#and i rlly liked the ides of nemsis Dimitri

[maid-of-the-golden-deer]

It's 3am but I wanna give yall a quick run down of how I think a "golden" route could happen. It branches off from GD, and this not solely from bias, but rather I think the lack of bias Claude has in regards to the others would make him the most amenable to trying to get everyone to work together peacefully. Like he even says he wants similar things to Edie but her way has too much bloodshed (which he feels the people wouldn't rally behind).

Okay so like the differences would start preskip, sort of like how you have to make a few small different choices to ensure you can go Crimson Flower. There would be several key moments where you would have to ally yourself with one of the other houses (like for example, say Edie or Dimi is getting chastised for smth and you stick up for them vs. not speaking up, just an example). The most radical change would be the battle right after the holy mausoleum. You could chose to have it play out like normal, OR if you did the aforementioned things, it basically becomes a larger scale version of the first map from Revelations, where your aim is to defeat all the boss characters before they fall to the other ai so they don't get killed. You get hurt and fall into your magic sleep like normal, and you wake up to the same scene as in VW.

What changes when you wake up is, 1) if you hadn't recruited them already, a few of the characters it'd make sense to defect from their main factions would have (like Petra, Ashe, Manuela, Hanneman, etc) have joined up, and 2) you do NOT officially ally yourself with the church, 3) the Kingdom isn't QUITE as fucked as it normally is, its still weak but its hanging on better. A lot of the same stuff happens as VW at first, but instead of going right into the Empire you detour into the Kingdom, attempting to seek aide. Dimi is still missing/presumed dead, but you do find Dedue, who tentatively allies with you, as well as any remaining BL kids you don't have.

Now you're heading into the Empire. You fight a few of the same battles. You save Rhea and she tells you the same stuff she does at the end of VW. But oh no! Edelgard is waiting for you! Before you get to duke it out, oops, the remaining Knights of Seiros (Alois, Catherine, Gilbert, Seteth, Flayn Cyril, you know the crew) show up to break Rhea out. There's a big ass fight, and at the end Rheas dies. Some ppl are sad, but still, it looks like the war is over, Edie is on her knees...AND WHAM Those Who Slither in the Dark launch their missile things and basically officially reveal themselves (cause you're all gathered so if they kill y'all no more threats to them)...and who do they have with them? A possessed/controlled/manipulated Dimitri (essentially they're attempting to set him up as another Nemesis)! Seeing as her upper hand is lost, the church is basically destroyed anyhow, and TWSITD are now the main threat, Edie agrees to work with you and Claude to stop them and save Dimitri (and the world, and she's even willing to pay for her crimes after). Obv now is when any BE kids you don't have join up.

You then go to Shambala but before you get there TWSITD sic Nemesis-zed Dimitri on you and you fight a map with him as the boss, and Claude convinces Edie to spare him, and Edie and Dimi agree to have a mediated peace discussion after they whoop the baddies butt. From there you do the last two maps of VW (with one extra thrown in so you have an extra month to get levels and supports for all your new characters lmao).

Once all that is over with, yay happy cheers, the three lords unanimously agree that byleth should lead the newly unified fodlan, with Claude going to Almyra like normal, Edie is absolved of (most) of her crimes when it comes to light what she was trying to stop (though she is forced to step down obv, but its better than death lmao), and Dimi finally gets the help he needed (he also is made to step down). The church sticks around in a diminished state like in VW, just a normal religion instead of a world power. The relics are gathered up and destroyed in a funeral pyre for the Nabateans, crests are removed for who ever wants that, the nobility system as it is is abolished, relations with other nations hardcore improves, the best of all three worlds collide, the end.

This obviously isn't 100% thought out but it feels like a reasonably plausible way for it to happen with what we know imo.