Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-92.18.14.163-20180325224119/@comment-14909251-20180331190137

SomeoneYouUsedToKnow wrote: If Atlas falls though, a Great War would be the most unlikely thing to happen.

So far, everyone only has reasons to distrust Atlas, not any of the other Kingdoms. Atlas is the one whose army "seemingly attacked Vale while it was attacked by Grimm". Atlas is the one with the Dust embargo. Atlas is the one who doesn't let anyone in or out of it's borders.

The other Kingdoms have no reason to distrust each other. If Atlas falls, that means the only standing army on the planet also falls, so all we have left is whatever poor militia Vacuo and Mistral have, and any reasons they might have to distrust each other are too old and small to justify war.

Vale, meanwhile, has only reasons to distrust Atlas, so if Atlas falls, they have no reason to go to war with neither Vacuo nor Mistral. And that's if Vale even could - so far it's still recovering, and of course, it still would have to rely on whatever poor militia it has, plus Huntsmen.

In fact, Atlas falling, one way or another, would push the Kingdoms into helping each other more, due to the economic and developmental consequences of it's fall. Yeah, I think if a Second Great War is going to be the option then Atlas will not fall immediately. One possibility is that a Second Great War could start and this leads into Atlas falling. This is why I brought up Watts. Much of what Ironwood has done has favored Salem's plans in one respect or another. A lot of people were suspicious of him being co-opted by the villains yet we already saw that with Lionheart so it would be a bit much to have it be the case with him as well.

A way to make this happen is for Ironwood to be an unwitting pawn. There is no indication Ozpin's group is aware of everyone who is involved with Salem. Presumably, the first word of that was from Qrow at the end of Volume 1. Yet Raven's comments suggest Watts has a reputation notorious enough that he would be easily recognized, which would suggest he was someone of prominence. Could be he still has those connections and perhaps is connected to Ironwood himself.

There's even a way they could work this in given he made a point of identifying himself as a doctor. While "doctor" can be used for non-medical scientists, his insistence on including that in his credentials when Raven mentioned him may suggest that he was specifically involved in medical work. One plausible explanation could be that he was involved in creating mechanical replacement limbs. Perhaps he even did work on Ironwood. That could make him a confidante of Ironwood. We even have a hint of this being his specialty given Salem asks him to create a new tail for Tyrian.