OOC: quick poll for my curiosity

[justwantsafety]

Poll for everyone, having played DDS or not:

I know what I think about this line in DDS. I'm curious as to how many other people interpret it which way, though

Comments

[stoicism]

I felt it implied his army was included. Aside from the rules of the Junkyard (taking over a territory = destroying a leader = assimilating their army into your own), you need to consider Harley's mental state: his emotions had just awoken. He was being faced with feelings of fear and panic, which is what caused him to attempt to bargain with the invading Tribe (the Embryon). He felt the need for survival and was willing to do absolutely anything to save his own skin, which included ditching is own forces.

It's hard to say how Tribes and Leaders worked in the Junkyard though. There is the possibility that even if he did sacrifice his army to save his own skin, he could just amass a new one. After you defeat Leaders in the game, there's always another boss to fight later on in that same base. According to NPCs, it's a demon that's become strong enough to gain influence over tribeless demons (even after you kill an army/random enemies, new demons are always being born through the Sea of Milk to allow an endless cycle of warfare. You know, so you can endlessly grind for Noises like I did!) and secure territories.

tl;dr, while the idea of sacrificing his army to save his own skin seems heartless, he may not have recognized it as such that early on so he'd be willing to do whatever he could to assuage the Embryon.

[justwantsafety]

Hm. Most all of what I got from it myself was, killing a Leader = taking over everything that was theirs (troops, territory, bases, etc) but I'm not entirely sure it had to be the other way around, since they never specified, exactly. Semantics, semantics. :|

Then again, the Wolves did get pasted by Varin -- Vishuddha fell to him alone and all that, but that doesn't mean Varin actually beat them, officially. He just took their land. I know the Wolves kept their white, but I'm reasonably certain the Temple would've given Serph the status of victor, since it was the Embryon that technically ended... that mess.

Even if Harley himself were allowed to go free, and they wouldn't let him take anyone or anything else with him, I don't think he'd have been in any mindset to try arguing with them. He'd probably have just been glad enough to be allowed to live, he'd have run off and not dared show his face around there again. Maybe recruited a few of the new people in the Junkyard who hadn't yet found a Tribe, for protection... who knows. Even starting over from zero is better than dying.

I really wonder what would've happened if he hadn't snapped. If it'd save him from being killed, well -- I don't remember anywhere that it talked about POWs or whatever. For all I know, they could've even forcibly enlisted Harley as one of their infantry, like Varin did with most of the Solids. Not that he'd have been a great help to them, but if it spared his life, I don't see him being in any mindset to refuse.

TL;DR -- nuts to the SMT team for not going on in detail about the different possible scenarios for us? :(