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The whole point of the shadowlord faction was to release the shadowlords to rule brit. Minax's beef with them was that they had to stop that from happening in order to still be in command. Since the SL have been released, it seems minax faction should be effectively conquored.
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Oh, not necessarily. I would think that those loyal to Lady Minax, would serve her until the bitter end so long as she remains a force to be reckoned with. The Minax Faction never sought to prevent the release of the Shadowlords, so much as they merely chose Minax as the true successor to Mondain.
The Shadowlords are kind of like Al Gore during our current election. He did not announce his intention to run, but several attempted to write his name into the ballots during the early primaries. The Shadowlords had not emerged, but many sought a more capable leader than Minax, and began to worship the Shadowlords.
Who knows? For all we know, while these two factions are fighting over beliefs that they themselves created, the Shadowlords and Lady Minax might be plotting this who thing togeather behind our backs?
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I think the time has come for a replacement of the 4 faction system with a 2 faction system. Order and Chaos. Chaos would be ruled by the shadowlords at this point. Order would be ruled by those who wish to stop the shadowlords... whoever that is.
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Chaos and Shadow are not necessarily synoymous. The idea of Chaos, as originally outlined by Lord Blackthorne, was a society in which people (and all races) are accepted for their individual merits, and serve only those laws that they felt had earned the right to be a law (some of his ideals hint of democracy). There are many underlying philosophical themes to the Order vs. Chaos lore, which is unique to Ultima Online. Lord Blackthorne only chose to serve Exodus, because he felt that he earned the right to rule, but Nystul and the Royal Britannian Council denied this right, therefore he joined Exodus (along with a number of Chaos Loyalists) to conqure the Kingdom of Britannia by force. Based on the remaining Chaos Guards in Britain, it is also assumed that there is a major schism between the Philosophical Chaos Guard (remaining loyal to Britannia despite their beliefs), and those who wished to force Britannia into anarchy.
You could say that "Chaos" is more like the Horde in Warcraft. The various races and cultures are accepted as equal, and valued despite their shortcomings (as opposed to Lord British's Order, where the Virtue of Valor might encourage you to slay the orks by the dozen to prove it). Lord Blackthorne often wrote of the various demi-human races (Orcs, Ogres, etc), and questions the morality of killing them like animals.
I agree with a faction revamp (perhaps something similar to the Chaos/Order Guards), with an updated lore behind the move. I just think that it needs to remain consistant with the lore.
