Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4141313-20190126081959/@comment-14909251-20190203064240

BlizzardDragon wrote: We've been over this Advocate. Another Great War is not happening. The only remaining Superpowers worth their salt at the moment are Atlas and Vacuo. Vale is all but gone. Mistral is neutered thanks to Leo getting most of their huntsman killed.

Unless you want to see a war between a bunch of nomadic huntsman and a literal army, there is little chance of being another great war.

And Salem's entire goal is the relics, dividing humanity and forcing them to distrust them is a means to an end. To get the relics however, she has to attack the schools, which means making the kingdoms fall. Your arrogance about future plot developments you can't say anything definite about is pretty tiring. War-making ability is really only about resources and manpower. Not a single one of the Kingdoms is presently at a loss for manpower, though Mistral has seen a reduction in skilled manpower. Only thing possibly in question is resources, but we don't have any reason to argue they are seriously lacking in those either. Dust is the only real question, but clearly it is still quite easy to get it. Should that be an issue, well, there are SDC facilities near or in every one of the Kingdoms.

Something I had thought of bringing up before, but haven't is Vacuo. We keep operating on a certain assumption about it based on World of Remnant, but that was a pre-RWBY understanding of things. The fall of Beacon and the chaos at Haven has prompted a lot of students, and likely some faculty, to head off to Shade. In other words, their power has to some extent surged and we don't know exactly what has been done in the interim.

We have only seen three Kingdoms responding to the events at Beacon. Vale is obviously in a period of reconstruction, Mistral was being sabotaged by a traitor, and Atlas is insulating itself as it gathers power. Do we presume the people over at Vacuo have been sitting on their hands the whole time doing nothing? As the only Kingdom presumably not being manipulated and with power surging from taking in people affected by the other events, they would have to be pretty stupid to not be taking advantage of it.

Menagerie formed a militia and transported it to Menagerie in only a few weeks. I'm sure they could get them better armed given more time as well. Vacuo, meanwhile, has had almost a year to prepare itself. They may not have the same system as others, but if Shade is building up power then it may also be able to exert more influence to bring the Kingdom into order. No shortage of armed fighters I am sure, so it is only a matter of getting them to organize for a common purpose.

One factor that could perhaps play a role here is tension between Mantle and Atlas. The simplest way to make fighting Atlas less of an issue is to have Atlas itself be divided. Atlas is currently the only Kingdom that has been indicated as having any kind of internal tension. If a conflict were to break out in Atlas, then other Kingdoms could intervene. The fact Atlas has outposts around Remnant means they are potentially exposed. Not as if a war requires them to all be setting foot in Solitas.

The point of all this is that, Salem's people breaking through Atlesian defenses would not be easy under normal circumstances, especially with them so much on guard. Ironwood is clearly indicated to not be knowingly under anyone's influence so they can't do what they did in Mistral. However, being divided and weakened by war makes them much more vulnerable.