Quote Originally Posted by Aquillion View Post
Irrelevant. The point is, Loyalty and Duty in Erfworld are only more mechanically-rigid than the ones in the real world; as they've been described, they are not any more reliable. Just like real-world loyalty, there are people who are backstabbers and people who are loyal to their leaders.

Those words are an embarrassing admission (and the last one is him joking around with an old friend, since Vinnie continues to ask him embarrassing questions.) Ansom could easily have lied there; instead, he essentially admitted Vinnie was correct.

Which statement? He specifically refuses to lie to Vinnie's question at the end.
"I trust Commander Zamussels completely." That was obviously not true.

And Stanley's Loyalty score is highly relevant, since your only contention that I'm wrong is based off of speculation that he failed a Loyalty check. If you're not going to allow me speculation based off of incomplete information, you shouldn't do it either.

Yes, but again, this is completely random speculation -- you're inventing things to make your pet theory work better. There is already a method for contacting people; that's what people use thinkamancy and hats for.None that we're aware of. [...]

Again, the point isn't that your theory is impossible -- the point is that you're relying on complete speculation. There's nothing wrong with random dart-throwing speculation, but it's silly to pretend that it can hold up to things we've actually been told and shown.

We know that both Stanley and Wanda had the means, motive, and opportunity. We've been specifically told and shown, repeatedly, that units can betray their leaders; we've been shown that both have the respect and loyalty of the Gobwins, and the ability to manipulate them; and both had an obvious motive that requires no guesswork to full in.
You're relying on complete speculation as well, as is everyone who isn't the writer, you know. Also, I don't see you taking this umbrage with the people who are using Charlescomm as the ultimate solution to all the problems of Erfworld, even to the point of speculating that Charlie killed Saline. Also, most of what I've postulated is absolutely grounded in provided information - Ansom hates Stanley. Ansom hates non-royals and believes he has a divine right to rule them. Ansom desires the death of Stanley and to posess GK.

Loyalty. I'm not sure what your statement about Jillian has to do with anything -- first, we don't know whether loyalty applies to resistance to magical spells (which are supposed to be capable of modifying loyalty.) Yes, Jillian's magically-induced loyalty to Wanda failed, but what does that prove? Second, Jillian's problem never had anything to do with loyalty; she's a mercenary, not a Jetstone unit, and constant statements Vinnie, Ansom, and Webinar have made it clear that Jillian is capable of breaking her alliance with Ansom and going off on her own any time she feels like it. She has no mechanical duty or loyalty to Ansom at all -- what she has is that she's in love with him. We've seen no indication that that's stat-based.
Think closely about what you're saying. Jillian is NOT Chief Warlord to Ansom or even a unit under his control, so the effects of Duty and Loyalty are less intense on her, she has a self-described poor Loyalty score (she hated Saline), and Loyalty can be modified by the spell....but yet, when given an indirect opportunity to merely hinder Ansom, she instead broke the spell. Now add up the Chief Warlord factor and that Stanley probably wasn't being magically influenced, and you're still postulating that he's MORE likely to do something much worse than what Jillian refused to do? Possible, but highly unlikely.

Speculation again. You're inventing mechanics and resources simply to suit your pet theory.
Um, no. Ansom is Chief Warlord of Jetsone with over 2900 units at the start of this campaign; Jillian is a mercenary with 21 units. Ansom has several magical items that we've seen that Jillian has no access to by herself. That's demonstrated - do you doubt that he has other resources to hand?