Headscratchers / The Order: 1886

• Why are the Rebels going to such extremes? Why not just protest against the United India Company or make their actions more covert instead of attacking Lord Hastings in broad daylight, reacting immediately to the presence of Knights in Whitechapel instead of letting them go about their business, allowing them to covertly move the staging area in the hospital, and bombing a zeppelin over a populated city just to get at a single man?
  • What you're forgetting is that this is Victorian Britain, and a far more authoritarian version of Victorian Britain, if the lack of any reference to the House of Commons, the fact that the Palace of Westminster is a military headquarters, the presence of the Royal army (the real-world British Army claims descent from the Parliamentarian Army of the Civil War although it isn't actually the same organisation) and the fact that the Royal Knights can overrule or bypass the civil authority are anything to go by. The Rebels' emphasis on 'Death to the Queen' doesn't make much sense if Britain's government is the one it actually had in 1886, which along with the other stuff suggests that Britain might not in fact be a democracy in this universe. Furthermore, the United India Company is close to being an arm of the government itself (and might be a post-Mutiny version of the East India Company) and Lord Hastings is implied to be Speaker to the House of Lords or an equivalent position in the Knight's first meeting. It might be that they can't protest peacefully, or tried it and were viciously suppressed. The rebels aren't just against the half-breeds, they're a group working towards democratic revolution. The half-breed stuff was the easiest way for Lakshmi to get Galahad on-side and hopefully turn the Knights against the Company.
  • The Agamemnon contained a shipment of Vampires and Lycans for America - Lord Hastings wasn't the only target there, although doing it over London itself probably wasn't the best idea.
  • As for the Whitechapel thing, the Rebels had no idea what the Knights were doing, or that Perceval and his team weren't the spearhead of a full-scale assault. Hell, Galahad and Lafayette were in the building that contained what appears to be one of Lakshmi's most important safehouses. From their perspective, there was no reason to believe that they could avoid the Knights. Plus, the Lycans were in the Hospital, so they couldn't move the cache out of the staging area - in fact, the Lycans might have been sent to get rid of the Rebels in the first place, and Lakshmi and her lieutenant know about the Half-Breeds-Company-Knights chain of connection, so it was onther factor pointing towards the idea that Hastings was trying to eliminate them.
• Furthermore, why is Galahad carrying the Idiot Ball so hard? He could have easily cut off the head of one of the vampires to use as proof of their existence to bring back to the Order, and he turns the advice of "trust no one" into "make my closest teammates think I've gone postal and team up with the Knight-Commander who seems a bit to eager to work with me".
  • This troper thinks Galahad's reaction wasn't as much of "trust no-one", since in that case, Lucan would hardly be the first to go to, but "I alone take full responsibility", i.e. same thing Malory did earlier in the game. That would make it more of a "no lessons learned from teacher's failure" kind of example instead. He mentions he can't take this to Igraine & Lafayette, meaning, drag them into this mess, unless he has solid evidence backing it up. He can afford to drag Lucan in, since his rank and standing within the order is much higher and therefore reprecussions for him would be lesser and his word leans way heavier on the council.
• Why are the Lycans so bad at fighting? I'm not just talking about their A.I. problems either, it seems like every Lycan's strategy in a fight, even in cutscenes, is to either bum rush their opponent or flail their claws like a seizure victim. Most werewolf stories get around this by having the afflicted mentally regress to the point of being an animal but these Lycans are smart enough to follow orders, form alliances with the human members of the resistance, and even talk shit at Galahad so that excuse doesn't hold water anymore. It's especially egregious with one of the elder lycans who as a high ranking knight of The Order should have taken at least one Boxing class in his many centuries of life.
• The game is set in 1886, so why did Lord Hastings casually mention being Jack the Ripper. When the Jack the Ripper killings were from 1888-1891. He is confessing to crimes that haven't even occurred yet.
  • This is an alternate reality with a divergent history, allowing all manner of small or large changes. Nikola Tesla plays a significant role in a story set in London, despite the real world Tesla having emigrated to the United States in 1884. Any number of things could be different to our history.