Sandlol

Being a fan of traditional RPGs, I am naturally attracted to a game's Lore. Some games are better than others in this department but Aion, fortunately, has a good enough story for me to want to sink my teeth into. There's definitely not a large amount of lore compared to an established series like Warcraft or Ultima, but what is there is evidence that they have some sharp minds in the lorelol department.

A refreshing aspect of Lore in Aion is that it's told from the perspective of the Elyos and the Asmodians... and the facts don't always line up. There's no overarching set-in-stone universal truth told through the medium of a narrator or the like.

What is common between both sides is that Aion (a god) created Atreia, an inside-out hollow world where everyone walks around inside. The physical manifestation of his power - the tower of eternity - spanned from one side to the other. It provided warmth, light and other aspects of sustenance to the inhabitants of Atreia, guarded by two guardians: Israphel and Siel. Aion also created a buttload of races, including Humans and the Drakan.

The Drakan were meant to be rulers of the world. I can only guess that Aion isn't an omnipotent god... but maybe he just prefers to delegate. In any case, the Drakan unexpectedly evolved into power mongering world-rapers, renaming themselves the Balaur. The most powerful five of them became Dragon Lords, rulers of their kind. After committing lots of genocide and enslaving two species (the Mau and Krall), Aion decided he'd had enough of them. He empowered twelve humans, creating the Empyrean Lords, who took their forces to the Tower of Eternity -- the Balaur couldn't penetrate the shield around it.

Now that the background's in place, we get to the meat of it all.

Fast forward a thousand years of war. Israphel, one of the Tower guardians, unexpectedly came forward with his idea that the humans make peace with the Balaur. Lord (Lady?) Ariel leaped at the chance. She reasoned that humanity was safe inside the shield and that if possible, they should end the war with a peace agreement and just live on. Slowly, other Lords came to share the same desire. The remaining lords however, lead by Lord Azphel, were simply astonished. I'd imagine they mostly either just laughed ("lol, good one") or were too stunned by disbelief to offer a voice of reason. Eventually, the pro-peace lords persuaded the other Tower guardian, securing the vote.

Now, if you're the peace loving kind, you've probably come to the conclusion that this seems like a nice path to take, that the pro-peace side are "the goodies". Allow me to dispel this illusion.

First we consider the instigators of the war, the Balaur. These corrupted creatures enjoy genocide, slavery and warmongering. They are the embodiment of hunger for power, desiring everything in existence. As an example of the kind of lengths they would go to to get into the tower, they massacred entire races outside the shield in an attempt to draw the Empyrean Lords out. These creatures are the very embodiment of evil and of all the wars everywhere ever experienced by humanity, in Atreia or Earth, this is the most noble, the most justified.

"Okay," you might think to yourself, "so they're bad. But should we not strive for peace as an ideal?" If you are so inclined towards peace, sure. But -- and this is just a suggestion -- perhaps you should not strive for peace if your real, substantial god gave you immortality and super powers and the express command to rid Atreia of the Balaur. And, ya know, the peace treaty only includes your race, and not the other thousand or so races that are currently undergoing ethnic cleansing at the hands of the race you would be honour-bound not to fight.

Now, that's two paragraphs of reason. Repeat that to Israphel and Ariel and they'd have been all "oh, right" and dropped the subject before marching outside to grab their swords. Peace was a very ridiculous ideal and I'd bet all the lords would be feeling pretty silly about it, perhaps even a little humbled by their wavering faith, weaker in the eyes of their peers. But they didn't drop it. They went through with the peace proposal. And this wasn't just one Lord -- it was half the Empyrean Lords and both Tower guardians. Something smells fishy.

If you were one of the lords opposed to peace, you'd be pretty frustrated by now. And they were. Lord Azphel had probably popped a few veins by now, but nothing could have prepared him or the others for the next development.

The tower guardians and pro-peace lords dropped the Aetheric Shield to let the Balaur in for the peace meeting.

Yyyeeeeeeeeeeah.

Queue the vein popping. Making peace with evil incarnate is one thing; placing trust in evil incarnate is quite another. It's like inviting a pack of pedophiles in an orphanage. Or a class of school children into your cottage made of candy. Or the most underhanded power hungry evil race in existence into the place they've been fighting to get into for the last thousand years -- oh wait, that's not an analogy.

At this point, if you were one of the warmongering lords, you'd be past frustration and well into "okay just what is going on here". Lord Azphel made the first intelligent move of the night by pre-emptively killing one of the Dragon Lords. This triggered an earlier-than-planned Balaur invasion, which would presumably have tilted the scales slightly in the human's favour, but nothing more came of it -- the remaining four Dragon Lords were fine and the tower was destroyed nonetheless.

In the lore, neither side dwells any further on these events... but I am a dweller. I dwell. The gross incompetency displayed here is, in my opinion, beyond the capabilities of the Lords and guardians. War weariness can only explain so much. It is conceivable that one of them might start to waver, to have ideals of peaceful existence, before quietly mentioning it to a friend who then rapidly beats sense back into his or her head. But a full eight of fourteen, in the face of un-ignorable reasoning and logic and the direct command of Aion himself... seems a little inconceivable.

Did the Balaur have a hand in this? Were they able to find a way to project their influence through the Aetheric Shield?

I have a conspiracy theory: imagine the Guardians are sick of guarding. It's not so hard. Aion created the Drakan to rule, and that got out of hand. It's not such a stretch to imagine the Guardians thinking after a few thousand years "you know what, this sucks. We got the short end of the stick here. I want to go asplore". The Balaur know all about temptation... if they could have made conversation with Israphel, they could have planted the seeds of conspiracy. Israphel then lets Siel in on the plot: let the Balaur in, the Balaur take over the tower and Aion's power, Israphel and Siel are free to go on their way for their part.

Then there's the matter of the Empyrean Lords. Presumably they are stronger than the guardians, or Aion wouldn't have had need of them at all. Ariel, weary from the war, is approached and promised peace as long as Humans serve the Balaur. But not just peace: they are also promised power and luxury, a life for them and theirs that they couldn't possibly refuse.

The pawns are in place and the game begins. Israphel "convinces" Siel and the balaur-influenced Lords. They put on a show, pretending to mull it over thoughtfully. The false peace agreement provides the pretense for lowering the shield and letting the Balaur in... but instead of taking over the Tower, they destroy it! They have a much greater source of power, after all. Israphel and Siel go wtf, realise the error of their ways and sacrifice themselves to save Atreia... or alternatively, fake their own deaths (Atreia is currently dying, so it's plausible!). The balaur-influenced Lords go south and claim their prize: a land bathed in the light of their new star, pouring through the now shattered exterior of Atreia.

But, the lore-writers probably aren't that clever. Or are they? Dun-dun-dun...