How would the series have gone if the Vord had been handled in a different manner? Say Canea wasn't as overwhelmed, for example, or perhaps the Vord never spread at all after Doroga crushed the original Queen way back in Furies of Calderon?

How would/could you see the books progressing without as much of the dire threat? The latter of the two hypotheticals certainly seems to have far-reaching impact for everything after the first book, but the other could change the quick return to Alera into a properly drawn out campaign in Canea for quite some time.

I've just finished First Lord's Fury, and I'm itching to get some commentary and discussion active again.

EDIT: ashwuhf How did I put thread instead of threat in the title? Argh!

 

The problem with changing or removing the major threat is that it changes literally everything else that happens in the story.

Let's go with the idea that Doroga crushed the one sub-Queen, but the others still spread. The first two books largely go as they do, with the Canes in Alera still being Taken, and the surviving sub-Queen crossing the ocean.

If the Canes had an easier or at least more successful time against the Vord, then the whole reason for them invading doesn't really materialize. Ergo, Tavi remains in hiding as a simple Cursor, and never (or more slowly) rises in ranks.

Kalarus has a fine time raising his slave army down south, and the main Queen gets held to the south-west corner of Alera by the combined forces of all of Alera, (or crushes everyone at once, but that makes for a downer, so no) and the confrontation that happened at Alera Imperia instead happens in Kalare, and the Vord are defeated. Sextus stays on the Throne a while longer, and civil war erupts in the east when Aquitane makes his move, leading to a less destructive, but more intrigue-filled war than the one with the Vord.

Crassus' mother never flees, and maybe at some point, succeeds in assassinating Max.

Basically, I think the whole thing would have continued to play out, just in a more Civil War rather than a war with the Vord.

 

Which is to say: a much more interesting story.

I loved the first 3 Alera books, and there were awesome parts in the last two, but the Vord really were a very boring adversary. And the Canim never really interested me either. I was always most attracted to Alera and the society therein.

Scrap the Vord, scrap the Canim, have a ASoIaF style civil political intrigue plot inside Alera. Win.