Calpernia: From Corypheus to the DA 4 Party?

If Solas doesn't think any further than that, then this course of action is understandable. I would not be overly surprised for that to be the case.

However: there's probably way more "disabled" people than the "healthy" ones he just accidentally killed, and from their own perspective, those disabled people don't see themselves as disabled at all and are quite content with how they are.

Also, the first time he pushed that button, it really didn't quite do what he expected it to do. Then he pushed another button (giving the orb to Coryphywaffles), and it also didn't quite do what he wanted it to do. Now there's a third button. The biggest one. Do you feel lucky? Well do ya punk?

Yeah, and that also still makes her responsible for her own actions, just like Fenris would know he'd be if he caused millions of people to end up under the power of an ancient Tevinter slaver. If she's a sane adult then it's no different for her just because she was weak or desperate or stupid or evil enough to take the deal and follow through on it.

It's not inconceivable that she has a unique and interesting story to tell at all, but the writers have given her a hell of a hill to climb by choosing to serve such a monster long after it became obvious that that's what he was. Loghain's actions were way more ambiguous and excusable, and a goodly portion of the fanbase still hated him even after a novel that humanized him a lot and his kinda-sorta-redeeming cameo in DAI. And being one of the best characters in the franchise. But I digress.

I'd really, really hate for them to waste valuable time and quality writing on trying to salvage and retcon Corypheus into a tragic villain or whatever instead of just letting him be what he is and focusing on making the new characters and villains more substantial, and finishing Solas' storyline with something like finesse.


You have no particular reason to think that there are more disabled than healthy people at stake in this scenario. I don't think it makes sense to assume that and judge him for not taking it into consideration when it's a complete and unsubstantiated guess on your part. It could easily be the other way around, even if we did decide that an immortal superpowered life and a short and feeble one were honestly equal in intrinsic value when forcibly chosen between, which I'm personally a bit iffy on. 

And so what if the 'new' people don't view themselves as disabled? He's the one who has to choose between them and the original, fully functional ones, and he knows for a fact that they're comparatively defunct. Obviously the new people want to survive, to them the choice is between existence and nonexistence, and it'd take a hell of a lot for nonexistence to win that equation just through our self-preservation instinct alone. But he's the one who has all the healthy people's blood on his hands if we're supposed to survive at their expense. He's a mass murderer in either instance, only he can choose between having killed 'real' people, and weird half-formed ones that ought never to have existed in the first place. 

Additionally, please speak for yourself in regards to humans being content with what they are. I've obviously resigned myself to living with our limitations because I have to, but I'd take immortality and reality-warping powers and a direct magical connection with the world around me in a fucking heartbeat if they were offered. Personally, I'm pretty sure 99,99% of people would if they were halfway honest about it instead of pretending to be philosophical and that there's some sort of imaginary natural balance and equality inherent to sentient life that must be paid lip-service to even in extreme hypotheticals like this.

And it can typically take more than one shot to revive people with a defibrillator, just so you know. I'll definitely give you that the biggest problem with Solas' dilemma is that his record isn't great for predicting the exact outcomes of his actions regardless of his intentions. But it's also entirely possible that his new plan to reverse his first spell, using Flemeth's power to restore something like own original strength rather than a clumsy artifact to fix it, is a lot more sure than those previous two instances. We wouldn't know. And he did successfully manipulate and lead us on the path to Corypheus' downfall with no personal power or influence beyond that of an ordinary apostate mage, and his knowledge.

Whoa. I didn't mean to step on any toes.

My reason for this assumption was that the only people qualifying as "healthy" in Solas's eyes are ancient elves, and that there are likely way fewer ancient elves around than "everyone else". Therefore, way more "disabled" people than "healthy" ones.


Yeah, that choice is his. And maybe he doesn't care that the rest of the world doesn't feel that it's okay to sacrifice all of them so his old elf buddies can have their magic back.


I have no idea where this came from. Of course I was not speaking for you, I was making an assumption about the general population of Thedas who is likely not even aware of how cool and magicky the existence of an ancient elf is as opposed to being Joe Peasant somewhere in the Hinterlands.


His record isn't "not great", it's a string of failures. Yep, he did manipulate us alright because that was how the plot was written and we couldn't deviate from it, so clearly he's smarter than us. Maybe he should just press that defi button a few times. Might make a fitting end to the franchise.

Anyway, I think I'm quite done with this discussion.

Well, we are on the Internet....

My choices meant that Calpernia was always on a different story path so I never met her.

Well that is true, but the world of Thedas is cruel and people do what they can to survive.

People like to proudly say they saved the Chargers as Inquisitor, all the while forgetting their choice doomed over 100 innocent Qunari to die. It's these choices and consequences that make the world building and story so compelling, because characters like Loghain and Calpernia aren't all morally righteous human beings.

I agree Loghain had more cause for his actions because they went to the effort to explain his backstory and mindset. They didn't really do that with Corypheus which is why he felt so lacklustre as a villain. This is why I hope the writers expand on his backstory in DA4 because accounts seem to suggest he was actually sane before breaking into the Black City.

I have to say, the idea of spending any time at all learning the backstory of a character I killed over five years ago isn't remotely appealing.

The time to flesh out Corypheus, if ever there was one, was when he was actually relevant.

Anything we need to know about the Blight, Solas can likely tell us.

Maybe, but Calpernia went way beyond the call of survival in Corypheus' service over a pretty long period of time, long after she'd expanded her options, and having been very desperate when she first met him doesn't do anything to excuse that.

I'm not really concerned about the 'innocence' of those Qunari warriors so much as worried about that Ben-Hassrath information mine that might or might not eventually mean the difference between saving the world and Corypheys getting what he wants. But yeah, one of the series' strengths has always been the 'immediate morality vs. greater good' decisions and the characters who do the best they can in ways that just so happen to also inconvenience you.

And I'd personally argue for putting "Let's try to ascend to a higher plane of existence and force a confrontation with God so we don't lose control of the masses" in the 'evidence for insanity' box, but sure, I bet that there's a way to write his story that makes him a lot more interesting and engaging in hindsight. I only question whether that's a worthwhile thing for the developers to allocate resources to.



Glad you weren't scared off, don't worry about it. There are a lot of advantages to discussing things in writing, such as being able to take the time to think things through as you write. Sometimes makes it hard to project or read the right tone though.

One of the issues I have with people calling Solas a monster based on their own vague interpretation of what he's trying to do is that we really don't know much one way or another. He makes sounds about the Evanuris being trapped in some other dimension or somesuch. As such, an entire majority of the population of the ancient elven Empire - which could easily vastly outnumber all the current living races combined - could be trapped or suffering in some interdimensional prison for all we know.

And he talks about 'us' dying as a result of his plans. Because of a fundamental change in Nature that'll directly hurt everyone not elven? Or because of inevitable wars and chaos and massacres and oppression caused by a sudden power and population boost to the elves and/or a change in the environment we won't be ready to adapt to very well?

He also mentions the ancient elves having an innate connection to the Fade-integrated world around them caused by their magical natures. Is that just fancy talk for magical supremacy, or do elves in their natural environments actually have some level of heightened awareness and cognitive function that raises them above us in the exact same way we've raised ourselves above animals due to our sentience?

All of those things are really really important for considering whether or not he could be doing the right thing giving the circumstances from his perspective, and we know jack shit one way or the other. Which is why "Solas wants to destroy us to help his own super elves so he's obviously just a genocidal racist" seems like a really fucking mindless and superficial and pointless way to look at the situation in lieu of actually thinking about it for more than five seconds.

3) Solas always struck me as an exceptionally compassionate and objective person, while just having a hard time relating to us in particular, in the same way you'd need to put some actual time and thought into adjusting your views of the world if you suddenly realized that pigs were actually sentient. We don't find it easy to expand our ideas like that either until the evidence is staring us right in the face. Seems rather hypocritical to blame him for having to overcome the same difficulty, considering how much of our existence is based around the fact that we're infinitely superior to lesser species, which just so happens to be... all of them.

4) Among the humans and the Qunari magic is - in my opinion pretty justifably - seen as a curse or defect due to historical problems and safety issues with mages around non-mages, and not because of 'quality-of-life' problems with having magic in and of itself. And those safety issues would change drastically with the fall of the Veil. Whether they'd get better or much worse would, again, depend on exactly what Solas' plan entails. All else being completely equal though, being immortal and possessing God-like power over your immediate environment seems pretty objectively like an improvement over mortality and being restrained by the laws of physics to me.

5) To use your analogy then, it would be more appropriate to say that the program was already painfully broken in the first place, and Solas' patch only made it... rather worse. And now he's experimenting with ways to roll it back. Doesn't seem that insensible to me. And frankly, if I was responsible for breaking the world and dooming all future life to brief and powerless existences, I'd be pretty damn motivated to try to undo the mistake as well. At considerable cost if necessary.

6) Meh, I haven't read a Dragon Age novel since Stolen Throne and... the Calling? I do play the games every few years though. And one of the reasons is that the world lends itself really well to thinking about dilemmas like this.

If those guys can team up why not Calpernia and the new hero (Lord of Fortune) against Cobra Kai sorry Solas?

Wow, resurrecting a thread nearly a year old. To be honest, I wouldn't mind meeting Calpernia again if it allows us to ask her why on earth she thought hitching up with Corypheus was the best way to elevate the slaves in Tevinter? Also, may be she can explain what was going on back in ancient times with regard to the real reason Corypheus and his pals wanted the enter the Golden City. His slave's memories seemed to indicate that something went haywire with regard to worship of the Old Gods before the enterprise so Cory was desperate to restore it. That runs contrary to even Chantry propaganda about the worship of the Old Gods because they say that it waned as a result of Dumat attacking the world and the other Old Gods falling silent and doing nothing about it. Then the version in Tevinter suggests that Old God worship was still going strong there when Hessarian converted to monotheistic Maker worship, which is why he had a bloodbath among the Altus who opposed his religion. Now I assume that Cory must have occasionally had time for a chat about old times with his chief lieutenant seeing as she was so devoted to the "Ferryman", Darinius, who was also a high priest of Dumat as well as the first Archon. Her former master was also said to be an expert in the field so surely she must have some insights.

However, I think I'd rather she was an NPC that possibly we have the option to work with on a temporary basis rather than filling a permanent companion slot. That way people who hate her can just opt out of that particular quest but those who are willing to give her a hearing can listen first and then decide if they want to work with her or not.

So people who don’t like her are punished by having one companion slot wasted on her? Same with romance slot since you want her to be a LI?
What do they get in exchange?