MS: Revolution Begins

Lore forum

Posted on Jan. 2, 2017, 12:14 p.m. by AgentGreen

In today's story, Tezzeret is now in charge, having installed himself as Grand Consul; but the flame of Rebellion flares and the time is now to start the Revolution

AgentGreen says... #2

Here's the link; the URL tag still is buggy, grrrr

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/revolution-begins-2017-01-02

January 2, 2017 12:16 p.m.

Pieguy396 says... #3

January 2, 2017 2:46 p.m.

DemonDragonJ says... #4

At last, the rebellion has officially begun, after much simmering and slow burning. It makes sense that Chandra was the spark that helped to ignite the rebellion, given that Kaladesh is her home plane and that she is one of the most central characters of this block.

I was very surprised by how easily the renegades seized control of the aether hub. There is no way that the consulate shall not retaliate, so the renegades should not celebrate too early.

I believe that the planeswalkers were being incredibly selfish by seeking to destroy the planar bridge that Rashmi developed, and making her promise to not continue her research on it; it is as if they consider themselves to be memebers of an elite club and do not wish for non-planeswalker to threaten their uniqueness. I understand that Tezzeret is evil and could wreak untold havoc with the planar bridge, but that is not a sufficient reason to not continue research on it; I believe that there is much good that could be accomplished with it, as well.

Obviously, there is no way that the story writers shall abandon the the planar bridge, so, even if the unit is destroyed, I expect that Tezzeret shall already have stored all Rashmi's research and that planar bridges shall appear again in the story, either sooner or later.

As a side note, the story mentioned a vedalken with close-cropped hair, but since when do vedalken have hair? Every piece of artwork that has ever depicted a vedalken has shown them to be hairless, so was that vedalken with hair a mutation?

January 2, 2017 5:30 p.m.

RicketyEng says... #5

Vedalkens with hair: Shrewd Negotiation, Nimble Innovator.

Maybe with hair: Glimmer of Genius, Curio Vendor?

QED

In other news, I liked the story a lot. Sram seems like a reasonable fellow. He was pragmatic and straight forward enough to recognize the situation for what it was and concede control of the Aether Hub without putting himself or his engineers and technicians in any unnecessary harm. I like that.

I disagree with DemonDragonJ about the planeswalkers' goal of destroying the planar bridge. I think it is pretty easy to see that the potential for bad far outweighs any potential for good that the technology surely has. The dangers of New Phyrexia alone are reason enough to eliminate any chance of a planar bridge falling into their control. The Gatewatch and friends may not even know about New Phyrexia (maybe Elspeth told Ajani?) but if they did, their resolve would be pretty strong.

Rashmi's dedication was very moving. May the Heart of Kiran be a flagship of the future.

January 3, 2017 12:06 p.m.

AgentGreen says... #6

DemonDragonJ There is so much potential for problems with the Planer Bridge.

If there is a gateway that stretches across the multiverse, you have a host of problems. The Pherexians, the Eldrazi, any number of intra-planer invasion, etc. The Gatewatch understands the dangers of the multiverse. We as fans of the game know the dangers of the multiverse. Having a bridge across planes is not something that should exist. Ever.

January 3, 2017 2:57 p.m.

DemonDragonJ says... #7

AgentGreen, in that case, should planeswalkers even exist? Could they not be problematic, as well?

RicketyEng, it seems that only vedalken on Kaladesh have hair, just as only vedalken on Mirrodin have four arms (although I am not certain what unique traits vedalken on Ravnica and Alara have).

To the both of you, I shall again say that there is no way that WotC would introduce such a plot device and not have it be used, again, so I highly doubt that the planar bridge shall be destroyed.

January 3, 2017 10:50 p.m.

RicketyEng says... #8

It is true that Planeswalkers can create havoc too (and the lore has shown us a number of examples). Maybe a character will figure that out sometime and decide to start hunting them down or maybe Garruk could use that as some semblance of a good reason to be hunting planeswalkers.

From a story telling perspective you have a point about the planar bridge. The morality of its existence seems clear that it should not exist and therefore the Gatewatch's actions can be justified. I suspect that by the end of the block the threat will only be temporarily neutralized. That will leave it available for future use but without it causing any more threat in the short term.

Alternatively, in the final showdown we could discover that we're dealing with a fully operational planar bridge and realize that "it's a trap!" Maybe Bolas will manage to come through the bridge either fully or partially and that could become the reason to follow the villains to Amonkhet. Perhaps what this says about the bridge is that while it is clearly immoral to exist due to incalculable evil potential, the reality is that it can only be used for one evil deed at a time. Therefore we just may get to see it used a wee bit before it gets destroyed.

Either way, the consulate will be overthrown and the conflict on Kaladesh will either be finished or downgraded to an internal conflict allowing the Gatewatch to leave.

January 4, 2017 10:13 a.m.

This discussion has been closed