From Nissa's trial, it seemed to indicate that the Amonkhet gods were multiple leylines of mana wrapped together. That Bolas was able to reprogram them messing with how they are entangled. If they are concentrated mana from one plane, how are they able to leave that plane?
IIRC, Leylines don't just exist on planes, but between the planes in the Blind Eternities. In fact, naturally occurring planes exist on mana lines in the Eternities, while artificial planes like Mirrodin and Serra's realm did not, and that's actually what makes them unstable. A plane needs a constant supply of mana to exist. But since both Ravnica and Amonkhet are naturally occurring planes, it should be possible for a god to step through a portal on one to another without much issue. It might even be the reason that the Gruul can have a God-Pig now, because previously Ravnica had no visible gods like Amonkhet and Theros did. It might be that allowing Gods move from one plane to another alters the nature of the plane to allow them to exist there. But that's just my speculation.
For one, he used the word 'probably', he didn't state it definitively. But, the point was that either way, whether they have different biology or not, they are still alien. Alien just means foreign to the world. Also, just because the end result is the same (zombies) doesn't mean the process or magic behind it is. The curse of wandering on amonkhet could be weird magic that the golgari don't know how to control in the same way. Or, the manner in which they regenerate might be different, and therefore they don't know how to stop it.
My problem with this is that it is all speculation, not based on any known lore or canonical facts. The canonical fact is that Ravincan soldiers are able to keep up with them in combat. It doesn't matter how many people have a problem with this if they can't articulate a good reason Boros soldiers shouldn't be able to. The only thing left to ask is why, and whether or not the Eternal's ability to regenerate really makes a difference. I think what makes a difference is the God Eternals. The rank and fodder don't matter, because they are commanded by Lilliana anyway.
If the argument was 'who would win, the entire plane of Amonkhet denizens or the entire plane of Ravnica denizens?' then most of the points would be valid. But, it's not just the regular Amonkhet as normal zombies. It's also Bolas and his magic, and they aren't even trying to conquer the entire plane. Just control a small portion until his zombie assassins jump a few hundred/thousand people. Not to mention any help he's getting from the azorius, golgari, gruul, orzhov, etc.. to start. Dovin may have previously enacted some laws that are hindering some of the resistance, Domri's raids might be diverting attention, Orzhov is in shambles from Kaya setting all the spirits free, etc.. Ravnica isn't at full strength.
I think you are overstating things. In fact, the only guild that is really on Bolas's side (and we can clearly see this on the cards) is the Azorius, and I think even they are actually neutral. I'll get to that. The Gruul are shown fighting Eternals. I think they are just in it for the End Raze and will fight anyone who gets in the way of demolishing the cityscape. That presumably incudes Bolas, because Bolas is a tyrant and Domri Rade firmly believes in anarchy. Its even in his title. The Orzhov aren't on Bolas' side because Kaya is on Bolas's kill list, and her lieutenant was always suspicious of Kaya's actions. So we see the Orzhov fighting for Ravnica. And we have yet to see much spoiled about the Golgari's role, but we know it won't work to Bolas's favor because Vraska is a sleeper agent for Jace. Has been since Ixalan.
And as for the Azorius, we already know Chandra is going to burn Dovin's face off arrest Dovin Baan and pull a Nahiri to his Sorin. Somehow. Besides that, its been stated that Dovin has already betrayed Bolas in his own (currently unknown) way, because Dovin had his own agenda for the city that only included Bolas out of convenience. Once Dovin had no more use for their alliance, he severed it. That's why I think that other than the thopters, which can be reprogrammed, the Azorius are actually neutral when the war starts. Dovin Baan clearly appreciates Ravnica for what it is and what it could be. So any laws he would pass would most likely serve his own agenda, not Bolas's invasion plans. Besides that, the Azorius are ultimately still servant to the declarations of the Living Guildpact, and Jace is Bolas's second biggest enemy, right beneath Ugin. Besides that, it was spoiled (leaked?) that Niv-Mizzet will be coming back and inhereting the role of Living Guildpact from Jace, and like I said earlier, Niv is almost certainly smarter than even Bolas.
So again, that just leaves the God Eternals as Bolas's one ace in the hole. Even he isn't the big threat here, because he only thinks of himself as the smartest guy in existence. But it was always my pet theory that he never conquered more of Dominaria because he couldn't really threaten the combined forces of Urza, Teferi, and Freyalise. Everything besides the God Eternals has been building up to Bolas being betrayed by numerous lieutenants he was counting on, such as Vraska and Lilliana, and for people he thought were dead to come back to haunt him (Jace, Ugin, and probably Niv). Bolas is incredibly arrogant and tends to underestimate his enemies and their guile. He underestimated Ajani on Alara, Tetsuo Umezawa on Dominaria, underestimated the threat of the Time Rifts after being resurrected (note: he figured he could run off to another plane when Teferi and crew had already figured out that the entire multiverse was at stake), and now it looks like he's underestimating the Gatewatch and their allies by assuming that they will be easy prey for the Eternals, even when one of his own lieutenants can phase through matter like a ghost. Bolas is screwed, its obvious that WOTC has smartly set his plan up for failure over several years of storytelling.
I do think it's unlikely he spent much effort on trying to get into Ravnica. He probably stopped caring about it after he beat Ugin. I think the place only caught his attention again after the first guildpact broke and it became a kind of magical hub. Or, maybe he chose it as some kind of revenge against Azor. If the guildpact never broke, it seems just as likely he would have chosen Dominaria as his planeswalker trap instead.
Oh, there are good reasons for him to leave Dominaria alone. If nothing else, its too big. He wants the planeswalkers to be concentrated in one relatively small space, not scattered on a half dozen continents hiding from him. This also rules out trying it on Zendikar or Alara. Plus, try assassinating someone on the run in the Weatherlight. Yeah, there's just too many things that could go wrong for him on a plane which still has caches of superweapons left there by Urza "just in case" for the Phurexian invasion, and too many heroes willing to help foil his plans because Bolas has a reputation there.
Sure, but while it is certainly inspired by Lapislazzuli, a stone can't be used to create a coating like the one we see on Eternals.
Actually, that's exactly how it was used in history. It was ground up and used as a paint or as makeup (think of Cleopatra's signature blue eyeliner-- that isn't a Hollywood invention, she actually wore that stuff, and Lapis Lazuli was the primary pigment). You might be confused by the overall appearance of the Eternals, which is highly angular like someone wearing armor plating, but that's actually just what mummified bodies look like underneath their wrappings. The thing that made me suspicious from the beginning is that they look too gaunt to be covered in thick metal. In fact, they are so gaunt because they are mummies.
We even saw kind of an ancient-magicesque-egyptian foundry in which melted lazotep is dripped. While everything has a fusion temperature, a thing that can be melted, used for coating and is metallic in the final facies seems more metallic to me in its nature than simply rocky.
Again, Lapis Lazuli actually does look like that. That sheen is what makes it a semi-precious stone. As for the melting and stuff, I didn't say it actually was Lapis Lazuli, just that WOTC isn't hiding their inspirations, and that there is no real indication that its supposed to be a metal. They call it a "mineral," but if it were purified into a metal they would most likely just call it that or call it an alloy. "Mineral" conventionally indicates rock. Besides, if it were metal, you wouldn't want to apply it to flesh in a molten state. It would be so hot it would instantly burn the mummy. Its more likely that the Lazotep is combined with a resin or paint to bind it to the mummified tissue, and that's what Nissa saw. Either way, they haven't indicated it to be protective, except from the Eternities.
"Alien" means what I said and there is nothing to reprimand about the use I made of the word "alien".
Except that's not what the word connotates. At least, not 99% of the time (the last 1% is when people are discussing immigration issues, and since that's politics I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole). Usually it refers to extraterrestrials, or experiences that are so strange and so foreign to normal experience that nothing else quite fits. And often in fiction it will be used in both senses at once, such as in Lovecraftian fiction. It is very unusual for native English speakers to use the word to refer to foreigners, because it sounds either antiquated, overly technical, or dehumanizing. And Planeswalkers and planar travelers in Mt:G are usually pretty similar in this regard.
About the probability of humans having different biological traits it's a totally different discussion. Thinking Humans are on nearly every plane I assumed they are the product of parallel evolution throughout the multiverse (we know the real reason is a creative one, but in lore I assumed this), so I also assumed there must be different traits, so while they are apparently mostly similar, there should be biological differences; talking realistically even humans on Earth have some substantial biological differences: I'd expect humans in different UNIVERSES to be at least different in some ways. And reading the Humans page on MTG wiki I see there are biological differences, for example in lifespan or even physical evident differences (not talking about Mirrans obviously...). I mean, they could even have organs in different places for all we know.
I'll grant you that Mirrans have slightly different biology because Mirrodin is weird that way. But at the end of the day this is mostly a Fantasy game, not a SF game, so I wouldn't expect something like the Theory of Evolution to always apply like you would expect it to. Most exceptions to the rule that "humans are humans" have a specific explanation attached, like Keldons having done genetic engineering/eugenics in the past to make themselves super bulky in preparation for the Phyrexian invasion. Given that a lot of visual retcons were made to Ravnica in the first sequel block, I can't even tell if the lifespan weirdness of OG Ravnica still applies or whether its been retconned into oblivion to prevent people from getting confused. After all, "humans are humans" is a storytelling rule to try and keep the characters as relatable as possible. Its also the reason most of the planeswalkers are human, for better or worse.
First of all, pigment is to mix with water or oils to make paint or make up, not metallic coating, Lapis is not even a metal. Uses in history are also as precious stones, jewels, so nothing more than engraved or sculpted or mounted lapis...
"Mineral" does not mean "rock".
And poof! lucky me... Yesterday they posted this https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-preview/bad-news-heroes-2019-04-11 and it says "metallic mineral".
"Alien"
That seems actually a pretty personal prejudice on the word "alien", which I highly doubt 99% of people in the world has. It means foreign, stranger, the same meaning it had in latin, and it's only denoting a characteristic of origin, of provenance. Taking in example Lovecraft: he still used the word correctly for the Old Ones, they are aliens, but he also used "inconceivable", "monstrous", "horrendous", "revolting" for the characteristics you seem to blend in the meaning of "alien". Even in scifi it just means "from another world" and not "green monster from space". About Planeswalkers, you might see at the end of one of my repliy I explicitly wrote "alien planeswalkers": because most of those on Ravnica are aliens right now.
Differences in humans
Having Simics all fanatics about evolution, I don't think they don't want to explain anything that goes into more of a scifi sphere, I think it's just implicit they will not overstate differences between different planes humans, for the reason you said "to keep the characters as relatable as possible". The fact is, artificial or natural evolution, there are differences and sometimes they just implicitly admit it's genetics or evolution, for example the rare presence of mages on Kaladesh, Melira resistance to Phyresis, wings and limbs sprouting randomly, skin colour, etc... So a human race developing on a different plane, realistically, should have differences even bigger in regards to an alien human race.
In regards to the discussion to the Eternals number: the population isn't the issue. Its the fact that the actual participants of the army are only there because of a highly limited window of time, at most five yearly instances in a period of 50 years. True, manticores, hippos and the viziers were not part of these trials, but the bulk of the army is.
I'm assuming Bolas really went for the quality over quantity principal.
I was under the impression that a diffetent Champion died in the Trial of Zeal every day. I believe I read something about the gates of the afterlife opening once a day to admit the worthy dead.
That seems actually a pretty personal prejudice on the word "alien", which I highly doubt 99% of people in the world has. It means foreign, stranger, the same meaning it had in latin, and it's only denoting a characteristic of origin, of provenance. Taking in example Lovecraft: he still used the word correctly for the Old Ones, they are aliens, but he also used "inconceivable", "monstrous", "horrendous", "revolting" for the characteristics you seem to blend in the meaning of "alien". Even in scifi it just means "from another world" and not "green monster from space". About Planeswalkers, you might see at the end of one of my repliy I explicitly wrote "alien planeswalkers": because most of those on Ravnica are aliens right now.
This. Just because we use 'alien' to refer to 'outer space extraterrestrials that don't look human' so much, does not mean that's the only correct usage of the word. Superman is an alien, and referred to as such many, many times throughout his history, despite a totally human appearance. 'Outer space aliens' falls under the umbrella term of 'alien', but its general usage is for anything foreign to your world. Whether that world is your country, planet, plane, etc.. That isn't some niche use of the word, but rather the intended definition that has been linked in some people's brains to mean 'from outer space', but that isn't correct.
I think you are overstating things. In fact, the only guild that is really on Bolas's side (and we can clearly see this on the cards) is the Azorius, and I think even they are actually neutral. I'll get to that. The Gruul are shown fighting Eternals. I think they are just in it for the End Raze and will fight anyone who gets in the way of demolishing the cityscape. That presumably incudes Bolas, because Bolas is a tyrant and Domri Rade firmly believes in anarchy. Its even in his title. The Orzhov aren't on Bolas' side because Kaya is on Bolas's kill list, and her lieutenant was always suspicious of Kaya's actions. So we see the Orzhov fighting for Ravnica. And we have yet to see much spoiled about the Golgari's role, but we know it won't work to Bolas's favor because Vraska is a sleeper agent for Jace. Has been since Ixalan.
I didn't overstate anything. You are the one implying that all the guilds are setup in the same spot fighting the invasion simultaneously. Yes, Domri would fight either side, which is exactly my point. He's just as likely to fight ravnicans in his way, which is all Bolas needs. It's one less guild allied against him. The orzhov are in shambles, so they aren't helping much either. The azorius being neutral is, again, a point FOR bolas, not against him. When I said things those guilds did to start, I meant before he even showed up. He co-opted some, weakened or disabled others. Even the ones he didn't have any control over, he used the ones he did to weaken them beforehand. All the ravnica stories were about things like Azorius locking up tons of people, especially Rakdos, or the gruul getting more aggressive in demolishing other guild's areas. Orzhov had the majority of its power removed, as they used their spirits in many different functions, including soldiers. Basically, Ravnica isn't at full strength.
On top of that, while Ravnica might be smaller than some other planes (we've never been given a full map or size, though, this is just commonly accepted speculation) it's not just the size of London or something. The tenth district itself is likely as big something like London, but there are still many other areas where the fighting isn't taking place. The guilds have troops stationed all over that wouldn't be there for the invasion. It's only a portion of their overall strength that would be close enough, and ready, to start fighting.
The cards were showing that it was possible for them to defeat groups of eternals, especially when they work together, but not that they were winning the whole war. Even when one side totally crushes another in a war, the losing side still defeats some of their enemy's troops. They couldn't easily make cards for all 5 colors showing the Ravnicans just getting killed over and over. Especially in green and white. They had to have moments of triumph for the good guys as well, and then have any hope they started to get be crushed by the arrival of the God Eternals, so that it's again all about the Gatewatch's plan. If Ravnica could just beat the eternals on their own, then there wouldn't be any stakes to the story.
This whole discussion started from you and others stating why the Eternals would be no match for Ravnica, based on some cards showing them getting beat. That ignores the bigger picture, and infers way too much from a tiny piece of information. I was giving all kinds of reasons for why they could be a legitimate threat. Yes, they were speculative, because we haven't been given the actual novel yet. I wasn't saying 'these are definitely the reasons', but rather they are possible explanations that might show up in the story, or there might be entirely new ones no one thought of. They didn't create a detailed D&D style book with the stats of every soldier on every side for anyone to do an analysis, so saying one side would clearly defeat the other is already speculative, no matter which side you are in favor of. Making statements like 'Golgari know about zombies, so therefore regenerating zombies wouldn't pose a threat' as if every Golgari member is a necromancer, and they can instantly share all their knowledge with everyone on ravnica, or that every zombie, on every plane, is always created the exact same way.. is so out of touch and irrelevant to the story. You might as well say the Eternal Gods don't matter either, cause the nephillim were considered 'old gods' and Ravnica defeated them, so now they know everything about gods and how to beat them. Its vastly over simplifying what is happening, and things just don't work like that.
I was getting reaaaaalllly worried that Bolas would be undone by Gideon swinging a pointy evil maguffin at him... but the new Jace card suggests the writers might be after something more subtle. Something about Bolas not understanding the results of the Elder Spell perfectly. I've got my fingers crossed that they handle this well and it's more of Bolas' plan going flawlessly but his hubris undoing him than Beefcake McBlackBlade winning.
Something like the end of the Doctor arc from The Authority would be amazing.
To be clear, the size of the plane doesn't really matter. Ravnica is a big plane, but the sets action takes place in the capital. This is because the beacon likely doesn't just draw walkers to the plane, but to the vicinity of the beacon.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
How much of a person/god is left once they are coated in lazotep? Is it just muscle memory or do they actually have their memories/thoughts overlayed with utter devotion to Bolas? I never quite understood that during the Amonkhet block.
The gods don't seem to have much of their original bodies left either (see their arms and mid-sections) which seem to be entirely lazotep or just missing entirely.
I am curious what happens to them most of all if/when Bolas is defeated. Dare we hope they can be saved?
Didn’t one of the cards with civilians depict Niv Mizzet on a poster, implying he was one of the fallen? Or something to that effect?
Yea, but we never saw when that happened is the problem. They are acting as if the novel is already out or something. They should have put his death on a card if they were gonna reference it like this.
Also, the timing of when they released the card you are talking about, suggests he may have died in the initial invasion. Like, right after the planar bridge opened, maybe Bolas flew in, setup his citadel while the Eternals started going ham, and niv-mizzet immediately flew out to fight him? Idk, just speculating, but it's clear it happened early on in the events.
That seems actually a pretty personal prejudice on the word "alien", which I highly doubt 99% of people in the world has. It means foreign, stranger, the same meaning it had in latin, and it's only denoting a characteristic of origin, of provenance. Taking in example Lovecraft: he still used the word correctly for the Old Ones, they are aliens, but he also used "inconceivable", "monstrous", "horrendous", "revolting" for the characteristics you seem to blend in the meaning of "alien". Even in scifi it just means "from another world" and not "green monster from space". About Planeswalkers, you might see at the end of one of my repliy I explicitly wrote "alien planeswalkers": because most of those on Ravnica are aliens right now.
This. Just because we use 'alien' to refer to 'outer space extraterrestrials that don't look human' so much, does not mean that's the only correct usage of the word. Superman is an alien, and referred to as such many, many times throughout his history, despite a totally human appearance. 'Outer space aliens' falls under the umbrella term of 'alien', but its general usage is for anything foreign to your world. Whether that world is your country, planet, plane, etc.. That isn't some niche use of the word, but rather the intended definition that has been linked in some people's brains to mean 'from outer space', but that isn't correct.
The two of you aren't wrong, but you are missing the point. This is the difference between connotation and denotation. It is because of connotation that the anglo-saxon word for fecal matter is treated as profanity, while the Latin word for the same is not. In fact, you can do the same exercise for most English profanity; all of them have neutral alternatives that usually come from French or Latin. The connotation of the word "alien" in the English language is informed by the adoption of it for describing extraterrestrials in science fiction, horror fiction, and even astrobiology and similar sciences. This is why few English speakers use it to refer to fellow human beings anymore, and why its slowly being phased out of legalese in some places. How speakers of other languages use it is irrelevant. Whatever its origins, it is quickly becoming a false friend. More than half of all native English speakers will understand what I mean, and that is all that matters.
My only issue with the Eternals being a threat is one of logistics. The whole Amonkhet scheme has been going on for 50 years, and the trials are implied to take several weeks/months to complete so realistically there should be a very limited number of trials per year.
The upper estimates at most would mean an army of around 1000.
Ravnica has a lot more than just that.
Well, for one, Bolas didn't create the trials from whole cloth. He merely corrupted and twisted them to his ends. Meaning that this system of training and becoming worthy already existed. Bolas simply sped the process up. So when the Hours finally came the necropolis was likely full of people who had passed the trials before Bolas came. And as was said, earlier in the thread, the eternals aren't only comprised of the single victor of each Trial of Zeal. Anyone who made it to the trial was sent to become an eternal. Add in the various non-humanoid creatures that were eternalized and you've got a serious army. Had they gone to any other plane they may have been a threat. But on Ravnica it's just Tuesday.
Woah, wait a second. I'm not sure if you're implying this or I'm realizing it. But if the trials existed before Bolas came and the "worthy" were being embalmed for literally thousands of years, couldn't this explain the numbers discrepancy? In other words, what if the em embalmed dead from long before Bolas' arrival were retroactively eternalized?
Looks like jace’s triumph may have officially revealed bolas lost
It’s saids he out smarted him
We may have gotten a hint on how bolas looses too
“Understand that why ultimate power is self defeating”
That sounds like how kai got defeated in Kung fu panda 3 from having too much chi
And oogway even warned him about this In That movie
“When will you realize? The more you take, the less you’ll have.”
Oh and niv did infact get killed by bolas (that was infact nissas vison on a dragon will fall)
However it failed to catch part that niv will resurrect also niv also anticipated he could get killed by bolas so he had a trick to reusrrect
My suspicion is that Jace figured out a plot element that has been intentionally hidden from us the viewers. I think when Jace read Bolas' mind during the Amonkhet battle he learned more than he let on (after getting his memories back in Ixalan)
enzie, I think with the spoiler of Pledge of Unity and the Bonds cycle we can finally say for sure that the Guilds are united against Bolas. You can clearly see members of just about every guild they could fit into the frame putting their hands on Gideon (or each other), including a member of the Gruul near the center of the piece, so that puts an end to that argument. I bet the Azorius are going to just treat Dovin Baan as a traitor or a renegade, but either way it looks like they will be teaming up with the Orzhov, who we know are against Bolas.
And it makes sense in-story too. The cards indicate that Bolas didn't see the significance of Nissa smashing his statue of himself, but that is presumably the moment when the guilds woke up and realized they all needed to be in this together. And then Niv-Mizzit resurrected himself, and that was that.
First of all, pigment is to mix with water or oils to make paint or make up, not metallic coating, Lapis is not even a metal. Uses in history are also as precious stones, jewels, so nothing more than engraved or sculpted or mounted lapis...
Do you think I am unprepared to source my claims of it being used as a pigment in historic paints? The paint today is called ultramarine. Yes there is a synthetic variant, but its traditionally made with Lazurite, the compound in Lapis Lazuli that gives it its color.
Metallic doesn't mean metal either. Silicon is a metalloid, because it has properties of both metals and non-metals. If you learned about the periodic table in highschool chemistry you know this distinction. Besides, the writers on the Mothership screw up the lore all the time, like today when they thought they had shown Niv-Mizzit's death when they totally forgot to do so. Or the many, many mistakes MaRo makes, like that time he forgot Phyrexians were originally the Thrawn. My suspicion here is that someone in the story department had this idea about what Lazotep is that wasn't established during Amonkhet block, the artists were told that its like lazurite, the artists know what that is because they have been to art school, so the artists just treated it like a cool paintjob on the Eternals. Then a bunch of people wonder why the artists aren't treating it like armor plating. As far as they knew, it wsan't meant to be. At least, that is my guess.
Having Simics all fanatics about evolution, I don't think they don't want to explain anything that goes into more of a scifi sphere, I think it's just implicit they will not overstate differences between different planes humans, for the reason you said "to keep the characters as relatable as possible". The fact is, artificial or natural evolution, there are differences and sometimes they just implicitly admit it's genetics or evolution, for example the rare presence of mages on Kaladesh, Melira resistance to Phyresis, wings and limbs sprouting randomly, skin colour, etc... So a human race developing on a different plane, realistically, should have differences even bigger in regards to an alien human race.
They use or ignore science on the basis of Rule of Cool, and really always have. Some of the races like Vedalkin and Merfolk have had... interesting art histories, to say the least. The excuse for Vedalkin having six fingers on Kaladesh and only five on Ravnica and Esper is really a post-hoc justification for the early weirdness of four armed Mirran Vedalkin, for instance. And they only created the Vedalkin because they were unreasonably self-conscious about the traditional merfolk having tails... you get the idea. The lore can be rather slapdash at times, especially when you pull back the curtain and look at how the company developed everything. Sometimes they did so with loving care, sometimes the right hand didn't even care what the left hand was doing.
I really don't think we are. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alien
Literally the first 3 commonly used definitions of the word fit this scenario. The example in your link is referencing the fact that we are using the same term for humans from another country as we would beings from another planet, but Amonkhet is actually a different planet than Ravnica. Also, the fact that, until recently, the government was even using the term 'illegal alien' to refer to other humans, further supports the first usages in the dictionary.
The connotation of how he used the word was also perfectly correct, but you have ingrained definitions of both 'alien' and 'aliens' (not the same thing, either) in your mind and ignored the context. 'An alien invasion' on its own, can describe both a foreign invasion force or ETs from outer space, depending on the context. He was referring to blue metallic zombie soldiers, some of whom are clearly not humanoid, from another plane... that's pretty alien to the denizens of Ravnica. If you just say the word 'aliens' to a random person, what pops into their head? Sure, ETs. If you say 'the soldiers were alien to this country', however, then it simply suggests weird or unknown.
I find it surprising that you are choosing this specific hill to die on.
Woah, wait a second. I'm not sure if you're implying this or I'm realizing it. But if the trials existed before Bolas came and the "worthy" were being embalmed for literally thousands of years, couldn't this explain the numbers discrepancy? In other words, what if the em embalmed dead from long before Bolas' arrival were retroactively eternalized?
Yea, this is what I was suggesting earlier. I don't think that every member of his Eternals is made up from JUST the trial winners of the last 60 years. Maybe the novel will go into this, maybe not, but it's a plausible explanation that doesn't break the continuity. There could be an unending number of trial winners from before he took over, plus he may be filling out the ranks with some of the 3rd/4th/5th/etc.. place finishers. The act of competing being what drove them to train harder, but maybe you didn't have to win for Bolas to want to use you. There are also the viziers and such, that never took part in the trials (I think? I don't remember if they went into how they became viziers), random demons and creatures from the plane, and lots of other possibilities. The plane had the Curse of Wandering before he showed up, it was already a big old zombie factory, so there is a potentially unlimited supply of corpses for him to draw from, if he so chose. I think he'd prefer the more elite warriors that trained to fight their whole lives, but beggars can't be choosers if he didn't have enough of them for his purposes. 50% elite warriors and 50% 'fodder' is still better than just the 50% elite warriors.
Some of the races like Vedalkin and Merfolk have had... interesting art histories, to say the least. The excuse for Vedalkin having six fingers on Kaladesh and only five on Ravnica and Esper is really a post-hoc justification for the early weirdness of four armed Mirran Vedalkin, for instance. And they only created the Vedalkin because they were unreasonably self-conscious about the traditional merfolk having tails... you get the idea. The lore can be rather slapdash at times, especially when you pull back the curtain and look at how the company developed everything. Sometimes they did so with loving care, sometimes the right hand didn't even care what the left hand was doing.
I am perfectly fine with this. Real-world mythologies, religious doctrines, oral traditions, and cultural lore feature many examples of this same kind of development. Some may accuse it of artifice, but it's actually perfectly organic: this is just one way stories evolve.
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"I'd rather die speaking the truth than live a lie." --Gix, to Yawgmoth (pre-Phyrexia)
Woah, wait a second. I'm not sure if you're implying this or I'm realizing it. But if the trials existed before Bolas came and the "worthy" were being embalmed for literally thousands of years, couldn't this explain the numbers discrepancy? In other words, what if the em embalmed dead from long before Bolas' arrival were retroactively eternalized?
I don't care about connotation. I can't base my language about subjective prejudice about words. I use them in a way most people can understand them, for example in the event they don't know the word: they can quickly grab a dictionary and understand what I meant, not needing them to do an academic research on social evolution of language to understand what I meant. Language is in ongoing evolution, that I admit, but sometimes it seems it's getting corrupted and edulcorated than evolving.
Do you think I am unprepared to source my claims of it being used as a pigment in historic paints? The paint today is called ultramarine. Yes there is a synthetic variant, but its traditionally made with Lazurite, the compound in Lapis Lazuli that gives it its color.
So we agree it can't be used to metal coat (lapislazzuli would not even produce a metallic pigment for what I can see). I know you still think it's just painted gauze, but I really think, in-lore, it's a metal plate, metal coating, with "metal" meaning "of metal", not "of metal appearance".
Metallic doesn't mean metal either. Silicon is a metalloid [...]Besides, the writers on the Mothership screw up the lore all the time [...] My suspicion here is that someone in the story department had this idea about what Lazotep is that wasn't established during Amonkhet block, the artists were told that its like lazurite, the artists know what that is because they have been to art school, so the artists just treated it like a cool paintjob on the Eternals. Then a bunch of people wonder why the artists aren't treating it like armor plating. As far as they knew, it wsan't meant to be. At least, that is my guess.
"Metallic mineral" explictly indicates a mineral metallic in composition. And a metalloid is not a metal. And I don't know why you put it here, because one of my points said "it's a metal because it has a metallic facies"? Well, they used the term "metallic mineral" in the end, so maybe it wasn't a STRONG reason, but they showed other hints for it being metallic and not a simple rock with some metallic characteristics. Also neither lazurite nor lapislazzuli are metallic in facies. In the end lazotep is INSPIRED by lapislazzuli, it's not just lapislazzuli WITH ANOTHER NAME. They evidently decided to make the lazotep a metallic mineral. We saw a foundry of lazotep, it's obvious that art was also directed in that way. We can't assume they made a mistake everytime their ideas are against our preconception: they did not say "lazotep is the name of lapislazzuli on Amonkhet" and then proceeded to destroy the chemical identity of the rock usually named lapislazzuli.
They use or ignore science on the basis of Rule of Cool, and really always have. Some of the races like Vedalkin and Merfolk have had... interesting art histories, to say the least. The excuse for Vedalkin having six fingers on Kaladesh and only five on Ravnica and Esper is really a post-hoc justification for the early weirdness of four armed Mirran Vedalkin, for instance. And they only created the Vedalkin because they were unreasonably self-conscious about the traditional merfolk having tails... you get the idea. The lore can be rather slapdash at times, especially when you pull back the curtain and look at how the company developed everything. Sometimes they did so with loving care, sometimes the right hand didn't even care what the left hand was doing.
It is not even "ignoring science", nor an implementation of the Rule of Cool actually: there are so many of these examples in nature, the entire story of the human species is one of parallel evolution, they just represent things as they naturally occur (expept mirrans again). I don't know if those you wrote were the real reasons behind those characteristics or just guesses, but I find it cohesive and natural that, in a MULTIVERSE, somethings vary. There are bilions of universes in a multiverse, I don't expect humans, vedalken or merfolk to be identical. Now, THAT would be unrealistic.
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IIRC, Leylines don't just exist on planes, but between the planes in the Blind Eternities. In fact, naturally occurring planes exist on mana lines in the Eternities, while artificial planes like Mirrodin and Serra's realm did not, and that's actually what makes them unstable. A plane needs a constant supply of mana to exist. But since both Ravnica and Amonkhet are naturally occurring planes, it should be possible for a god to step through a portal on one to another without much issue. It might even be the reason that the Gruul can have a God-Pig now, because previously Ravnica had no visible gods like Amonkhet and Theros did. It might be that allowing Gods move from one plane to another alters the nature of the plane to allow them to exist there. But that's just my speculation.
My problem with this is that it is all speculation, not based on any known lore or canonical facts. The canonical fact is that Ravincan soldiers are able to keep up with them in combat. It doesn't matter how many people have a problem with this if they can't articulate a good reason Boros soldiers shouldn't be able to. The only thing left to ask is why, and whether or not the Eternal's ability to regenerate really makes a difference. I think what makes a difference is the God Eternals. The rank and fodder don't matter, because they are commanded by Lilliana anyway.
I think you are overstating things. In fact, the only guild that is really on Bolas's side (and we can clearly see this on the cards) is the Azorius, and I think even they are actually neutral. I'll get to that. The Gruul are shown fighting Eternals. I think they are just in it for the End Raze and will fight anyone who gets in the way of demolishing the cityscape. That presumably incudes Bolas, because Bolas is a tyrant and Domri Rade firmly believes in anarchy. Its even in his title. The Orzhov aren't on Bolas' side because Kaya is on Bolas's kill list, and her lieutenant was always suspicious of Kaya's actions. So we see the Orzhov fighting for Ravnica. And we have yet to see much spoiled about the Golgari's role, but we know it won't work to Bolas's favor because Vraska is a sleeper agent for Jace. Has been since Ixalan.
And as for the Azorius, we already know Chandra is going to
burn Dovin's face offarrest Dovin Baan and pull a Nahiri to his Sorin. Somehow. Besides that, its been stated that Dovin has already betrayed Bolas in his own (currently unknown) way, because Dovin had his own agenda for the city that only included Bolas out of convenience. Once Dovin had no more use for their alliance, he severed it. That's why I think that other than the thopters, which can be reprogrammed, the Azorius are actually neutral when the war starts. Dovin Baan clearly appreciates Ravnica for what it is and what it could be. So any laws he would pass would most likely serve his own agenda, not Bolas's invasion plans. Besides that, the Azorius are ultimately still servant to the declarations of the Living Guildpact, and Jace is Bolas's second biggest enemy, right beneath Ugin. Besides that, it was spoiled (leaked?) that Niv-Mizzet will be coming back and inhereting the role of Living Guildpact from Jace, and like I said earlier, Niv is almost certainly smarter than even Bolas.So again, that just leaves the God Eternals as Bolas's one ace in the hole. Even he isn't the big threat here, because he only thinks of himself as the smartest guy in existence. But it was always my pet theory that he never conquered more of Dominaria because he couldn't really threaten the combined forces of Urza, Teferi, and Freyalise. Everything besides the God Eternals has been building up to Bolas being betrayed by numerous lieutenants he was counting on, such as Vraska and Lilliana, and for people he thought were dead to come back to haunt him (Jace, Ugin, and probably Niv). Bolas is incredibly arrogant and tends to underestimate his enemies and their guile. He underestimated Ajani on Alara, Tetsuo Umezawa on Dominaria, underestimated the threat of the Time Rifts after being resurrected (note: he figured he could run off to another plane when Teferi and crew had already figured out that the entire multiverse was at stake), and now it looks like he's underestimating the Gatewatch and their allies by assuming that they will be easy prey for the Eternals, even when one of his own lieutenants can phase through matter like a ghost. Bolas is screwed, its obvious that WOTC has smartly set his plan up for failure over several years of storytelling.
Oh, there are good reasons for him to leave Dominaria alone. If nothing else, its too big. He wants the planeswalkers to be concentrated in one relatively small space, not scattered on a half dozen continents hiding from him. This also rules out trying it on Zendikar or Alara. Plus, try assassinating someone on the run in the Weatherlight. Yeah, there's just too many things that could go wrong for him on a plane which still has caches of superweapons left there by Urza "just in case" for the Phurexian invasion, and too many heroes willing to help foil his plans because Bolas has a reputation there.
Actually, that's exactly how it was used in history. It was ground up and used as a paint or as makeup (think of Cleopatra's signature blue eyeliner-- that isn't a Hollywood invention, she actually wore that stuff, and Lapis Lazuli was the primary pigment). You might be confused by the overall appearance of the Eternals, which is highly angular like someone wearing armor plating, but that's actually just what mummified bodies look like underneath their wrappings. The thing that made me suspicious from the beginning is that they look too gaunt to be covered in thick metal. In fact, they are so gaunt because they are mummies.
Again, Lapis Lazuli actually does look like that. That sheen is what makes it a semi-precious stone. As for the melting and stuff, I didn't say it actually was Lapis Lazuli, just that WOTC isn't hiding their inspirations, and that there is no real indication that its supposed to be a metal. They call it a "mineral," but if it were purified into a metal they would most likely just call it that or call it an alloy. "Mineral" conventionally indicates rock. Besides, if it were metal, you wouldn't want to apply it to flesh in a molten state. It would be so hot it would instantly burn the mummy. Its more likely that the Lazotep is combined with a resin or paint to bind it to the mummified tissue, and that's what Nissa saw. Either way, they haven't indicated it to be protective, except from the Eternities.
Except that's not what the word connotates. At least, not 99% of the time (the last 1% is when people are discussing immigration issues, and since that's politics I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole). Usually it refers to extraterrestrials, or experiences that are so strange and so foreign to normal experience that nothing else quite fits. And often in fiction it will be used in both senses at once, such as in Lovecraftian fiction. It is very unusual for native English speakers to use the word to refer to foreigners, because it sounds either antiquated, overly technical, or dehumanizing. And Planeswalkers and planar travelers in Mt:G are usually pretty similar in this regard.
I'll grant you that Mirrans have slightly different biology because Mirrodin is weird that way. But at the end of the day this is mostly a Fantasy game, not a SF game, so I wouldn't expect something like the Theory of Evolution to always apply like you would expect it to. Most exceptions to the rule that "humans are humans" have a specific explanation attached, like Keldons having done genetic engineering/eugenics in the past to make themselves super bulky in preparation for the Phyrexian invasion. Given that a lot of visual retcons were made to Ravnica in the first sequel block, I can't even tell if the lifespan weirdness of OG Ravnica still applies or whether its been retconned into oblivion to prevent people from getting confused. After all, "humans are humans" is a storytelling rule to try and keep the characters as relatable as possible. Its also the reason most of the planeswalkers are human, for better or worse.
First of all, pigment is to mix with water or oils to make paint or make up, not metallic coating, Lapis is not even a metal. Uses in history are also as precious stones, jewels, so nothing more than engraved or sculpted or mounted lapis...
"Mineral" does not mean "rock".
And poof! lucky me... Yesterday they posted this https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-preview/bad-news-heroes-2019-04-11 and it says "metallic mineral".
That seems actually a pretty personal prejudice on the word "alien", which I highly doubt 99% of people in the world has. It means foreign, stranger, the same meaning it had in latin, and it's only denoting a characteristic of origin, of provenance. Taking in example Lovecraft: he still used the word correctly for the Old Ones, they are aliens, but he also used "inconceivable", "monstrous", "horrendous", "revolting" for the characteristics you seem to blend in the meaning of "alien". Even in scifi it just means "from another world" and not "green monster from space". About Planeswalkers, you might see at the end of one of my repliy I explicitly wrote "alien planeswalkers": because most of those on Ravnica are aliens right now.
Having Simics all fanatics about evolution, I don't think they don't want to explain anything that goes into more of a scifi sphere, I think it's just implicit they will not overstate differences between different planes humans, for the reason you said "to keep the characters as relatable as possible". The fact is, artificial or natural evolution, there are differences and sometimes they just implicitly admit it's genetics or evolution, for example the rare presence of mages on Kaladesh, Melira resistance to Phyresis, wings and limbs sprouting randomly, skin colour, etc... So a human race developing on a different plane, realistically, should have differences even bigger in regards to an alien human race.
I was under the impression that a diffetent Champion died in the Trial of Zeal every day. I believe I read something about the gates of the afterlife opening once a day to admit the worthy dead.
This. Just because we use 'alien' to refer to 'outer space extraterrestrials that don't look human' so much, does not mean that's the only correct usage of the word. Superman is an alien, and referred to as such many, many times throughout his history, despite a totally human appearance. 'Outer space aliens' falls under the umbrella term of 'alien', but its general usage is for anything foreign to your world. Whether that world is your country, planet, plane, etc.. That isn't some niche use of the word, but rather the intended definition that has been linked in some people's brains to mean 'from outer space', but that isn't correct.
I didn't overstate anything. You are the one implying that all the guilds are setup in the same spot fighting the invasion simultaneously. Yes, Domri would fight either side, which is exactly my point. He's just as likely to fight ravnicans in his way, which is all Bolas needs. It's one less guild allied against him. The orzhov are in shambles, so they aren't helping much either. The azorius being neutral is, again, a point FOR bolas, not against him. When I said things those guilds did to start, I meant before he even showed up. He co-opted some, weakened or disabled others. Even the ones he didn't have any control over, he used the ones he did to weaken them beforehand. All the ravnica stories were about things like Azorius locking up tons of people, especially Rakdos, or the gruul getting more aggressive in demolishing other guild's areas. Orzhov had the majority of its power removed, as they used their spirits in many different functions, including soldiers. Basically, Ravnica isn't at full strength.
On top of that, while Ravnica might be smaller than some other planes (we've never been given a full map or size, though, this is just commonly accepted speculation) it's not just the size of London or something. The tenth district itself is likely as big something like London, but there are still many other areas where the fighting isn't taking place. The guilds have troops stationed all over that wouldn't be there for the invasion. It's only a portion of their overall strength that would be close enough, and ready, to start fighting.
The cards were showing that it was possible for them to defeat groups of eternals, especially when they work together, but not that they were winning the whole war. Even when one side totally crushes another in a war, the losing side still defeats some of their enemy's troops. They couldn't easily make cards for all 5 colors showing the Ravnicans just getting killed over and over. Especially in green and white. They had to have moments of triumph for the good guys as well, and then have any hope they started to get be crushed by the arrival of the God Eternals, so that it's again all about the Gatewatch's plan. If Ravnica could just beat the eternals on their own, then there wouldn't be any stakes to the story.
This whole discussion started from you and others stating why the Eternals would be no match for Ravnica, based on some cards showing them getting beat. That ignores the bigger picture, and infers way too much from a tiny piece of information. I was giving all kinds of reasons for why they could be a legitimate threat. Yes, they were speculative, because we haven't been given the actual novel yet. I wasn't saying 'these are definitely the reasons', but rather they are possible explanations that might show up in the story, or there might be entirely new ones no one thought of. They didn't create a detailed D&D style book with the stats of every soldier on every side for anyone to do an analysis, so saying one side would clearly defeat the other is already speculative, no matter which side you are in favor of. Making statements like 'Golgari know about zombies, so therefore regenerating zombies wouldn't pose a threat' as if every Golgari member is a necromancer, and they can instantly share all their knowledge with everyone on ravnica, or that every zombie, on every plane, is always created the exact same way.. is so out of touch and irrelevant to the story. You might as well say the Eternal Gods don't matter either, cause the nephillim were considered 'old gods' and Ravnica defeated them, so now they know everything about gods and how to beat them. Its vastly over simplifying what is happening, and things just don't work like that.
Something like the end of the Doctor arc from The Authority would be amazing.
And now he's syphoning he Elder Spell to be reborn
Story Holes are great
Yeah, I just read today "Last time we saw Niv he was struck down by Bolas." Wait, what? Did I miss this?
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The gods don't seem to have much of their original bodies left either (see their arms and mid-sections) which seem to be entirely lazotep or just missing entirely.
I am curious what happens to them most of all if/when Bolas is defeated. Dare we hope they can be saved?
It’s saids he out smarted him
We may have gotten a hint on how bolas looses too
“Understand that why ultimate power is self defeating”
That sounds like how kai got defeated in Kung fu panda 3 from having too much chi
And oogway even warned him about this In That movie
“When will you realize? The more you take, the less you’ll have.”
Oh and niv did infact get killed by bolas (that was infact nissas vison on a dragon will fall)
However it failed to catch part that niv will resurrect also niv also anticipated he could get killed by bolas so he had a trick to reusrrect
Yea, but we never saw when that happened is the problem. They are acting as if the novel is already out or something. They should have put his death on a card if they were gonna reference it like this.
Also, the timing of when they released the card you are talking about, suggests he may have died in the initial invasion. Like, right after the planar bridge opened, maybe Bolas flew in, setup his citadel while the Eternals started going ham, and niv-mizzet immediately flew out to fight him? Idk, just speculating, but it's clear it happened early on in the events.
The two of you aren't wrong, but you are missing the point. This is the difference between connotation and denotation. It is because of connotation that the anglo-saxon word for fecal matter is treated as profanity, while the Latin word for the same is not. In fact, you can do the same exercise for most English profanity; all of them have neutral alternatives that usually come from French or Latin. The connotation of the word "alien" in the English language is informed by the adoption of it for describing extraterrestrials in science fiction, horror fiction, and even astrobiology and similar sciences. This is why few English speakers use it to refer to fellow human beings anymore, and why its slowly being phased out of legalese in some places. How speakers of other languages use it is irrelevant. Whatever its origins, it is quickly becoming a false friend. More than half of all native English speakers will understand what I mean, and that is all that matters.
Woah, wait a second. I'm not sure if you're implying this or I'm realizing it. But if the trials existed before Bolas came and the "worthy" were being embalmed for literally thousands of years, couldn't this explain the numbers discrepancy? In other words, what if the em embalmed dead from long before Bolas' arrival were retroactively eternalized?
My suspicion is that Jace figured out a plot element that has been intentionally hidden from us the viewers. I think when Jace read Bolas' mind during the Amonkhet battle he learned more than he let on (after getting his memories back in Ixalan)
And it makes sense in-story too. The cards indicate that Bolas didn't see the significance of Nissa smashing his statue of himself, but that is presumably the moment when the guilds woke up and realized they all needed to be in this together. And then Niv-Mizzit resurrected himself, and that was that.
Do you think I am unprepared to source my claims of it being used as a pigment in historic paints? The paint today is called ultramarine. Yes there is a synthetic variant, but its traditionally made with Lazurite, the compound in Lapis Lazuli that gives it its color.
Metallic doesn't mean metal either. Silicon is a metalloid, because it has properties of both metals and non-metals. If you learned about the periodic table in highschool chemistry you know this distinction. Besides, the writers on the Mothership screw up the lore all the time, like today when they thought they had shown Niv-Mizzit's death when they totally forgot to do so. Or the many, many mistakes MaRo makes, like that time he forgot Phyrexians were originally the Thrawn. My suspicion here is that someone in the story department had this idea about what Lazotep is that wasn't established during Amonkhet block, the artists were told that its like lazurite, the artists know what that is because they have been to art school, so the artists just treated it like a cool paintjob on the Eternals. Then a bunch of people wonder why the artists aren't treating it like armor plating. As far as they knew, it wsan't meant to be. At least, that is my guess.
They use or ignore science on the basis of Rule of Cool, and really always have. Some of the races like Vedalkin and Merfolk have had... interesting art histories, to say the least. The excuse for Vedalkin having six fingers on Kaladesh and only five on Ravnica and Esper is really a post-hoc justification for the early weirdness of four armed Mirran Vedalkin, for instance. And they only created the Vedalkin because they were unreasonably self-conscious about the traditional merfolk having tails... you get the idea. The lore can be rather slapdash at times, especially when you pull back the curtain and look at how the company developed everything. Sometimes they did so with loving care, sometimes the right hand didn't even care what the left hand was doing.
I really don't think we are. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alien
Literally the first 3 commonly used definitions of the word fit this scenario. The example in your link is referencing the fact that we are using the same term for humans from another country as we would beings from another planet, but Amonkhet is actually a different planet than Ravnica. Also, the fact that, until recently, the government was even using the term 'illegal alien' to refer to other humans, further supports the first usages in the dictionary.
The connotation of how he used the word was also perfectly correct, but you have ingrained definitions of both 'alien' and 'aliens' (not the same thing, either) in your mind and ignored the context. 'An alien invasion' on its own, can describe both a foreign invasion force or ETs from outer space, depending on the context. He was referring to blue metallic zombie soldiers, some of whom are clearly not humanoid, from another plane... that's pretty alien to the denizens of Ravnica. If you just say the word 'aliens' to a random person, what pops into their head? Sure, ETs. If you say 'the soldiers were alien to this country', however, then it simply suggests weird or unknown.
I find it surprising that you are choosing this specific hill to die on.
Yea, this is what I was suggesting earlier. I don't think that every member of his Eternals is made up from JUST the trial winners of the last 60 years. Maybe the novel will go into this, maybe not, but it's a plausible explanation that doesn't break the continuity. There could be an unending number of trial winners from before he took over, plus he may be filling out the ranks with some of the 3rd/4th/5th/etc.. place finishers. The act of competing being what drove them to train harder, but maybe you didn't have to win for Bolas to want to use you. There are also the viziers and such, that never took part in the trials (I think? I don't remember if they went into how they became viziers), random demons and creatures from the plane, and lots of other possibilities. The plane had the Curse of Wandering before he showed up, it was already a big old zombie factory, so there is a potentially unlimited supply of corpses for him to draw from, if he so chose. I think he'd prefer the more elite warriors that trained to fight their whole lives, but beggars can't be choosers if he didn't have enough of them for his purposes. 50% elite warriors and 50% 'fodder' is still better than just the 50% elite warriors.
I am perfectly fine with this. Real-world mythologies, religious doctrines, oral traditions, and cultural lore feature many examples of this same kind of development. Some may accuse it of artifice, but it's actually perfectly organic: this is just one way stories evolve.
Literally exactly what I was saying.
I don't care about connotation. I can't base my language about subjective prejudice about words. I use them in a way most people can understand them, for example in the event they don't know the word: they can quickly grab a dictionary and understand what I meant, not needing them to do an academic research on social evolution of language to understand what I meant. Language is in ongoing evolution, that I admit, but sometimes it seems it's getting corrupted and edulcorated than evolving.
So we agree it can't be used to metal coat (lapislazzuli would not even produce a metallic pigment for what I can see). I know you still think it's just painted gauze, but I really think, in-lore, it's a metal plate, metal coating, with "metal" meaning "of metal", not "of metal appearance".
"Metallic mineral" explictly indicates a mineral metallic in composition. And a metalloid is not a metal. And I don't know why you put it here, because one of my points said "it's a metal because it has a metallic facies"? Well, they used the term "metallic mineral" in the end, so maybe it wasn't a STRONG reason, but they showed other hints for it being metallic and not a simple rock with some metallic characteristics. Also neither lazurite nor lapislazzuli are metallic in facies. In the end lazotep is INSPIRED by lapislazzuli, it's not just lapislazzuli WITH ANOTHER NAME. They evidently decided to make the lazotep a metallic mineral. We saw a foundry of lazotep, it's obvious that art was also directed in that way. We can't assume they made a mistake everytime their ideas are against our preconception: they did not say "lazotep is the name of lapislazzuli on Amonkhet" and then proceeded to destroy the chemical identity of the rock usually named lapislazzuli.
It is not even "ignoring science", nor an implementation of the Rule of Cool actually: there are so many of these examples in nature, the entire story of the human species is one of parallel evolution, they just represent things as they naturally occur (expept mirrans again). I don't know if those you wrote were the real reasons behind those characteristics or just guesses, but I find it cohesive and natural that, in a MULTIVERSE, somethings vary. There are bilions of universes in a multiverse, I don't expect humans, vedalken or merfolk to be identical. Now, THAT would be unrealistic.