Talk:A Crack in the Slab/@comment-36170398-20180712204232/@comment-1500935-20180716194042

I think Karnaca was on the brink as much as Dunwall, even if death and disease weren't over-present. While it took the plague and consequently the Empress's death to bring the capital to its knees, Karnaca was falling because of the Duke's dictatorship over 5 years only. His corruption (arbitrary laws, food and wealth restrictions, thought control, ...) would have eventually led to a putsch or a civil war, and he would have probably be assassinated by his entourage or an angry mob if not for the protagonists' intervention. In both case, Delilah would have intervened because of her self-love issues, leading to a second insurrection war, but this time with Tyvia and Morley siding with whoever ruled Serkonos (Paolo or Byrne) after the Duke's death. So overall, if Dunwall was ravaged by the plague, Karnaca was by corruption and for a longer time. It was already going to self-destruct itself without as much death as the plague.

The difference with the power situation in D1 was that the Lord Regent had strong support, while the Duke was mostly ruling by himself with a puppet council. He had an entourage who profited from him, but he wasn't backed by the religious power (Byrne outright opposed him) and was taxing wealth wherever he could (the mines, Jindosh's sales, the people). But since he ruled alone, the only way to remove him was to confront him directly. That said, with corruption favoring the wealthy elite, no one with resources or ingenuity the likes of Havelock or Pendleton would have defied him (or seen a reason to), so no conspiracy. There could have been one if Byrne and Paolo united their strength. I suspect Delilah and the Duke actually let the conflict in the Dust District go so that Byrne could not investigate freely on the conservatory. The result would have been even better if the two biggest troublemakers of Karnaca eventually killed each other.

Overall, the whole plan to topple the Duke was different than the Loyalist Conspiracy because of context. Only Byrne and Paolo could have pushed a revolution in Karnaca. They were left to confront each other in a deadly struggle instead of joining forces to save the city.

As for the coup in Dunwall. Well... I'm just going to push forward Ramsey turning people against the Empress over three years. Her rule wasn't good up until D2, or wasn't made easy. The Duke and Delilah also used propaganda to undermine her reign, something Burrows didn't to assassinate the Empress. She was probably the victim of a smear campaign for three years, and the Crown Killer murders were the icing on the cake.

I'm saying this all by memory while adding logic to it. When I think back, D2 seems to have a more intricate and less in-your-face plot than D1 and its DLC. That's probably what makes it less enjoyable when playing it the first time.

Of course everyone's entitled to its own opinion, but I do enjoy how Arkane approached two different concept of governments. Maybe it wasn't executed as well as they wanted in D2, with Luca looking more like a parody than the genuine dictator. They however didn't fall in the trap of repeating the same basic plot.

EDIT: I think it would have been more interesting to have the death/removal of the Duke being optional. In each mission in D2, the targets' removal were necessary to keep the world from being enthralled by Delilah or entering a world war. Still the Duke alone would have never engaged into a war. His death/removal wasn't that much necessary concerning the Grand Guard left in Dunwall. I believe they left the witches to deal with the Overseers by themselves, with only the help of the Clockwork Soldiers. Adding an ending where Emily and Corvo pressured the real Duke into changing its rule would have added a new nuance.