the Phoenicians or anyone else makes such a bold and open move against them, they might just unleash their full, terrifying potential for warfare.

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New York also had precautions in place that failed them in Times Square. That said it definitly isn’t easy if pulled of. Also I don’T think the dragon is out of reach.
The templar also survived one shism, so I believe there structure can handle it even if they lose london completly.
For story I suspect that we hit the phoenicians before they hit us. Messing up new carthage.

If it were that easy to knock down the Templars, it would have been done already.

I would not be surprised if it was quite openly bad in Templardom, though, since brothers fighting can be very nasty.

Here I was hoping this was the pinup competition. Still hoping to find “incriminating” pictures of Sonnac. (No, not the one where he’s wearing KG’s dress, seen that already).

Can vouch for Temple Hall being much tougher to blow up than it appears. I spent years trying to put large quantities of fireworks to productive use and didn’t manage any damage at all.

Suspect that for all the factions are into excessively large architecture, they’re also highly decentralized. Blowing up TH, or the Labyrinth, would be embarrassing, but probably wouldn’t be enough to destroy the faction. Oddly the Dragon is likely to take the most damage from a HQ strike, but they’re also the most able to regenerate from nothing.

Gotta remember the Dragon is prolly the least localized. They reside in Seoul now, but they will only be there for so long. I imagine they would pack up and leave before risking their organisation struckture. Thats why their HQ is much simpler than the others.

Yeah, I’m mostly thinking of it as being the only faction were we actually know where the head actually is. There’s no real evidence that the leaders for the others are physically present

I really doubt such a plain and onesided scenario is to be expected from Funcom.

Though, Templars could have a unique place since the phoenicians are closely related to them.

Thats true, but thats what we have been told. Considering what Sonnac and KG says about the Dragon though, you gotta wonder =P. I always found a little conflict with the Lore here. Everyone makes it clear that they dont know squat about the Dragon, yet the buzzing reveals quite a lot about the HQ in Seoul. KG also makes the comment that Dragon agents, simply do not have the important info, to give up when asked. For All we know, the Head is not the only one, or even the leader. Besides considering the Head should be a Child, i imagine the Head is changed quite often.

Edit: well the buzzing says they are currently in Seoul, nothing more. So do anyone but Dragons know that the Head is there. That is again assuming there is only one, and that he is the leader.

I just had another realization.
The Templar’s Non-Secret World connections are military in nature. (Governments. Military Leaders. Those sort of people.).
I wouldn’t be surprised if they had the easiest access to actual, not-fooling-around nukes out of the factions.
And New Carthage, in the middle of the ocean instead of in a major city, is a rather easy target to keep secret or hide away as, say ‘Experiments’.
And once the heat is really on them, I get the feeling the Templars might be able to find it real fast.

Too much?

To be clear, I’m not saying it would be fatal for or even cripple the Templars too much, but indeed considering their reputation and ability at war it would indeed stand to reason the Phoencians would seek to redress the balance with some preemptive striking.

It’s what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor, after all. And if you point out the US ultimately won… well, yeah. I’m just saying the Templars are going to take the most knocks at the outset.

I just had another realization.
The Templar’s Non-Secret World connections are military in nature. (Governments. Military Leaders. Those sort of people.).
I wouldn’t be surprised if they had the easiest access to actual, not-fooling-around nukes out of the factions.
And New Carthage, in the middle of the ocean instead of in a major city, is a rather easy target to keep secret or hide away as, say ‘Experiments’.
And once the heat is really on them, I get the feeling the Templars might be able to find it real fast.

Too much?

New Carthage is generally in motion and lots of sorcery and other mystic tricks are employed to keep it hidden. So far, the Big Three haven’t been seen to be able to track it down. Probably something the Purples are relying to avoid such large scale retaliation.

I feel like an attack, at least near Temple Hall, could likely be a trigger for starting something major. Either that or All three simultaniously. If All three were attacked the Big Three would prolly quickly turn the attention away from eachother, where as an attack on one, leave the others as potential culprints. The Purple are smart enough to either have enough fire power to really cripple All three at once, or buy time by letting them suspect eachother.

I think the best way to beat the Templars wouldn’t require an attack at all but rather help the conflict that is already there along. This whole Old Guard/New Blood thing that’s been going on can probably be exploited to at least cause a serious rift.

Divide and Conquer.

Who said anything about bringing in people and regular weapons =x. A filth bomb has been dropped once, nearly twice, 2nd of which was headed for London.

The Phonecians don’t have to try and openly attack any of the faction HQs. What they did to facilitate the Tokyo bombing is enough for each faction to kick them in the teeth.

((I have a feeling that the purple pirates are going to be showing up in a big way in season 2.))

I don’t think John is ALL the Filth. Just from the Tokyo incident.
In fact, wasn’t part of the end of that storyline that we freed him so that he can go beyond Kaidan?

Yeah, I agree. What with 1) the Phoenician agent in New Dawn, 2) the first two faction missions clearly making them the culprits and 3) the Faction Conflict lore. One way or another we’ll see just what they’re up to - and what has been going through their heads.

Assuming it isn’t Dreamer corruption or just stupid short-term thinking.

No. We didn’t change anything about John’s circumstances. The first available :blacksignal: lore is outside Kaidan. The investigation mission “Immersion” takes place before we are allowed into Kaidain, and ends with John sending us messages in Venice with the help of a rogue coder.

That is purly electronics when you think about it though. I wonder if he can pass through the filth outside of Kaidan, aside from near the Tokyo portal. I would even go as far as to say that he can’t control electronics directly outside Kaidan either. The games come with discs or something. Same with the phone call in SA. That could be John using a phone in Tokyo to call Che.

Yeah. Point was, we didn’t change his circumstances. He could always contact people outside Kaidan, or disrupt the Buzzing’s signal in small ways in Agartha. That wasn’t us. And nothing after the events of Kaidan suggest we changed that in any way.