Dragon Age: The Missing (Comic Miniseries)

First, you make it public who Solas is, what his intentions are, and give them as much information as possible based on what he has proven himself capable of. This way, the world as a whole can take countermeasures against Solas and his plans, weeding out his elven spies and, in all likelihood, preventing spies from other races from joining him (as his success means their deaths, so joining him is essentially long-term suicide). Then try to organize against him in some capacity with other major powers, exchanging information and cooperating to some extent (similar to a blight scenario). The next step is to cut off Solas from his spy network, and this naturally won't be a pretty business, given the gravity of the situation (involving the destruction of the world). To free Thedas societies from his agents at large, you would have to start genocide against elves and ban elves from entering human settlements, which you could do by spreading the word. If achieved (which would be difficult because some people would be opposed), most humans would be fine with that solution given the gravity of the situation and the fact that it doesn't take much to purge alienages anyway. Then the next target would be Dalish elves, which would be trickier business as they're nomads and live in the wilderness, but threats in human settlements would be largely resolved if you took care of city elves and made elf KOS policy. That way, Solas' allies will be largely restricted to Dalish elves and ancient elves (maybe) that live outside of human and dwarf civilizations, and the risk of infiltration will become extremely low (you could also propose harsh laws against those who will harbor elves to increase efficiency). All you'd have to worry about now is guerrilla warfare, such as enemy opponents attacking caravans or sabotaging smaller settlements (larger scale attacks would still be possible, but much more difficult). Three take out all known eluvians from cities (ideally those from other places) and put them at a location that is pretty much a death trap, and anyone who tries to use it as a transportation device pretty much dies after crossing it. That way, you deprive Solas and his agent of easy access to cities and travel across the continent. As previously stated, bring in seekers of truth and templars, as well as as much knowledge about anti-magic as possible, and begin devising hit squads and forces capable of taking down mages and abominations, begin training people, and use those to take down Solas. Have spies or squads keep an eye on news of elves and their activity and send squads as necessary to eliminate those, further depriving Solas of agents and thwarting his plans. where anti-magical forces and heavy hitters (i.e., top-level combatants) focus on Solas. while scholars thoroughly investigate Sola's background, powers (such as petrification and counters to it; we know that at least some other mages can petrify), any artifacts he is interested in or capable of countering mage abilities, and elven lore. That way, you could gain more insights on his plans and try to capture some of his agents to extract information.




I'm pulling off Danzo Shimura here, but considering what is at stake and the extremity of the threat, those means would be warranted.


 

Um, let’s not follow the mindset of a man who made everything he was involved in or influenced worse for everybody.
Especially since they all came back to bite him in the ass.

I think this is the main reason the Inquisitor wouldn't tell the world at large, particularly if they are an elf. The elves have a bad enough experience in Thedas currently, without giving people more reason to oppress and kill them. It is why my canon Lavellan was so incensed with Solas' betrayal. Naturally, it will rebound horribly on the elves if it gets out. Solas had agreed with him that would be the case once people knew the orb was elven but at least it wasn't an elf who was using it to wreck chaos. So, in that respect what my Inquisitor did was simply warn of an elven apostate who was leading elves astray and then travelled around the south in order to personally act as a counter to Solas' propaganda, using the status he had acquired during his time as Inquisitor to encourage individual rulers to improve the lot of elves under their jurisdiction and warn the elves not to trust Solas.  Whilst this is only my head canon, I hope the writers would consider this as a possibility for Lavellan that might also explain what they are doing whilst our new hero is engaged in the direct hunt for the wolf.

If the game should end up requiring me to kill elves in large numbers for being beguiled by the Dread Wolf, instead of being able to redeem them by offering an alternative future, I will simply refuse to do so and give up playing. I've long worried that the reason they did such a hatchet job on the reputation of the Dalish in DAI is that they are setting them up to be the fall guys in DA:D. To be honest, I'm not that bothered about saving Solas from himself but I am concerned about elven genocide.

So no, he wouldn’t be efficient. The only side that would benefit from those actions would be Solas.
Don’t recall Leliana ever being even remotely close to the level Danzo went, and that’s just counting stuff she does herself let alone when Josephine, Cullen, the Inquisitor, and Cassandra stop her.

Notice that you didn't really refute what I've said; you just denied what I've said and insulted character, and then proceeded to state that his actions didn't work out as proof it wouldn't work if not for other hidden meddlers (which was the claim I put forward).



[Spoilers] Actually, your argument that Naruto is an example of how his actions didn't work is a horrible example, as the fact that people rejected him ultimately pushed him to become a ninja and to improve, as he wanted to become Hokage to gain the approval of others in the village, which eventually saved the world. Furthermore, by giving the village something to hate and fear, the village was able to keep its focus on improving and increasing safety rather than becoming complacent. Similar to his rivalry with Sasuke, which existed primarily because Sasuke desired revenge, had attained such skill (which Naruto was envious of), and sought to improve even further to match Itachi. Madara launched the first Nine-Tails attack against a leaf long before Danzo formed root. The second attack on the leaf village had little to do with Danzo, as it was a plot by Obito Uchiha, who was being manipulated by Madara (who was being manipulated by Black Zetsu). The slaughter of the Uchiha clan occurred many years after Nine-tails attack. Keep in mind that almost all of Danzo's failed plans (Nagato and Sasuke) were byproducts of Black Zetsu machinations, as crippled Nagato becomes pain and joins forces with Obito, who played a role in orchestrating the events of Yahiko's death, and then Obito revealing the truth to Sasuke, which leads to his goal of destroying the village as opposed to what Itachi planned for him, ie returning to the village as a hero that killed traitor. Mind you Danzo didn't like Minato as hokage as he considered him too naive so that worked out in his favor.



The only plan that backfired on its own was his involvement with Orochimaru, as Orochimaru eventually, out of spite, conspires against Leaf Villige and launches an attack against it.[/spoiler]



How does his spies losing access to human and dwarven societies, as well as a large number of potential (and likely a sizable number of actual) agents, benefit Solas? Unless the bald one really wants to die prematurely, that is not a positive development for him as he is cut off from society and will have a difficult time sabotaging them as his agents won't have access. Plus, culling out his agents outside of societies is not a good thing for him either, as it means fewer people will provide him with intel and divert attention from him. If he is alone, all he has is his individual power, which while impressive, doesn't make him unstoppable when dealing with many opponents, in particular if those opponents can drain his mana, resist magic, nullify his spells, or just plainly set his blood on fire.



You mean the same Leliana that proposes to cut off some random bard's tongue because he slights the Inquisition? Is this the same Leliana who wanted to murder a gleefully chantry sister who was working against the Inquisition while working for another cleric? The same Leliana that will assassinate some innocent alchemist so Inquisition was one with unique apothecary resources? Mind you, she will advocate those solutions even if you soften her, and that's not even the whole list of less savory things she has done or ordered her agents to do. So Leliana is not that far off from Danzo, except Danzo's ruthlessness is hardly arbitrarily applied; he doesn't really enjoy what he does (unlike Leliana, who likes killing and power trips), he is extremely consistent with its application, and he is willing to go even further than Leliana.

Solas doesn’t lose access to human or dwarven societies. Elves aren’t his only spies, as he also has armies of spirits and demons in the Fade doing the exact same thing. So all launching massacres on elven populations does is give him tons of new recruits.

As you mentioned, those are all suggestions that the Inquisitor or other leaders can shut down so I did cover them.
Show me where she recommends doing things like experimenting on children, staging things so she can launch a genocide and claim it’s justified, helped Corypheus and his Allie’s numerous times, etc. Then I’ll concede she in the same ballpark as Danzo.
Again, your take on Danzo is inaccurate. Dude literally created a secret organization after he got stripped of power after some of his earlier actions so he could eventually become Hokage. That’s a textbook example of a power trip. And he has never been shown to not like what he is doing.

1+2 

Conscription is a humans right violation...as is racially profiling people. Yes, theoretically the argument for such things is that you commit one immorality in order to prevent a greater one. But that does not make such things any less immoral just that the context might justify it. Though in this case I disagree with that assertion but its probably better to deal with number 3...

It seems to be a truism for life that people like a fall story just as much as anything else. People like watching heroes fall, become corrupt, pick them apart and tear them down. Which keep in mind the Inquisitor has, in universe, can do most of the leg work for them. The Inquisitor's reaction to 'you are the Herald of Andrastae' is 'oh hell no I'm not!' Now at the time the Inquisition pushed that perspective for political reasons but its not that hard of a logical leap to imagine that once the dust has settled people may rexamine their holiness, especially if they are all like 'yeah I wasn't actually touched, I was just saved by Divine Justinia.' And keep in mind to Tresspasser has also laid the ground work for this very plot point. The Inquisitor isn't trusted, openly questioned, and then had their organization pecked at by other power brokers throughout the setting. So yeah, people aren't neccessarily going to just trust the Inquisitor on the Inquisitor's say so. For emphasis Bann Tegan, a character that has been established as being reasonable, questioned the Inquisiton and the timing over the Qunari threat. 

Though you do raise a good point, warning the general public can increase the eyes on target...and give people the ability to come forward and actively be recruited. So yes, if your plan involves to ramp up recruitment then I am all for it. 

And I'm not oeverestimating Solas's power level just because of Tresspasser, because you are right just petrifying a bunch of Qunari isn't that impressive...but there is a lot of anciliary evidence to suggest that he is like super powerful. 1. He is a part of an organization that is, rightly IMO, been called gods. He also has absorbed the essence of at least one other 'god like being'...maybe two more. . 2. He created the Veil. 3. He says he can bring it back down. 4. He can kill people in their sleep which suggests a whole lot of implications for both killing people and intelligence gathering, because if he can invade your dreams at will...well he doesen't have to kill you. The fact that he was able to do this to Dwarves is just plain terrifying. 

3. The trouble is that the Darkspawn barely qualify as being sentient so I don't believe it would strictly match the definition of genocide. That being said it is also a problem because even the games have suggested that if you can free them from the influence of the Old Gods, which can make them sentient, then they can also be reasoned with and the possibility for peace exists. This was the whole point of the Architect in Awakening and while I don't trust him in hindsight since the possibility has been floated I would take it over genocide any day of the week and twice on friday's. Long shot I know and it may be the only choice in that instance, but any alternative to genocide is always a good one.

Which again brings us to SOlas since we are talking about a bunch of sentient creatures, who some of them are actively working with us, and even Solas himself might be reasoned with...and given the threat I believe he represents is probably our ONLY option, is not only potentially highly immoral but also spites our own noses off our faces. And as I said above racial profiling is not the answer to this issue. It again remains to be seen but we already know there are at least 2 Elves that won't go along with his plans and all we know is that x number of Elves has been dissapearing. We don't know how many, but if some stayed beyond then logically this suggests they might not be in on his plan. 

5. Thinking about this more Dwarves do have natural magical resistance, know the Deep Roads, and these two Dwarves are trained in intelligence operations. Given what I've previously mentioned they are about as qualified as anyone else available. 

1-2. No, it's not. Conscription by the goverment is legal in many western societies and under international law; do you seriously think you could just say, in case of war, "I don't feel like serving, so I will pass"? No, you must fight/serve; otherwise, the government must surrender to an invading force or risk losing the war. Naturally, many countries don't conscript as of now in times of peace, but in times of war, there is nothing that would prevent governments from conscription, and it would not be seen as a violation of human rights under many circumstances. Once you start investigating human rights you will suddenly start finding caveats that exempt some things from being human right violation as long there is acceptable justification for the thing you're doing. Why do you think there are no complaints about Ukraine not allowing many men to leave the country in order to not lose their military reserves to conscript in war? If you do something that would normally be immoral to prevent something worse, then I could easily argue that the thing you're doing that normally would be immoral would become moral in these specific circumstances. For an example killing someone under normal circumstances would be considered immoral but killing an aggressor to save lives of 10 innocent people would be considered moral by many. It depends on how one construes the moral system. Either way as I've said there is no such thing as human rights in Thedas and given this setting doesn't mirror or world exactly and we have world destroying entities capable of possessing humans nor it should mirror real laws/regulation exactly. 
     

I mean, not really. People (some of them) may like to watch heroes fall if they're reading a story that doesn't concern them; it's less fun if you're involved in the consequences of such fall. It's entertaining to read about how a police chief becomes a crook in a fictional book, but it's less entertaining to live in an area with such a police chief. In addition, aside from the fact that the Inquisitor's reaction to their "holiness" is dependent on the player, they can either reinforce or (unsuccessfully, it seems) try to present themselves differently. Either way, the issue the ruling class has with you is not because they don't trust claims you make; the issue is that you became too powerful and frankly seem to abuse that power to override the will of nations. Teagan will be upset with you because your large mercenary army or organization naturally stations within their borders and appears to occupy and even seize land depending on your choices.So it's not that what you say is untrustworthy, but that you have too much power and cling to it despite the fact that a crisis has been dealt with. Now this problem has been resolved, and it seems people in power are satisfied as the Inquisition is either gone or reduced in role and size to merely guarding the divine.





Now let's address your claims about Solas's power.



While we don't know the exact extent of the elven gods' powers, those entities existed in the pre-veil world, and whatever their power was, it doesn't apply in the post-veil world, as demonstrated by being like Solas and Flemeth. Flemeth outright states that she stands no chance against blight (no one does) and can be killed by the warden. While Solas was no match in post-veil world for Corypheus and needed him to unlock power of the orb.



He created the veil in the pre-veil world; he apparently had artifacts to aid him, and who knows what else was involved in the process of its creation? Currently, Solas is unable to destroy the veil on his own, even after absorbing Flemeth. He needs some trinkets to help him achieve that.



Corypheus sort of did it by accident, even with the orb, but as mentioned, neither Solas could do it without orb/artifact. If he could, he already would, so he can't do it on his own.



He can probably kill some people in their sleep, just like Feynriel, but I doubt he can kill more powerful people. If he could, the moment the new protagonist would do something notable and go to sleep, it would be instant game over, as Solas could just kill you in your sleep. Add to that you're supposed to not have any extraordinary magical powers like magic hand protagonist won't have some exceptional counter to that. 



3. What do you mean? Darksapwn barely qualify as sentient? They're conscious and even capable of more complex thought, and at least some are even outright capable of human speech and understand what is being said. They are pretty much intelligent monsters that seek the destruction of humanity. Targeted killing of darkspawn with the purpose of exterminating that group (racial in this case) would fall within the definition of genocide and, in the eyes of the vast majority of people, be a morally justified and desired form of genocide. Freeing them from the song merely diverts their motivation to something else and does not even reduce their viciousness; mind you, all disciples encountered are hell bent on murder, violence, and destruction. Even the nicest of them, the messenger tries to convince you to raze the entire city to the ground because the architect wanted you to protect the keep. So even awakened darkspawn have a heavy tendency toward violent and ruthless behavior. Plus, they're still tainted creatures that spread taint, making cooperation and coexistence impossible. When you consider how they reproduce, you have really, really bad prospects for peace with them. So no alternative to genocide isn't always a good one. An alternative to the genocide of darkspawn would be, for example, letting darkspawn keep plaguing humanity, causing massive amounts of destruction, death, and suffering, or even perhaps destroying it (albeit you could also call it genocide in the destruction scenario just for other races). You would be far better off here trying to argue that elves are nowhere near as bad as darkspawn, who are vicious monsters plaguing humanity. However, my comparison was not to demonstrate that they're like elves but rather to refute your accusations that genocide is always wrong. as there are clearly instances where it would be a good choice for the vast majority of people. From then on, it is up to the parties to agree on when genocide is justified and when it is not. Considering that the stakes involve the entire world and the lives within it, killing a minority of people to prevent it would have very solid justification in this case.





dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/genocide 



You can try to reason with darkspawn, but they will naturally disregard you and kill you if you're lucky. You could try to reason with Corypheus; he would likely do the same, and you could try to do so with Solas; he would disregard you and maybe kill you, maybe spare you if you're lucky, and he wouldn't think of you as a threat to his plan. Solas made his decision and rejected your reasoning because he feels nostalgic about his old world and his people, which you aren't part of. There is really nothing to discuss here; discussion took place, and he rejected any argument you threw at him. Now it's time to neutralize him, just like any other maniac or monster who attempted to destroy the world we dealt with so far. As I've said, you seem to vastly overestimate what he can do, as while his current feats are fairly impressive, there's nothing that you couldn't handle with the help of templars and seekers that specifically deal with mages, which he is and is the reason he is so powerful. How do you know they aren't in his plans? Can you read their thoughts? Naturally, you can't; they may be sleeper agents as far as you know or join him after some convincing. Your argument is faulty; you base your reasoning on the notion that some elves have joined him already, and therefore that must mean that elves that didn't disappear and thus joined him would never do so. Well, no. First, it's faulty because it assumes he would leave no agents in human settlements and organizations (which is unlikely). Two, it assumes he can't recruit more of them among those he didn't recruit already. So there is no such thing as a "trustworthy" elf; perhaps Fenris because he despises mages and would never join Solas, but even then it's not certain, and you wouldn't have any assurance as a person in power who doesn't even know the guy. So yeah, as far as you know, any elves you bumped into could be Solas agents fishing for information or trying to sabotage you. So racial profiling in this case makes a lot of sense, as the only racial group with an incentive to join Solas in the setting while having knowledge of what he wants to do would be elves, and the entire world is at stake.



5. Partial resistance, while a benefit over an average person, does little to help them with Solas, as they can't drain his mana, injuring him will likely be extremely difficult, they can't set his blood on fire (at least easily), they can't nullify his spells, and their backup consists of two extra people, one of whom was quickly owned by a deepstalker. Their experience in espionage also won't do them much good against him, as they're not conducting logistics for field operations; they're going on extremely high-risk missions that could include fights with Solas, for which their experience in espionage doesn't save them from being killed. You send hit squads of people highly qualified to take him down, such as templars, seekers, etc., not a bunch of spies. At best, you bring those spies along for the purpose of escaping with intelligence and informing superiors if something goes wrong. Those are not mutually exclusive; you can send a qualified hit squads against Solas to take him down as quickly as possible while also trying to gather information via other means in case it doesn't work. In fact, you can even gather information about his abilities and weaknesses by sending hit squads.

Sounds like a good plan, elves being stomped on, subdued and killed by other elves that are seemingly immortal and unstoppable maniacs has better ring to it.

 

And you do have video/audio recording of him saying it to present to other elves? Otherwise it's your word, an ally to humans and pretty much quisling to many elves, against at very least word of very powerful elven mage that showers them with golden promises of racial supremacy and golden age, perhaps even immortality. Yeah, I don't think you can beat the offer he is proposing. Plus, it's not like you can do a test where you gather all elves and say "Elves that wish to blow up the world go to this side of the wall and elves that don't go to another side of the wall". Naturally, in many cases you won't know which elves wishes to blow up this world and works for Solas and which doesn't even if you reveal what Solas is trying to do, let alone if you don't.   

Many Dalish elves, would quickly forgot about Fen'Harel mythology once he started to throw plausible promises of elven golden age, immortality and crushing the enemy (humans). Plus even if you reveal that he is Fen'Harel, Solas could easily cook up counter-narrative that I've mentioned and probably would have facts and evidence to back it up, including witness testimony (ancient elves). So he has easy means to counter your narrative to dalish. Nomadic lifestyle is not the most pleasant one, so Solas has a whole lot more to promise and has ways to effectively counter any narrative you present against him to elves. So question would be what dalish have to lose by not trusting him? Not that much, a lot of gain if this things works out. What do they have to gain by trusting you? A piece of land at best and how long they will be able to maintain it before they lose it to humans in conflict like they lost Dales? Sure, some would object but many would not. I would be surprised if more objected than not. 

They could still appear, particularly when the team get to Minrathous. After all, that could be the identity of their "informant". Also, it might lend credence to the idea that our PC is going to be a LoF because they are keeping back knowledge of that guild to be revealed in game. However, it is equally possible that they were toying with the idea of making LoF an option for the PC and then decided against it, in much the same way as Avvar was originally going to be one of the origins for DAO and then dropped from the rota at a later stage. (It is possible that much of the back story and details of their culture that was done for DAO was subsequently revived in Jaws of Hakkon). PW did emphasise that we shouldn't assume too much from concept art and other reveals in 2020 because not every one might make the final cut. The end of year trailer in 2020 was probably more informative as they claimed it did showcase groups we could be working with but that was before they decided to focus on a single player game, so even the people we saw there may not have made it through to the final game.