The Blanketfort (crying and throwing up) - The Official Solas Thread [Spoilers]

Hmmm, that's true. Though he could still have plans, only not knowing more of how the Blight has evolved could just make another chapter of "another good plan gone very wrong" .

Regarding Solas and his sense of urgency: I think there is no doubt that it's tied to the Blight and the Archdemons. I've been wondering if the Elvhen accidentally unleashed the Blight originally when the Titan was slain. Things will rot and decay after death. This can make people and animals sick in our world from bacteria and such. Now let's scale it up to the body of a magical avatar of the planet itself.  Scary thought. The Blight in general is the antithesis of life and it's pretty much an undead plague upon the land.

Now, as to how the Archdemons became involved, I think the Elvhen went, "Oh crap, the rotting Titan is poisoning us," and used very powerful blood magic to bind these dragons in a magical sleep underground. Probably in the same (very big) area where the Titan was slain. I think they intended to use the dragons as a lock on the Taint. It's known in lore that dragons are resistant to the Taint (not immune) and that it would take a long time to consume them. Prior to Tevinter, I imagine the Darkspawn population wasn't very high. Mainly some shrieks and genlocks. The ancients might have figured that they could go down and take care of the dragons if needed be. Or considered it good enough until they figured out a solution.

Also, we shouldn't forget the arrogance that members of the Elvhan had. I'm not taking only Solas' word for it. I'm looking at other cultures of the setting, particularly magic based ones. Dorian really nailed it. "Let's go playing with magic we don't understand. It'll make us super powerful, blah blah blah."

I'm betting that leaders turned gods started thinking about using the Taint as a weapon in the civil war. Perhaps one of them might have even tried. I could see Solas finally having enough and severing the connection between the Fade and the material world to stop that from happening.

Now, flashforward to present day Thedas.  To a freshly awakened Solas, not only is this a rather colorless world where magic is rare and feared, but there is only two dragons left to hold back the Blight. The human mages stumbled into one of the Elvhan's sanctums and the once low darkspawn population is now in the millions. The Taint has spread very far, even into the lyrium of the Fade itself. The most magically attuned race, the elves, are no position to save themselves, much less help completely stop the Taint.

I also think that part of the reason why Solas wants to uplift the elves is because he might feel that elven magic and the ancient elves are the only people that can contain and/or stop the Taint. Humans with their Wardens have done little more than buy Thedas time; the Dwarves are so mired in tradition and fighting Darkspawn that they've stopped innovating or left the underground;the Qunari beneath him and not worth considering; most modern elves are pale shadows of the ancients or have become more interested in being more like the humans (I.e. Briala,)

Semi-related, I think I figured out what those elven artifacts were for. It came to me after replaying the Temple of Dirthamen quest. After you find the pieces of the dead priest, you activate a device that looks identical to the elven artifacts, releasing the priest. Solas will even lament about the priest's fate.

What if we had been helping him undo certain "locks" on some of the prisons for the Elvhan? Say there was certain people (not just the named "gods,") he wanted to bring back to help him remove the Veil and organize his army? Eh, I'm just spitballing and I should probably get some coffee before my caffeine headache gets any worse.

javeart

Oh man. Rowan kept the Inquisition together in the end. She had no clan; I missed a WT mission and got them killed off. Her closest friends were Cassandra (now Divine,) Dorian and Varric. The only man she had ever loved was gone. She had nothing left at the end of Trespasser but the Inquisition. She became a part of the Divine's honor guard to remain close to one of the only friends she had left in Thedas. I didn't mean to but she's one of more tragic characters I've ever played.

I do think that we'll learn more about how Solas is going to do this. I do think that there might be a book, but I'm cautious after Asunder and TME. I don't want to have the book reveal all of the backstory with almost nothing being mentioned in game.

In the meantime, I've been reading reddit, here, tvtropes and a few other places getting ideas. Solas is such an intriguing villain. I really felt like I should have seen it coming.

I was around for the majority of the pre-DA:I hype train. There is a concept picture of the Inquisition with everyone standing around the War Table, with the IQ in the middle. It was reminiscent of the "Last Supper" painting with Jesus and the apostles. Someone pointed out that Solas was standing in the same spot as Judas Iscariot and that he was going to betray us somehow. I rolled my eyes and chalked it up to the fans reading too much into every little thing. But those fans were right.

Or he's leading them into some kind of trap? 

Holy shit, that is a very interesting theory on the artifacts. Usually everyone jumps to weakening the Veil instead of strengthening it like he says. Or that they merely stabilize the Veil in those areas so that when the Veil is gone, it's less chaotic for the spirits.

Thumbs up for that theory! 

Personally I think the orbs may be multi-purpose: it just depends what they're...um, 'programmed' to do, I guess. After all, when the orb gets destroyed and Inquisitor asks if it can be fixed, Solas says (IRC) that it can, but it won't restore what was inside of it/what mattered. This also explains why there are quite a few orbs scattered around Vir Dirthara in Trespasser and while we know Solas passed through the library, he never picked one... in fact they're still laying there, used by likely last of trapped Library inhabitants as... bowling balls. Targets? Little Fen'Harel and Mythal statues

I think they mean those artefact you can use to "strenghten the veil"? Still, your point stand that they could be soemthing used for more than one purpose, one of them being as some kind of prison.

I doubt we'll get to play our Inquisitors again, despite it making sense. They do say at the end that they need to find people that Solas doesn't know. Leliana was right in that Solas knows everything about them. This extends to the Inquisitor his/herself. Any methods the IQ might use Solas could potentially already anticipate.

I think the servants are an army and DA:I proves that you need plenty of noncombants to run a military organizations.  I'd certainly agree that many of them have no combat training. If memory serves, most alienages wouldn't allow elves to carry any sort of weapon.

The servant elves would be great at some practical stuff. Everything from healers (both magical and mundane,) to spies to taking care of little ones. Some would be good at offering ideas on strategy despite not being a fighter, or would have extensive knowledge about the weakness of a powerful noble. They are going to be the majority of his army, much like the infrastructure of the Inquisition was the majority of the player's army.

The amount of people on actually out on the field is likely to be far less than the bulk of his army. At least at the beginning while the fighters are coming in and training others.

Art

Solas Doodle
Source - www.deviantart.com/art/Solas-doodle-651895994

Let Me Sing To You {Solavellan}[Roadstory AU]
Source - ladytheirin.deviantart.com/art/DAI-Let-Me-Sing-To-You-Solavellan-Roadstory-AU-651713376

Lavellan and The Dread wolf
Source - monammay.deviantart.com/art/O-Sweet-Dread-651928688

Solas and The Dread Wolf
Source - eggplantobanano.deviantart.com/art/Fen-Harel-651815310

Solavellan Kisses
Source - leanarutherford.deviantart.com/art/Solavellan-651618166

Solas is Offended!
Source - rikuyoko.deviantart.com/art/B4-Solas-651316669

Oh... I didn'T read it at all like it's a confirmation of anything, just that going dual protagonist could be a way of doing both types of plots Also, I've been beating the dual protagonist horse since TRespasser came out. Now that I think about it, that horse probably is quite dead by now lol.

Stick in the Mud Personally, I'm ok wit city elves too, and it never ocurred to me that Solas could be protecting them from something, but I like the idea a lot. But, even in the sanctuary that we see in Trespasser we're told that he taught slaves to fight. So maybe he teaches a few of them, the more capable or willing to learn?

Also, I agree with Natashina though that they could do a lot of things besides figthing, and personally, when I talk about "an army of elves" I do so figuratively. I agree with Moondreamer on this, the kind of secret organization that Solas apparently is used to run doesn't really need an actual army, probably he will avoid open confrontation most of the time? That's how I imagine it at least, more about getting stuff he needs, like ancient elven artifacts (the idea that he might be looking for the Tevinter equivalent of the orbes mentioned earlier makes sense to me) and things like that, though some assassinations or skirmish it's surely required at some points

I never really thought about it, can we expect an actual elven rebellion or war of some kind to be part of Solas plan? I imagined he was only getting things ready to do his magic and that's it, but things might be more complicated than that

Edit: I do think that he's the one calling them, though it's true we don't really know

Yes, I think it is a part of his plan. Several characters mention that if someone got the elves organized they would have a hell of an army. Possibly one of the biggest in the world. I don't think he's gearing up to attack yet but it's obvious he'll be planning on war. If word got out that someone was behind organizing the missing elves, all of his powers in the world wouldn't save him. A wall of loyal and devouted followers would.

By the way, I wanted to mention that I don't think that Solas is putting out some sort of Call like the Archdemon does. I think he did it in a more old-fashioned way, by spreading the world that there was someone powerful to lead the elves into a new golden age. Besides, this rebellion was foreshadowed going back to Origins and it was still going on as of 9:40 Dragon. I don't think you can have Briala executed and she led an elven rebellion. She only stopped because it was better to try to work with Celene or Gaspard than to continue her goals.  Now what if she'd had a third option, like say an ally that was a powerful and ancient mage that can turn an enemy to stone with a thought?  

I also think he's going to need an army for other reasons. For all we know for now, dropping the Veil is going to unleash fun things like the Forgotten Ones, powerful demons and other cute critters. He wants to uplift the elves, not truly destroy the world. In his mind, if most of the other races are wiped out, the elves will stand strong to ensure that they will have a world left to inherit.

Moondreamer

My guess is that we might not see the IQ at all.  Hawke's return didn't sit well with a lot of players and there is unfortunately a lot more room to screw up an IQ.   If they aren't the returning PC, I'd expect a codex entry.