RuneScape Forum Archive | Why Saradomin split his armies

Byzantinist

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Hguoh said :
Saradomin, on the other hand, had spent much of the 2nd age losing territory to the Zarosian Empire's expansion, and had been attacked unprovoked by Zarosian forces at the age's end (though that was a ploy by the Zamorakian rebels to get the Zarosian guard out of Senntisten during the coup). To him, Zamorak was the enemy of his enemy. And the enemy of my enemy is somebody I can work with to deal with my enemy. And given how Zamorak was tied up reclaiming the empire, his forces should have posed little threat to Saradomin's territories anyway.

Anyone who finds Zamorak’s entry into the war a date worth thinking about, should find an answer to the following question: who razed the neutral wall of Zarosians separating Zamorakian and Saradominist territory? The barrier between Forinthry (bordering Senntisten) and Hallowvale (bordering Kharyrll) was a double row - except in one place: Viggora’s folly. Anyone not wanting a border dispute had to bring to bear all their military might and wisdom to keep an enemy from reaching this territory, tightly locking it down. Wonder who got there first. Kharyrll, though, got exposed to "Zamorakians" as well.

So in other words, before Zamorak makes a move, Saradomin bends every effort towards supporting the former’s drive for power, crushing his mortally scattered enemies first, at the Northern edge of the Zarosian Empire’s borders. Thus, as Saradomin starts swinging his armies at Nex’s platoon, Drakan somehow prepares for him the very fate readied for their victims. Once Saradomin allies him to get the rest on their knees, Zamorak does all he possibly can to push the remaining Zarosians towards war. Once gone to war, both order their armies to crush the Zarosian empire’s resistance and sap the other gods, signaling an end to imperialist wars and undermining the war effort of Senntisten’s armies. At last , they unleash their might on a weakened Senntisten as a deathblow. Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

03-Mar-2018 20:05:56 - Last edited on 03-Mar-2018 20:59:21 by Byzantinist

Byzantinist

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A Mad Hatter said :
I don't think we have a reliable timeline much less a list of where Zaros was keeping his powerful artifacts like that stashed, so no, I can't. But we do know that the Catalyst also changed hands quite a few times during the course of the God Wars, so it's not too far of a stretch to say that someone from Zaros' camp with the power to manage it (like Nex) would be capable of taking it back from Saradominist control under the proper circumstances in the early days.

Makes sense , otherwise Saradomin’s soldiers could have tapped into the catalyst to even get a chance at Nex. Never mind needing four entire factions’ armies to take a weakened Nex down, good old Saradomin separates his loyal human troops far away from his stronghold on a risky mission near Ghorrock, not to attack any fortress nearby (Frostenhorn?), again far from Hallowvale. Guess Nex was expecting very little resistance at this point, and Saradomin made his soldiers as fast and hardened as he possibly could to unleash them on the most exposed enemy general at that moment, though with neither the Mahjarrat nor Catalyst nor other artifacts help it very much spelled suicide for his troops.

We could say, then, that Saradomin’s strike on Nex was the groundbreaker of Zamorak’s resurgence and military rise to power. The god of order could wage war, though at some point it would eventually usher in the god of chaos. By all means let him crack half Forinthry into pieces: either way, he is the thunderstom needed to clear the air across the continent. Might as well have Saradomin’s followers do what Zamorak himself finds inconvenient. However, he is too smart to want to start the war and participate from day one. Zamorak needs a Gielinor racked by crises, wars, devastation and famine. All this Saradomin can provide. The more havoc Zamorak wreaks across gielinor, the better it will be for Saradomin , and the more justification he gets for reclaiming territory. Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

03-Mar-2018 20:06:34

Byzantinist

Posts: 337 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A Mad Hatter said :
This is Nex we're talking about. Taking out something as dangerous as that thing as early as you can is just a better strategic move than letting it sit and run the risk of it not only decimating someone else's faction, but eventually run the risk of it turning its attention towards you at a time when you have fewer potential allies around.

Saradomin eventually realized he had no use for knights hobbled by heavy armor to take Nex down, without Mahjarrat to help while he’s at their marker, being forced to corner her single-handedly with precious cannon fodder instead. I bet he either locked the plateau down for Zamorakian Mahjarrat (who were busy or scared to show up), or there was not any agreement between Saradomin and Zamorak yet, so the former took the initiative and locked it down to keep both (rival) Mahjarrat from benefiting. Zamorak upon his return, strikes as Saradomin, after this tough venture, was reorganizing his army to strike Forinthry up North, taking valuable artifacts for himself instead.

Though, again, why go all up North, if interesting Zarosian technologies were down way south? Strategically valuable Ghorrock was up for grabs, yet he only focused on that darn ritual site. Aside from Nex’s army, there were few Zarosians in the southern part of the empire, unable to depend on her help at that moment, and, knowing she was distracted, not moving an inch until the the plateau was secure or Zamorakian-free, Saradomin could bluff and let the “vile” Freneskae creatures kill each other take Lassar and Paddewwa for himself, while a confused Azzanadra in Senntisten's busy with Zaros’s voice. Those are my two cents. Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

03-Mar-2018 20:09:16 - Last edited on 03-Mar-2018 20:42:34 by Byzantinist

Byzantinist

Posts: 337 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A Mad Hatter said :
My understanding is that it took some time for him to get back from Infernus because of dealing with a civil war there

Then again, it seems his move gave Zamorak carte blanche to expanding territory up for grabs, starting from Kharyrll and Vigora’s fortress all the way up to Annakarl, after which Saradomin will be busy collecting Lassar and Paddewwa in order to envelop Senntisten. Stashing everything up North, the Zarosians attempted to keep the Mahjarrat busy, not expecting Saradomin there first, thinking Senntisten’s borders would take too long to get by, feeling secure enough with Azzanadra up there. On other words, Saradomin’s playing russian roulette against his own head, merely guessing which nearby fortresses hide the much-needed technology to get a chance to get on top of the food chain.

Guess the main motive for dividing Saradomin’s army was that he recognized unrest in the crumbling empire, in part considering Hallowvale unbreachable and his wanderlust after Nex a walk in the park. When clearly having underestimated the Zarosians’ capacities, he starts sending all Icyene from New Domina to Gielinor as reinforcements, right when Zamorak’s Avernic demonic armies make headlines.

Might as well have Saradomin’s followers do what Zamorak himself finds inconvenient. However, the latter was too smart to want to start the war and participate from day one. Zamorak needed a Gielinor racked by crises, wars, devastation and famine. All this Saradomin could temporarily provide. Saradomin, happy to take his shot, realized the more havoc Zamorak caused Gielinor, the better it would be for him, the more justification he gets for reclaiming Zamorak’s lost territory as a liberator. Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

03-Mar-2018 20:10:57

Byzantinist

Posts: 337 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A Mad Hatter said :
And let the Zamorakians get control of territory and technology/artifacts that could go to his side instead? Even taking into account that Nex is pretty damn powerful as it is to the point where it needed 4 armies worth of people to seal away in the GWD, there was territory up for grabs at the very least that Saradomin could've wanted because he lost some of his to Zarosian expansion in the Second Age.

At the dawn of the Third Age, Saradomin not only focused his attention on reinforcing his authority but also on problems in the way of his next godhood tier and world domination. I’m not that surprised, then, that he pursued the development of military infrastructure to extend his reach. The thing is, militarization came at a high price: Saradomin paid for it with his people’s living standards, driving them right through the floor. As Saradomin’s armies plundered temples, cities, imperial bases, houses and burned them to the ground, icons and priceless literature went the same way.

Before militarization and complete mobilization, life in Second Age Hallowvale was quite tolerable. Had people’s living standard been of interest to Saradomin, he needed neither militarization nor mobilization over Forinthry. He could just defend his Icyene as he held the Catalyst, until either Zarosians or Zamorakians wore eachother out at the Ritual Plateau for domination over each other (not yet taking other factions into account).

Waging war on both factions for thousands of years was in no way meant to lift his people’s living standards, though he boosted Zamorakian Mahjarrat and prolonged the conflict, leaving Zamorakian armies more freedom of action and time for racing for claiming those crucial fortresses and agricultural lands of Forinthry for themselves, Saradomin being robbed of the latter and eventually Hallowvale, being forced to go south (modern day Asgarnia, Ardougne and finally Misthalin), enveloping Senntisten. Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

03-Mar-2018 20:11:14 - Last edited on 03-Mar-2018 20:55:08 by Byzantinist

Byzantinist

Posts: 337 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A Mad Hatter said :
The Vampyres are pretty much their own faction from what I can tell. Their alliance with Zamorak was for their own convenience only, so I think a more likely scenario was that Zamorak supplied some help to the vampyres in some fashion in return for their help in overthrowing Zaros, but he didn't give the express order to go after Hallowvale. That would be Drakan's idea that just happened to work out for Zamorak.

Zamorak, who had done everything to boost his ally Saradomin's offensive might on the Zarosian front, with a military powerhouse to match, knew very well taking the empire down was only half the job. Even the world’s most aggressive military will not by itself start wars. Besides that, he needed a fanatical, mad leader ready to pull the trigger. And to pull that trigger, Zamorak desperately needed Drakan's troops, now more than ever for supremacy.

In reality, then, Zamorak most likely agreed, as he required his army's complete readiness (mass vampyre hordes included, as we see in GWD1), so Drakan claimed Hallowvale to get hold of a strong and remote base to breed his future legions to serve in the army to survive. There, midst a maelstrom of free-for-all confusion, Drakan and his following - small, but organized, military style - seized power by capturing Ascertes. His moves were simple, but cunning. For Zamorak's propaganda and his own power's sake, not bad at all.

The alliance's breakup, with Saradomin having served Zamorak's Mahjarrat's purpose, was a small price to pay, then. Drakan crushed the Icyene stronghold to fulfill his territorial wishes sooner than Zamorak had hoped for, knowing he needed his vampyre's crucial help to take on the world and make a difference against the increasing menace of other emering gods.
As a consequence, Saradomin had been forced to focus on the rest of the world exclusively, eventually having to rival Zamorak over dominion, and bashes his enemies' heads together. Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

03-Mar-2018 20:27:24 - Last edited on 03-Mar-2018 20:53:28 by Byzantinist

Byzantinist

Posts: 337 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A Mad Hatter said :
No idea, but keep in mind Saradomin had Armadyl and I think a few other gods on his side too. Probably because he didn't fully trust Zamorak in the long run (or at the very least he was probably planning for that. I forget when he sided with Armadyl tbh). I like to think it was both of their ideas to a degree, but for different reasons in the end.

On the surface, it seemed all fifty-fifty: half of the Zarosian empire to Zamorak, the other half to Saradomin. Just moments after the attack on the North, however, Zamorak already played his first dirty trick. As his armies struck, it was as if he had solely launched war against everyone else. It was not, yet Zamorak supposedly started the war and found himself alone against everyone else.

There you have the first fall-out. Armadyl, horrified, decided to ally against a militarily buffed Zamorak with Bandos and Saradomin. Saradomin alone Zamorak could handle, Armadyl, though, meant floating islands. Just to reach them would be costly in time and hard-work getting ready, and finally to top it all off a powerful Bandosian warmachine roughly matching the other gods.

It spelt drawn-out war. Everyone knows how wars that drag on end for factions short on resources. The entire world became Zamorak’s enemy. Saradomin’s alliances, on the other hand, Zamorak could count on only so long as he was a force to be reckoned with against the remaining Zarosian generals. In a protracted war with those three gods, Zamorak would have to spread himself thin, and then, all he had worked for got destroyed.

The moment Saradomin got into trouble, Armadyl and Bandos bailed him out, of course. In the final analysis, Gielinor, for whose liberty Armadyl had formed the triumvate and entered the war, liberty it did not get: it was instead handed to Saradomin to dominate, with all of Asgarnia, Kandarin, and Misthalin combined. Notwithstanding all that, some factions today think they were victors. Sometimes one must operate within the

shadows

to serve the

light

. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

03-Mar-2018 20:36:54

Hguoh

Posts: 7,581 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Byzantinist said :
Some may retort, yes, Saradomin sacrificed some of his people, but also turned out arms to protect those left behind. We have already had occasion to see how utterly unsuited they were to defending his own territory and shielding his own people. They had either to be pressed into roles not scripted for them (human warriors vs Nex, really?) or simply junked.

We have one claim that Saradominists lured Nex into ice caves and put her and her forces in suspended animation there. However, this doesn't make sense with the revelation that the Temple of Lost Ancients was built upon Nex's palace and that Nex and her forces were imprisoned within said palace. My guess as to what actually occurred:

Saradomin gets wind of Nex's location. He sends a small strike force of Temple Knights to the area in secret and equips them with a spell to put an area in a form of suspended animation. The Temple Knights wait until the bulk of Nex's forces and, most importantly, Nex herself are within the palace before they cast the spell. From there, it's a simple matter of Saradominist forces mopping up the stragglers outside the palace and burying the evidence. This sort of tactic falls fairly well in line with the M.O. of the Temple Knights.

Byzantinist said :
Don’t you agree that every Zarosian fortress in and under Forinthry taken by Zamorak would be a future obstacle for Saradomin?

You're assuming Saradomin would know that he and Zamorak would eventually be on opposing sides. We already know Zamorak to be very capable of pledging loyalty to a god's face and operating against them in secret. And that's if we assume Zamorak was plotting against Saradomin this whole time. We still don't know what event caused the breakdown of their alliance (Zamorak professes Saradomin turned against him), so Zamorak could have been entirely sincere in this alliance.

03-Mar-2018 21:27:14

Hguoh

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Byzantinist said :
So, basically, as the Zarosians were having a sigh of relief, believing war staved off due to Zamorak’s slow resurgence, Saradomin struck first as part of the bargain, seemingly getting intel from his fresh ally. As no one was flagging possible surprises and complications, Saradomin moved his colossus towards the Ritual site at precisely the time Zamorak was embroiled in the front’s southern sector, as Saradomin’s forces were being distracted by Nex’s remote army.

The Zarosians never got a breath of relief. After the coup, Zamorak was taken to Forinthry, and the Zamorakians fled, taking defectors and gaining more converts in the meantime. The Zarosians attempted to crush the Zamorakian rebels, but found themselves beset on all sides by the armies of other gods. Gods whom they had previously taken territory from. Gods who considered them a threat due to what they had done to other gods and territories. Gods who wanted the wealth of the empire for themselves.

Saradomin falls into all these camps. The Zarosian Empire had grown close to his borders. We know that the Zarosians had taken and converted Saradominist territories in the past despite the stalemate they appeared to be at at the end of the 2nd age. We know that Zarosian forces struck down poorly armed Saradominists just before the coup. And we know that Saradomin knew that Zaros had just been struck down.

I also find myself doubtful that Zamorak had managed to reclaim the more Southern Zarosian territories by the time Hallowvale was taken (~8 centuries after the city was founded, so early in the God Wars) or the Battle for the Ritual Site (purported to have occurred early in the God Wars) as the frontlines in the God Wars were famously slow to move. Zamorakian forces were far away from Hallowvale, Zarosians were tied up dealing with invading armies, and other gods were busy carving up the empire. Saradomin's territories should have been safe.

03-Mar-2018 21:40:00

Hguoh

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So it is very easy to pass off Drakan as a rogue Zamorakian given how far away he was operating from other Zamorakians and the stark difference in targeted territories at the time.

Byzantinist said :
Then, realizing Nex is unstoppable, at his own army’s output’s expense, Saradomin had managed to lure her in her into the icy prison for the sake of convenience. Then, as Zamorak was fighting close near home, Saradomin used up his reserves to cut through Forinthry’s fortresses (hypothetical walls), though, for some reason, Saradomin failed to besiege Ghorrock, perhaps believing the Zarosian valuables were south, and then Drakan attacked...

Pretty sure Ashuelot Reis' story isn't too accurate given Nex was imprisoned in her own home.

And Ghorrock wasn't a significant military or resourceful target. It's a fortress in a notably cold climate (not yet the excessively icy wasteland we know it as) , surrounded by mountains that make attacking it difficult, and is fairly far away from the territory of other gods. Ghorrock fell to nobody because nobody wanted Ghorrock.

03-Mar-2018 21:42:05 - Last edited on 03-Mar-2018 21:47:59 by Hguoh

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Why Saradomin split his armies