Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-10317392-20140801035045/@comment-24994749-20140801190424

I think "Queen" is a nickname of sorts. Cinder might be a powerful figure in the underground crime scene but not known by name, just as Queen.

Qrow might have contacts in the underground criminal circles and so is aware of the existence of "Queen". Queen might normally carry out her doings on her own but now she has "pawns", aka is rising an army or working with a larger number of minions that usual.

My headcanon is Qrow is a faunus and war veteran from the Faunus War, alongside Ozpin, Glynda and Ironwood. Ozpin and Glynda learned the lesson: war is horrible, undesirable and comes at a great cost; Ironwood still feels deploying a gigantic army is the way to deal with social troubles.

Qrow might have been a member of the pacific White Fang who step aside when the leadership changed, but he is also a respected figure among the faunus and those can get his hands on news from the underground circles.

We also now know there are societies who exist outside of the kingdoms. One has to wonder how they work: are they nomads? sedentary tribes? are they exclusively human? are they exclusively faunus? mixed population? are they under the jurisdiction of the laws of any kingdom? Considering faunus reclaim for Civil Rights, it is possible the population outside of the kingdoms are faunus who are segregated from living in the same areas as humans.

Ironwood's concerns are clearly fuelled by the White Fang and Torchwick's recent doings. Ozpin's remark that this is not solely a time of peace but also about the Vytal festival being an celebration of unity plus Weiss previous explanation about cultures from all over the world joining, makes me think the Vytal Festival is celebration of the peace between faunus and humans.

Which brings me back to Cinder.

The massive Dust robberies have lead to the prices going off the roof. Now, shops tend to rise their prices when there is a great demand of a product. When a product is hard to get, people tend to want to buy it more to stock themselves for when it effectively runs out. The thing is, Dust is used for weapons, you have a guy stealing a massive amount of Dust in collaboration with a guerrilla of sorts. People wanting to stock themselves with Dust could very well be civilians arming themselves because they don't trust the police and hunters to protect them anymore.

Then you have the tension between humans and faunus. If the human civilians feel threatened by the White Fang, they could likely turn even more discriminatory towards the faunus. The faunus, who already have less rights than humans, might feel more tempted to join extremist factions such as the White Fang.

I think the opening of Volume 2 showing Cinder sitting as she watches the bullheads fly over Beacon is not necessarily her unleashing an attack herself. Ironwood brought an small army just in case himself.

I think Cinder is getting into Beacon to make sure to break the already fragile equilibrium that maintains peace at Vale.

Ozpin said he took pride in allowing both faunus and humans to attend his school, it is possible some other educational facilities deny faunus the right to attend.

So, Cinder might not directly attack, she will make sure the celebrations of the Vytal festival go to shit and turn into a violent havoc. Ironwood will do the thing with his soldiers and target the faunus, giving the White Fang a public excuse to counter attack and she will sit there while they kill each other, pulling strings here and there so the war ends the way she gets whatever she wants.

And that's is how the students will face that their job is to "protect the peace" not "slay monsters" or be "warriors".