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[Lulupab]

Orlais likes to conquer lands; Nevarra, Kirkwall, and Ferelden can attest to this. The Chantry publicly supported the Orlesian occupation of Ferelden, as the two have a symbiotic relationship, which lead to Maric and Loghain contemplating dissolving the local Chantry. There's also the issue of converting the elves to the Andrastian faith, and criminalizing the elven religion.

Nice avatar, by the way.

 
Yep, Orlais is none-mage version of Tevinter who likes to disguise stuff a lot. You don't have to actually use people as slaves to enslave them.
 
Also I'm a Daenerys worshiper 
 

Honestly i'd say the Eastern Roman Empire Method worked best.
 
You go in:enslave the local popIulation, force interbreeding between the locals and the conquerors to eradicate the sense of self, and then you take the entire current generation of the males and force them to be the vanguard in the legions, You can obliterate entire cultures, civilizations, in decades in this manner.
 
It produced more consistent results.

 
In the same time a multi-cultural empire that declared war on countries that had slaves just to free them matched Eastern roman empire in matters of military power, economy culture etc... I'm talking about Persia of course.
 
You don't have to be cruel to create an empire where things work great.

[Master Warder Z_]

We supposedly will get 40 varied endings and be able to side with demons in one, which i'm assuming would completely ruin thedas and be very hard to implement if at all possible in future games. Hoping to bring down Orlais is minor compared to that. Since we are not sharing world states together an individuals playthrough is irrelevant 

 

But that will mean they will need to make several future base world states for the next game, or establish canon.

 

Which is horrible in  eye.

[Mistic]

The Inquisition may deal with Ferelden politics to the extent of gaining approval to establish bases of power in the region, and perhaps an elven Inquisitor may address the law prohibiting a person from killing a human in defense of an elf, as well as the Hinterlands situation (for players who chose the Dalish Boon).

For players who chose the Dalish Boon and are playing as an elven Inquisitor, I can imagine the latter would be a contentious issue, given the apparent loss of the region. It might impact options in Redcliffe since the region is currently part of their territory.

 

The former, I don't see it happening. I guess most players don't even know that law exists, so in-universe it's going to be much more difficult to show it. The later, however, sounds more promising. I don't expect more than a couple lines of dialogue and a different codex entry, mind you. The Hinterlands are going to be there for playthroughs were no Dalish boon was selected. Something like Alistair's answer to Merrill, but a bit more developed.

 

We supposedly will get 40 varied endings and be able to side with demons in one, which i'm assuming would completely ruin thedas and be very hard to implement if at all possible in future games. Hoping to bring down Orlais is minor compared to that. Since we are not sharing world states together an individuals playthrough is irrelevant 

 

The "demons win" ending is so far vague at best and it could be like Shepard dying in ME2: yes, you can have it, but it will never be imported into the next game. The other options (destroy it, keep it, did other companions die?) were less groundbreaking in comparison.

[Aimi]

Honestly i'd say the Eastern Roman Empire Method worked best.
 
You go in:enslave the local popIulation, force interbreeding between the locals and the conquerors to eradicate the sense of self, and then you take the entire current generation of the males and force them to be the vanguard in the legions, You can obliterate entire cultures, civilizations, in decades in this manner.
 
It produced more consistent results.

..."eastern" Roman Empire? The East didn't conquer a whole lot of stuff until, like, the ninth and tenth centuries, and "interbreeding", "eradicating sense of self", and "vanguard in the legions" weren't on the agenda. 
 

They did also introduce aqueducts and built ampitheatres to 'civilise' and entertain local populations, and funded local leadersto ensure their sympathy to Rome. The approach varied slightly depending on the attitude of the populations to Roman rule. Their methods were certainly brutally effective, but there was some carrot as well as stick

 
Most of the construction, in the early part of the Empire at least, was chiefly done by the resources of local notables, not imperial agents. In order to ingratiate themselves with both the new Roman order and with their fellow provincials, aristocrats would try to adopt Roman culture (use of literary and spoken Latin, worship of Roman deities, prominent foundations of civic buildings) and effectively do the work of the conquerors for them.

The biggest contributions that the Romans themselves made were more prosaic. Their military conquests meant that they essentially had no competitors and that they were able to ensure order by crushing rebellions and wiping out banditry. And the program of settling Roman citizens and retired soldiers on provincial land meant that they had nuclei of loyal Roman families all over the place to help hold everything together and act as another magnet for cultural change.

Only under the Later Empire did the state itself become the major actor in provincial society, but even then the change was fairly subtle; instead of being independent local notables competing for curial office, the notables who endowed provincial towns with the trappings of Roman society were members of the Christian church or the imperial bureaucracy.
 

Please! "I need the things you have, so I'm going to destroy your nation and take them." Is a cause for war with a long and glorious tradition.

Morally valid, not historically valid.

[Char]

Yep, Orlais is none-mage version of Tevinter who likes to disguise stuff a lot. You don't have to actually use people as slaves to enslave them.
 
Also I'm a Daenerys worshiper 
 

 
In the same time a multi-cultural empire that declared war on countries that had slaves just to free them matched Eastern roman empire in matters of military power, economy culture etc... I'm talking about Persia of course.

 
You don't have to be cruel to create an empire where things work great.

The Achaemenids were a very progressive empire (apart from the proskynesis) but they were around mainly in Hellenic times. The Romans based themselves loosely on the Achaemenids, but with a more martial focus

[Master Warder Z_]

..."eastern" Roman Empire? The East didn't conquer a whole lot of stuff until, like, the ninth and tenth centuries, and "interbreeding", "eradicating sense of self", and "vanguard in the legions" weren't on the agenda. 

 

I'm aware, i am just using an example of their tactics against the Vandals.

 

Alas despite it sounding dramatic and neat, such practices weren't very widely employed or at least i never heard much or read about them...But such is History, the best idea's get passed over for bread and circuses.

[LobselVith8]

We supposedly will get 40 varied endings and be able to side with demons in one, which i'm assuming would completely ruin thedas and be very hard to implement if at all possible in future games. Hoping to bring down Orlais is minor compared to that. Since we are not sharing world states together an individuals playthrough is irrelevant

Regional impacts to Ferelden, Orlais, and the Dales can be quite plausible if future games take place in other regions on the continent, especially given Laidlaw's "five game plan". We can simply hear about the fate of Ferelden, Orlais, and the Dales in dialogue, which would make significant choices possible in Inquisition. Especially for the prospect of irrevocably helping the elves of the occupied nation of the Dales.

You give me renewed hope for Inquisition, Tevinter Rose.

[Mistic]

The Achaemenids were a very progressive empire (apart from the proskynesis) but they were around mainly in Hellenic times. The Romans based themselves loosely on the Achaemenids, but with a more martial focus

 

There were other empires based on Persia during Roman times, like the Parthian Empire and the Sassanid Empire.

 

I'm aware, i am just using an example of their tactics against the Vandals.

 

I'm not sure if it's a good example. After all, the Vandal kingdom in North Africa was ruling over a mostly Roman population. In fact, they perpetuated the differences because they were Arian Christians and their subjects were Catholics and Donatists. So the Eastern Roman Empire wiping out their culture was actually a rather easy achievement, nothing compared to the Roman conquests of all (any Carthaginians in the room?).

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

 

I'm not sure if it's a good example. After all, the Vandal kingdom in North Africa was ruling over a mostly Roman population. In fact, they perpetuated the differences because they were Arian Christians and their subjects were Catholics and Donatists. So the Eastern Roman Empire wiping out their culture was actually a rather easy achievement, nothing compared to the Roman conquests of all (any Carthaginians in the room?).

 

Dammit the children of Dido will have their revenge upon the sons of Aeneas!

[Dean_the_Young]

Doesn't this imply that "we need your land" is a valid excuse for conquest?

Which it, y'know, isn't?

 

'Valid' excuse for conquest?

 

What's that? I always thought the justifying factor was if you could get everyone else to accept it.

 

 

[/kidding]

 

Kidding aside, and you can tell me privately if you'd like, is there anything you would consider a valid justification for conquest?

[Master Warder Z_]

I'm not sure if it's a good example. After all, the Vandal kingdom in North Africa was ruling over a mostly Roman population. In fact, they perpetuated the differences because they were Arian Christians and their subjects were Catholics and Donatists. So the Eastern Roman Empire wiping out their culture was actually a rather easy achievement, nothing compared to the Roman conquests of all (any Carthaginians in the room?).

 

The Punic Wars are overrated.

[Aimi]

The Achaemenids were a very progressive empire (apart from the proskynesis) but they were around mainly in Hellenic times. The Romans based themselves loosely on the Achaemenids, but with a more martial focus

 
Achaimenid Iran..."progressive"? Less "martial" than the Romans? Huh?
 

I'm aware, i am just using an example of their tactics against the Vandals.

Except they...didn't?

When the Vandals and Alans invaded North Africa in the 430s and 440s, they created a kingdom that consisted of a thin crust of Vandalic military aristocratic elite on top of an enormous mass of Roman Christian African citizenry. These Vandals were archaeologically and culturally invisible; the only real trace of them, apart from the wars that they fought, is the history of the Catholic prelate Victor of Vita, who opposed Vandal efforts to strengthen 'homoousian' or 'Arian' interpretations of Christianity. They ruled Africa for less than a century before the Roman invasion; the Roman military victories that broke the back of the Vandal kingdom probably resulted in the deaths of many Vandals, and certainly most of the important ones.

What was left in the 530s was the old Roman African population and a tiny minority of Vandals. Under such circumstances, there wasn't a whole lot of active cultural change that the Romans even needed to do; the overwhelming majority of the population was already 'them'. Many of the Vandals, once defeated in battle, were enslaved, which removed even more of the pool.

I mean, if you're looking for strategies of deliberate attempts to suppress ethnic and religious identity by a conqueror, you'd want to look at, like, the Ottoman Empire, or Serbia in the Balkan Wars, and so on. Picking out Rome as the bogeyman in that particular sense is weird. Rome was an awful place, but state-directed suppression of local identities isn't one of the many, many reasons that was so.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

The Punic Wars are overrated.

 

Okay now we've got a problem! Don't you be disrespecting mah Roman Republic OR mah Carthaginian brosephs!

[Char]

There were other empires based on Persia during Roman times, like the Parthian Empire and the Sassanid Empire.
 .

I seem to remember the Parthian Empire in particular being rather Hellenised after the Seleucids and the cultural transfer, but my Classical Archaeology is admittedly very very rusty. The Achaemenids are the ones I would have singled out as being the most committed to freeing slaves and implementing infrastructure.

[Aimi]

There were other empires based on Persia during Roman times, like the Parthian Empire and the Sassanid Empire.

 
Yes.

It's kind of weird that people think that Achaimenid Iran went to war with anybody in order to free slaves. It didn't. Like, at all. Ever.
 

Kidding aside, and you can tell me privately if you'd like, is there anything you would consider a valid justification for conquest?

 
I dunno. That's pretty tricky. It's also contextually dependent; in the modern world order, I would say that I can't think of any morally valid reason. But in premodern history, when "public opinion" and "nationalist sentiment" were virtually nonexistent, many of the reasons that conquering stuff is bad become less relevant. Starting and fighting a war, with all that that entails, is bad enough, but...yeah, I dunno.
 

The Punic Wars are overrated.

But they did result in some efforts to actively suppress local identity. Also, outright massacres and enslavement.

[Char]

 
Achaimenid Iran..."progressive"? Less "martial" than the Romans? Huh?
 

Except they...didn't?

When the Vandals and Alans invaded North Africa in the 430s and 440s, they created a kingdom that consisted of a thin crust of Vandalic military aristocratic elite on top of an enormous mass of Roman Christian African citizenry. These Vandals were archaeologically and culturally invisible; the only real trace of them, apart from the wars that they fought, is the history of the Catholic prelate Victor of Vita, who opposed Vandal efforts to strengthen 'homoousian' or 'Arian' interpretations of Christianity. They ruled Africa for less than a century before the Roman invasion; the Roman military victories that broke the back of the Vandal kingdom probably resulted in the deaths of many Vandals, and certainly most of the important ones.

What was left in the 530s was the old Roman African population and a tiny minority of Vandals. Under such circumstances, there wasn't a whole lot of active cultural change that the Romans even needed to do; the overwhelming majority of the population was already 'them'. Many of the Vandals, once defeated in battle, were enslaved, which removed even more of the pool.

I mean, if you're looking for strategies of deliberate attempts to suppress ethnic and religious identity by a conqueror, you'd want to look at, like, the Ottoman Empire, or Serbia in the Balkan Wars, and so on. Picking out Rome as the bogeyman in that particular sense is weird. Rome was an awful place, but state-directed suppression of local identities isn't one of the many, many reasons that was so.

 

I'm learning a lot here, so thank you for these posts. My time studying the classical period was mainly spent looking at the conclusions we were able to draw from architecture etc and so (although I hadn't really thought about it) in many respects I am quite ignorant of the socio-political motivations of the nations involved, and even that has grown rusty since it was almost four years ago I last looked at any of it. It's interesting to have my assumptions challenged, and it's encouraged me to read more on the subject.

[Master Warder Z_]

 I mean, if you're looking for strategies of deliberate attempts to suppress ethnic and religious identity by a conqueror, you'd want to look at, like, the Ottoman Empire, or Serbia in the Balkan Wars, and so on. Picking out Rome as the bogeyman in that particular sense is weird. Rome was an awful place, but state-directed suppression of local identities isn't one of the many, many reasons that was so.

 

I'm not, i was citing a tactic that was used by Rome in a situation of War with the Vandals as i said, Note i said the results were consistent with the practice, not with usage but again that really isn't the point.

 

Citing the cultural narrowness of the Vandal's during the Roman North African Invasion is something i am already aware, i wasn't citing its effectiveness in this case, more so the usage of the combination of taking slaves of the captured citizenry to dilute cultural values.  It reminded me of the practice, truth be told because of the taking of slaves, more so then the forced conscription into the Legions, although depending upon what you read of the campaigns out there, that did happen as well.

 

But to the point, Yes the Ottomans would be a better case and point for this tactic, Rome just reminded me of it during this very campaign because of its similarity, and the fact under Trajan and the Late Roman Army, this tactic was employed again, abet with limited success during the Roman incursion of Nusaybin Persia.

 

Anyway we are drifting a bit off topic here.

[Master Warder Z_]

 But they did result in some efforts to actively suppress local identity. Also, outright massacres and enslavement.

 

So did Trajan and his rather short lived invasion of Persia.

[Tenebrae]

Eh morality is overrated, conquest when done right delivers lands/resources/prestige/labor etc, like my quote says: "For those of us climbing to the top of the food chain there can be no mercy. There is but one rule: Hunt or be hunted", lack of war/conquest leads to stagnation and stagnation is death.

 

If we are using the Roman example then the cessation of expansion in to Germania was the begining of the end, it began a trend that turned the legions from a well oiled war machine to an ever deteriorating police force, and as the legions deteriorated so did the empire, as Sun Tzu said: “Even the finest sword plunged into salt water will eventually rust.”

[LobselVith8]

The former, I don't see it happening. I guess most players don't even know that law exists, so in-universe it's going to be much more difficult to show it. The later, however, sounds more promising. I don't expect more than a couple lines of dialogue and a different codex entry, mind you. The Hinterlands are going to be there for playthroughs were no Dalish boon was selected. Something like Alistair's answer to Merrill, but a bit more developed.

I'd imagine it could be a serious issue for an elven Inquisitor, since trust issues would be brought up with the loss of a promised land for the Elvhen. Since the Bioware canon (or default) is the Dalish Warden committing the ultimate sacrifice, I can imagine there might be some more dialogue than the sparse (and vague) scene between King Alistair and Merrill.

The "demons win" ending is so far vague at best and it could be like Shepard dying in ME2: yes, you can have it, but it will never be imported into the next game. The other options (destroy it, keep it, did other companions die?) were less groundbreaking in comparison.

It might be in reference to regional losses to the denizens of the Beyond; for example: Orlais falling to the dangerous spirits who emerge from the Breach, but not the Dales or Ferelden.

[Master Warder Z_]

It might be in reference to regional losses to the denizens of the Beyond; for example: Orlais falling to the dangerous spirits who emerge from the Breach, but not the Dales or Ferelden.

 

Pffft.

[Tenebrae]

It might be in reference to regional losses to the denizens of the Beyond; for example: Orlais falling to the dangerous spirits who emerge from the Breach, but not the Dales or Ferelden.

I doubt the demons will content themselves with just Orlais, if the fade fails and the tears spread no nation/people would be safe.

[Maria Caliban]

I expect that the demons win option will not import to DA 4, but will be easier to get than ME 2's Shepard dies ending.

[Master Warder Z_]

I expect that the demons win option will not import to DA 4, but will be easier to get than ME 2's Shepard dies ending.

 

You sort of had to shoot yourself in the foot to get that ending...like seriously.