OOTS #1172 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

New comic is up.

Also, the new OOTS book, Book 6: Utterly Dwarfed, just went on pre-sale. More details in my signature.

[AJ the Ronin]

I just fail my moral check and I don't know what's gonna happen.

[Cicciograna]

Oh no! I'm pretty sure that Team Thundershield has a trick up their sleeve, but this is dire.

[Emanick]

Well. That’s concerning.

[hroþila]

Bwahahaha, "oh wait, I can move".

Interestingly, this strip suggests that if Hel hadn't tried to tamper with the vote, she might well have got the result she wanted. I'm sure the irony won't escape Loki.

[Wlerin]

1) It's a returning hammer.

2) If he hit it "just like yer Pa did", then the ceiling is about to collapse on them.

[Stabbey]

Yikes! Well, looks like book 6 is also gonna be the LAST book too!

I (and others) had thought of the "break the ceiling to let in the sunlight", but yeah, I figured that would be enough to stone whoever did it.

[The MunchKING]

Well I expected that about the Destruction of Public Property. Less so the vampire remembering he had three rounds to move OUT of the sunlight.

He really DOES have a Wisdom score worthy of casting Clerical spells. :smallbiggrin:

[drazen]

I just fail my moral check and I don't know what's gonna happen.

Only possibilities I see:

One, ceiling collapses via returning hammer.

Two, Durkon's entire clan rushes in and every one of them destroys the ceiling with their combined efforts.

Three, Dvalin can see in through the crack in the ceiling (loophole) and invalidates the vote.

Four, Rich wants the ultimate downer ending and the world is destroyed.

What other possibility even exists?

[comicwatcher]

I can't help thinking that this might have been part of the plan, since the hammer is expected to return. Maybe the entire ceiling will be demolished at that point.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Interestingly, this strip suggests that if Hel hadn't tried to tamper with the vote, she might well have got the result she wanted. I'm sure the irony won't escape Loki.

Yep. Ask these dwarves if they'd sacrifice for the greater good, and a non-insignificant portion of them will vote "of course" based on their cultural inertia. Even politicians.

Enough of them to be a majority? Impossible to say, of course. And it is not hard to imagine that Hel, too self-centered to really understanding dwarves, might have gone for what seem to be a surer bet.

But it does highlight that the usual votes are so insignificant that the domination didn't really concern them before now. It seems it would usually not matter that half the council was under vampire domination, if all they were doing was voting on flower arrangements for some festival or the like.

Grey Wolf

[Alias]

Well, on the upside being turned to stone drastically increases your changes of surviving a ceiling collapse.

[Myta]

There is no way that Durkon and his Ma are stupid enough to assume single hole in the ceiling would be enough to kill the vampires.
They both look like they know exactly what they are doing.

I am going for option a):
The returning hammer will collapse the ceiling, killing all vampires.

edit:
also "you know where tha hit it" clearly implies that he wants to achieve more then just a simple hole.

[Quebbster]

Looks like it's up to Sigdi to save the day.

[Teln]

That balding dwarf in the purple shirt in panel one--his hair is a bird. Just wanted to point that out.

[HandofShadows]

1) It's a returning hammer.

2) If he hit it "just like yer Pa did", then the ceiling is about to collapse on them.

That is a very good idea. And it would be great. :smallbiggrin:

[Ninja]

Well, on the upside being turned to stone drastically increases your changes of surviving a ceiling collapse.

Anyone who wants to survive the inevitable ceiling collapse should start breaking some laws.

[Relogos]

My bet is on returning hammer + collapsible ceiling OR Dispel magic from outside of the chamber as we have a nice sky window for it now. The barier prevents casting from inside of the barier if i understand the wording right.

[Garwain]

also "you know where tha hit it" clearly implies that he wants to achieve more then just a simple hole.

"Just like yer Pa did" also points in that direction. He was a sapper who found a weak spot (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0991.html) to cause a collapse.

[Kantaki]

Well, that could've gone better...:smallamused:

[Zhorn]

Something big is gonna happen... Well... bigger, given the situation.
I'm excited

[hroþila]

My bet is on returning hammer + collapsible ceiling OR Dispel magic from outside of the chamber as we have a nice sky window for it now. The barier prevents casting from inside of the barier if i understand the wording right.
Casting from the outside or some other form of external intervention would be more likely, IMO. Even if it's for the MUCH Greater Good, I can't see Durkon purposefully killing everyone in that chamber.

[danielxcutter]

Yeah, I'm going with "the Elders probably aren't that stupid, but they never expected for their votes to matter for something remotely this important" too.

And hey, even if they thought it was hypothetical at first, some dwarves would rather sacrifice their own eternal rewards if the other option was oblivion for all - that's kinda admirable, the thought itself if not it's actual repercussions in this specific case.

...I sure hope whatever Durkon has in mind, it doesn't end up killing everyone in the room. I guess that most of them are wealthy enough for their families raise them, though.

[Malphegor]

I feel bad for Durkon, he's spent so much of the past few stories immobilsed, hahaha.

On the plus side, petrification is probably easy to fix at their levels. Stone salves, turn stone to flesh, remove curse.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yep. Ask these dwarves if they'd sacrifice for the greater good, and a non-insignificant portion of them will vote "of course" based on their cultural inertia. Even politicians.

Grey Wolf

And yet when I suggested this very development some strips ago people screamed at me for being unrealistic. Seriously, folks, dwarves /= humans.

Also, I am only accepting apologies in the form of apfelkuchen.

[Myta]

"Just like yer Pa did" also points in that direction. He was a sapper who found a weak spot (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0991.html) to cause a collapse.

wow, I completely forgot about that part of the story. This is by far the clearest pointer to a collapse.

[Svata]

Dammit, we'd just gotten that cleric repaired!

[knag]

Does V know Stone to Flesh?

[Crusher]

Durkon makes a fine statue.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I feel bad for Durkon, he's spent so much of the past few stories immobilised, hahaha.

On the plus side, petrification is probably easy to fix at their levels. Stone salves, turn stone to flesh, remove curse.

Or just finish the vote.

[danielxcutter]

Does V know Stone to Flesh?

When Haley got stoned by Z, V said they didn't have that spell prepared, not that they didn't know it. So yeah, probably, and it's not a super high level spell either.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

And yet when I suggested this very development some strips ago people screamed at me for being unrealistic.

Also, I am only accepting apologies in the form of apfelkuchen.

Was I one of said people? If so, I'll be happy to provide this apple thing of yours, but I warn you: I'm not sure it'd be edible, given I have no recipe or understanding of what I'd be making, and every recipe I am googling seems to be written in some kind of undecipherable script. Or German. But I repeat myself.

Grey Wolf

[Worldsong]

Or just finish the vote.

True, this specific case of petrification comes with the clause that it only lasts as long as the meeting does.

[Myta]

I just noticed: Durkon collapsing the ancient voting place would also be a nice take on the destruction part of his prophecy.

[Doctor West]

My congratulations go out to the members of the Church of the Sudden Skylight.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I just noticed: Durkon collapsing the ancient voting place would also be a nice take on the destruction part of his prophecy.

Indeed. We can add it to the list with Odin's Meeting Hal, and the outer chamber of this place. The Historical Preservation society is going to be wanting his blood.

Grey Wolf

[Worldsong]

My congratulations go out to the members of the Church of the Sudden Skylight.

I think there'll be more than a skylight in a moment. But yes, congratulations to all ye faithful.

[Stabbey]

I feel bad for Durkon, he's spent so much of the past few stories immobilsed, hahaha.

On the plus side, petrification is probably easy to fix at their levels. Stone salves, turn stone to flesh, remove curse.

This petrification should automatically end after the meeting is adjorned (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1157.html).

[Agnostik]

Tsk, the exarch has so little appreciation for the dramatic.

[GreatWyrmGold]

But it does highlight that the usual votes are so insignificant that the domination didn't really concern them before now. It seems it would usually not matter that half the council was under vampire domination, if all they were doing was voting on flower arrangements for some festival or the like.

Grey Wolf
I doubt that flower arrangements would be important enough for their patron demigod to convene a vote, and most of their non-divine votes probably have something to do with dwarven laws or other things that matter under the earth.



...I sure hope whatever Durkon has in mind, it doesn't end up killing everyone in the room. I guess that most of them are wealthy enough for their families raise them, though.
Incredible how the ability to reverse death makes loads of people more comfortable with collateral murder.



On the plus side, petrification is probably easy to fix at their levels. Stone salves, turn stone to flesh, remove curse.
Yeah, we just need to wait a day and Durkon can prepare...crap.

[Schroeswald]

Yeah, we just need to wait a day and Durkon can prepare...crap.

If only there were more than one spell caster in the vicinity not turned to stone!

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I doubt that flower arrangements would be important enough for their patron demigod to convene a vote, and most of their non-divine votes probably have something to do with dwarven laws or other things that matter under the earth.

A discussion about who deserved an apple once sparked a war. Flower arrangements that come to a vote could most definitely affect the clans. Say, if it'd mean re-decorating temples all round the dwarven lands to match. Those 30 coppers per temple aren't going to mine themselves

Grey Wolf

[Frozenstep]

Returning hammer collapses ceiling looks likely, but another possibility is Sigdi takes out a mirror and shines that sunlight on everyone.

[Squire Doodad]

Tsk, the exarch has so little appreciation for the dramatic.

He's lucky Durkon appreciates it too- Durkon concievably could have shoved the Exarch (without attacking him), thus removing him from the area he gets protection in. Then Durkon and Sigidi could wail away at him. That said, that would take several rounds, and what's needed here is a 1-3 round solution.

So Exarch burns as the ceiling crumbles, and Durkon is stoned forever unless the meeting is formally adjourned.

[woweedd]

A. Nice to see SOME of The Council are functional. Lawful Good represent. I’m Neutral Good, but I have immense respect for the Lawful Good. Anyone who can balance TWO codes of ethics like that is impressive.

B. Two possibilities here: either the felling collapses on Gontor, or Sidgi tears that vampire limb-from-limb, possibly going down herself in the process.

[Peelee]

Was I one of said people? If so, I'll be happy to provide this apple thing of yours, but I warn you: I'm not sure it'd be edible, given I have no recipe or understanding of what I'd be making, and every recipe I am googling seems to be written in some kind of undecipherable script. Or German. But I repeat myself.

Grey Wolf

I have it on very good authority that within 20 years, everyone will be speaking German. Or a German-Chinese hybrid.

[Rogan]

If only there were more than one spell caster in the vicinity not turned to stone!

But V can't reach the room. Orange barrier, keeping the elf out.

Okay, if you got enough helper, you might be able to carry him out (and maybe the orange barrier will dispel the effect) but this is not a simple and fast solution.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I have it on very good authority that within 20 years, everyone will be speaking German. Or a German-Chinese hybrid.

That seems to be working on the same kind of sliding time frame that will give us fusion power and self-driving vehicles.

Grey Wolf

[Leftour]

We can safely assume that Durkon knew the dwarven law well and thus expected to get petrified. The returning hammer is an expected but, imo, too obvious twist, i doubt it will be enough to collapse the whole ceiling.

I am most curious about Sigdi's role. I wonder if she could,in some way, get a vote in the council. A stalemate in a vote to solve a stalemate in another vote could be hilarious.
The chance is slim, given that Sigdi's clan is far from rich and powerful but we don't know the dwarven law. A lesser clan could -for example- get a seat in the absence of a greater clan; and we know that most -not all- clan representatives are in place.

[Kashem]

Just noting that we already know that Haley and V are airborne, and could easily fire through that hole any spell that V has prepared, which could be any spell that V has.

However, this could be an interesting opportunity for something more... special effect-y. Durkon just threw an electric hammer up into the sky. If this were a movie, I would expect a huge lightning bolt to hit it right now, possibly vaporizing one or more vampires.
Second theory: Durkon hits the ceiling and collapses it, but all of the Vamps have already voted. However, the vote becomes invalid since it must take place inside the council chambers, and the council chambers no longer exist, or at least are no longer "inside".
Otherwise, maybe when/if the ceiling collapses, it won't hit any dwarves, but will destroy the vamps, which will release the domination?

Clearly Durkon's plan does not just involve killing Gontor, since he isn't in any way necessary to the actual vote anyway...

Edit: That said, the dwarf saying, "If the vampires are voting one way, that's good enough for me to vote the other way." has a solid point, but is forgetting to filibuster.

[georgie_leech]

Returning hammer collapses ceiling looks likely, but another possibility is Sigdi takes out a mirror and shines that sunlight on everyone.

Also a decent possibility. There probably isn't a law against having mirrors in the sun in the council chamber, if only because no one would ever expect that to be a thing.

[Kantaki]

But V can't reach the room. Orange barrier, keeping the elf out.

The barrier only seems to cover the entrance, not the new skylight.
V could just fly in.

[Peelee]

A couple of things to note...

I love the really muted morning sun. Is that due to them being so far north, or is this maybe some sort of Misty Mountain situation?

I also really like the idea that the elders hear the question and discuss it instead of just going yea or nay.

[brian 333]

Anticipation is killing me, but each new strip only makes it worse.

Damn, this is good storytelling! I will be sad when this arc comes to an end.

Plus, skylighters and stoners got it right. This leaves the 'Sigdi has to fix it' crowd looking good too.

[danielxcutter]

Incredible how the ability to reverse death makes loads of people more comfortable with collateral murder.

Well, it's not exactly ideal, but one of the biggest problems with murder is that in our world, it can't be reverted. It's. It's still not that great, but it's not as bad, I guess.

[2D8HP]

If the Dwarves vote for the destruction of the world despite themselves all going to Hel because of "dying without honor" in order to save the souls of other species, wouldn't that be the honorable thing and cancel out the dishonor?

[Peelee]

If the Dwarves vote for the destruction of the world despite themselves all going to Hel because of "dying without honor" in order to save the souls of other species, wouldn't that be the honorable thing and cancel out the dishonor?

For the voters, maybe. And I'm not even sure of that.

[mucat]

That was a Hel of a Knowledge (Astronomy) check on Durkon's part. To know exactly where the sun was in the sky (and how the underground chamber is oriented with respect to the surface world), and do the math on the fly to spear the ex-exarch dead-on with a ray of sunlight.

Unless, of course, that was all just dramatic coincidence, and the hammer throw was for another purpose altogether...

[GregTD]

Incredible how the ability to reverse death makes loads of people more comfortable with collateral murder.

Um, the reason why we consider murder to be so bad is because it isn't reversible.

So what would actually be interesting is if people's opinions about it didn't change when it became reversible.

Ninja'd by danielxcutter

[faustin]

I have it on very good authority that within 20 years, everyone will be speaking German. Or a German-Chinese hybrid.

Back in the 80-90, everyone used to say the same regarding Japanese.

[Tiber]

2 Possibilities about what that accomplished.
First, it created an alternate way in. I think the magic only allowing Dwarfs in was only on the door, but even if the others can't enter they could talk to those inside through the hole. Either way, it'd probably take too long. so even if everyone else knew about the hole they'd probably have to teleport. Second, since the council members already suspect vampires, they just saw a guy get burned by sunlight.

[Sky_Schemer]

It seems it would usually not matter that half the council was under vampire domination, if all they were doing was voting on flower arrangements for some festival or the like.

Which sounds innocent, until a tampered vote produces a festival decorated with corpse flowers.

[Sky_Schemer]

Interestingly, this strip suggests that if Hel hadn't tried to tamper with the vote, she might well have got the result she wanted. I'm sure the irony won't escape Loki.

Willingly choosing to sacrifice their souls for the sake of the rest of the world might make a case that they died an honorable death, and we know from previous strips that the other gods can and do dispute the disposition of souls bound to Hel.

Being dominated by a vampire and forced to vote for it eliminates that potential argument.

[ti'esar]

I just noticed: Durkon collapsing the ancient voting place would also be a nice take on the destruction part of his prophecy.

TBH, this is my main reason for endorsing any of the 'whole roof will come down' theories.

[kenlund]

Incredible how the ability to reverse death makes loads of people more comfortable with collateral murder.

Imagine if death could be reserved like in D&D. The legal punishment for killing someone would probably be the cost of the diamonds to raise the person and a prison sentence similar in duration to assault. With additional prison time added if the murder was done in a particularly cruel or painful way.

[i6uuaq]

Well, on the upside being turned to stone drastically increases your changes of surviving a ceiling collapse.

I am concerned that this is the end of Sigdi's involvement in the story.

[hroþila]

Willingly choosing to sacrifice their souls for the sake of the rest of the world might make a case that they died an honorable death, and we know from previous strips that the other gods can and do dispute the disposition of souls bound to Hel.

Being dominated by a vampire and forced to vote for it eliminates that potential argument.
Yes, but I don't think this is likely. "The antagonist is absolutely wrong about everything and there was no real conflict" would be too silly.

[Goremplotz]

Is this the Premature Villain Gloat? It is, isn't it? Please tell me that it is!

[Sky_Schemer]

Yes, but I don't think this is likely. "The antagonist is absolutely wrong about everything and there was no real conflict" would be too silly.

Huh? Not at all. This suggests that Hel's backup plan of dominating the council was necessary to ensure that, if it came down to the dwarven vote, that they wouldn't get an honorable way out.

[Pampukin]

Aww the expression in Sigdis face seeing her son be as brave as her late husband is just great.
I doubt we will see V saving the day, this is Durkons moment.

[hroþila]

Huh? Not at all. This suggests that Hel's backup plan of dominating the council was necessary to ensure that, if it came down to the dwarven vote, that they wouldn't get an honorable way out.
Even if Thor could successfully argue that it should be deemed honorable, that would only apply to the council itself, not to every other dwarf. We just saw Hel give up more souls just so she could keep focusing on the big prize. I don't think this factors into her plan, she merely wanted to ensure the vote went her way.

[Verappo]

I love this development! Kudos to those who suggested it in the forum. And of course Durkon's self-sacrificial nature would override his need for self-preservation.

Even if the place doesn't collapse or the hammer doesn't return to hit something dramatically, there is now a ray of light in the chamber which I'm sure could be used creatively by either Sigdi or the other dwarves.

I find it very compelling to see how the council reacted to the proposal. the strip does a good job of showing how weirdly out of context this seems for them, like a thought experiment that isn't going to affect everybody on the planet, because they don't have the experience with those problems that the protagonists possess. It's also interesting that the dwarven focus on honor that should save them has been written as a tool against them. Under monocle guy's theory, the most honorable thing would be for dwarves to die a dishonorable death so other people might reach their afterlives (of course this ignores the will of all the other dwarves who are not in the council, but tradition seems to suggest this would be a widespread belief).

Considering other discussions of honor in the book, this kind of makes me wish that Utterly Dwarfed (!) will end with some sort of concession that yes, honor is great and worthy of aspiration, but maybe dwarven tradition should slowly adjust to a more relaxed approach to upholding it that might make individuals more prone to accepting frivolities like a new dress every now and then, and less likely to accept the mindset that they should be ok with sending their whole people to a plane of torture out of honor (even if they think it's just a test of honor). This is just my idea of where I see the book ending though, I'd be fine for them to go on as usual regardless.

[pendell]

Wait just a minute -- if the hammer returns and collapses the ceiling, thus killing the vampires, won't it also kill the rest of the council as well. Mortal dwarves are probably less durable than vampire dwarves are.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Sky_Schemer]

Considering other discussions of honor in the book, this kind of makes me wish that Utterly Dwarfed (!) will end with some sort of concession that yes, honor is great and worthy of aspiration, but maybe dwarven tradition should slowly adjust to a more relaxed approach to upholding it.

I don't think they get a vote in this. That ship sailed when this world was created. According to Rich, you can be the best and most honorable dwarf warrior in the world, but if you choke on a chicken bone and die, you go to Hel.

They are honor-bound because their souls depend on it in a very literal way that is pretty black-and-white.

[NekoIncardine]

I don't think they get a vote in this. That ship sailed when this world was created. According to Rich, you can be the best and most honorable dwarf warrior in the world, but if you choke on a chicken bone and die, you go to Hel.

They are honor-bound because their souls depend on it in a very literal way that is pretty black-and-white.

Loki probably regrets that bet at least some of the time...

While I'm not sure what the payoff is, I'm 99.9% sure one is coming now... Especially since we have quite a few characters actively near the scene who now have an entrance not subject to those barricades. So even if the ceiling doesn't collapse...

[WolvesbaneIII]

The guys host was obsessed with stones right? I wonder if the stone ceiling being destroyed will serve as some kind of plot pay off?

Possibly not, but now V can fly in there and cast dispel on them right? Does V have that spell ability? is it one of his barred spell types? Are there any other clerics who could swoop in and cast it?

or the whole ceiling collapses and the vampires all die. Rocks fall and only the undead die.

Gontor or whatever his name is laments his hosts obsession with stones, and thus the irony, but not really because it was the host gontor and not the vampires, so its not really ironic, or is it?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Wait just a minute -- if the hammer returns and collapses the ceiling, thus killing the vampires, won't it also kill the rest of the council as well. Mortal dwarves are probably less durable than vampire dwarves are.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

What would kill the vampires would be the sunlight flooding the room. The collapsing ceiling might kill dwarves (it would not really hurt vampires at all, what with DR and regen and mist ability), but we don't know that it is a thick enough ceiling for that. Besides, if it was, Durkon would probably not rely on this as plan B, so I think it is a safe bet that it is not that thick, and that it will hurt but not kill them.

Grey Wolf

[Lheticus]

Okay, Things have Gotten Worse enough times for me to start going "how the heck are they going to get out of this already?!" Like, at this point it's like, is the OOTS world ACTUALLY going to be destroyed, then?!

[dtilque]

Well I feel vindicated. I'm one of those who pointed out that destroying Dwarven property was against Dwarven Law and that if Durkon tried it, he would be petrified. {scrubbed}

[hroþila]

Ok, how about this:

Hammer goes out
V casts Forcecage around the table through the small hole
Hammer goes back in, causing the whole roof to collapse
The vampires die due to excess vitamin D

[Sapphire Guard]

Huh? That's not enough information for the elders to make an informed decision.

If the 'stone' effect doesn't take effect until after the fact, with the stakes this high, It's highly possible for the invading dwarves to just say 'eh, to hell with it' and attack now worry about consequences later.

Durkon knows dwarven law, there's certainly a plan here.

[Cifer]

I wonder if monocle dwarf actually has it right. By making that sacrifice, the entire dwarven race would die so that the other races' souls can be saved - which in turn makes all of their deaths honorable (or at least honorable enough for someone like Loki to make that case). At least, I would assume that in a duty-bound society like the dwarves, being sent to your death by your superior also makes that death honorable.
Maybe Hel is made to realize that and hurriedly calls off the whole thing before the world ends and she gains no souls at all.

I don't think it will happen that way due to the drama requirements, but it would sure make for an interesting conclusion.

[Rogan]

I noticed some people saying, the hole would not be protected by the barriers.
While there certainly is no visible barrier in place, it feels a bit strange to have such an easy way to circumvent the protection. I mean, if a single thrown hammer could rip a hole in the ceiling, it should not take much more force to do so from the outside. Maybe dropping something heavy from an airship.

But even if it would be that simple to circumvent all the defences, I still do not think the rest of the order will take advantage of this opening, at least not very soon.
1) logistical reason: they are inside of the dwarven town, underground. The opening is to the surface. It would probably take them some time to go there (as long as they don't make another opening)
2) narrative reason: this book has a focus on Durkon and his family. I don't think the rest of the order will solve everything while he is stoned.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I wonder if monocle dwarf actually has it right. By making that sacrifice, the entire dwarven race would die so that the other races' souls can be saved - which in turn makes all of their deaths honorable (or at least honorable enough for someone like Loki to make that case).

No. The action of choosing to kill ten million dwarves to save all humans and elves might be honorable. But dying because someone else made that decision without your knowledge is not honorable in itself.

But more damming, this vote won't end the world. If they votes yes, the Dvalin would leave, vote in favour of Heimdall's proposal, and then the world would end. Most dwarves would then go to Hel, because none of them were performing an honorable action that caused their deaths at the time. Because, as we must remember, it's not living honorably, it's dying honorably that counts. "Sitting in a council room waiting for the inevitable destruction of the world" is not honorable. Best the council members could hope to do in that scenario would be to rush out and try to die before the end - possibly honorably dueling each other and as many local dwarves as they can challenge before the end.

Also: the person that probably knows best what is and isn't an honorable death is Dvalin, and we know have it straight from his mouth that the vote would send all dwarves to Hel.

Grey Wolf

[OPG]

Okay, Things have Gotten Worse enough times for me to start going "how the heck are they going to get out of this already?!" Like, at this point it's like, is the OOTS world ACTUALLY going to be destroyed, then?!

more like Ray of Misnomer

[Verappo]

I don't think they get a vote in this. That ship sailed when this world was created. According to Rich, you can be the best and most honorable dwarf warrior in the world, but if you choke on a chicken bone and die, you go to Hel.

They are honor-bound because their souls depend on it in a very literal way that is pretty black-and-white.

Oh I'm not suggesting they have a way to change the bet. Just for them to develop a sense that maybe it's ok to want things like a new dress or a relationship with someone you're not forced to marry (or a one night stand with someone who escaped such a marriage), things that don't necessarily make them dishonorable but just improve the overall quality of life. Like, you can be honorable where it matters and always be ready to fight valiantly and still go out fighting a conifer, but maybe you'll have had a nice dinner every now and then, you know:smallbiggrin:? If you choke on the chicken, at least Thor may still vouch that you fought to the last breath to spit it out.

It's natural that dwarven society developed this sense of honor and decided to apply it to every single aspect of their lives, but maybe they can gradually reduce it to 75% and still be just as honorable and Valhalla-worthy when the time comes.

Best case scenario of course would be for Hel to he hel(d) accountable for the stunt she pulled here and lose control of the bet, if only for those like poor Mildred Thickbelt who died of pneumonia cowering under the bed and had no choice. Happiness may not have anything to do with being a dwarf, but maybe it should. And it CAN, in a fantasy webcomic :smallbiggrin:!

[Anarion]

The explanation of the problem there is terrible. The gods at least know the backstory and can judge the threat. The dwarves have no sense of what’s happening or how imminent it is or anything. Even aside from the vampire problem.

[Jasdoif]

The explanation of the problem there is terrible. The gods at least know the backstory and can judge the threat. The dwarves have no sense of what’s happening or how imminent it is or anything. Even aside from the vampire problem.I imagine Dvalin's bound by the same rules not to talk about the Snarl to mortals who don't already know about it (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1137.html).

[Dion]

This hammer comes back.

[Doug Lampert]

Imagine if death could be reserved like in D&D. The legal punishment for killing someone would probably be the cost of the diamonds to raise the person and a prison sentence similar in duration to assault. With additional prison time added if the murder was done in a particularly cruel or painful way.

Note that the damages should be the full cost of a true resurrection: 25,000 GP for diamonds + 1,530 GP for spell casting. And this assumes the availability of a level 17 cleric or equivalent.

Raise dead or normal resurrection costs you 2 points of Con or a level, permanently.

This is enough that death isn't really reversible for most people as a practical matter, even if there weren't a serious shortage of level 17+ clerics doing commercial spellcasting in the OotS world.

[Resileaf]

But more damming, this vote won't end the world. If they votes yes, the Dvalin would leave, vote in favour of Heimdall's proposal, and then the world would end. Most dwarves would then go to Hel, because none of them were performing an honorable action that caused their deaths at the time. Because, as we must remember, it's not living honorably, it's dying honorably that counts. "Sitting in a council room waiting for the inevitable destruction of the world" is not honorable. Best the council members could hope to do in that scenario would be to rush out and try to die before the end - possibly honorably dueling each other and as many local dwarves as they can challenge before the end.

Not quite, Rich has stated (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?442359-Why-aren-t-95-of-dwarven-souls-going-to-Hel-anyway&p=19822713#post19822713) that a dwarven politician assassinated for their work would not go to Hel even if they didn't die in combat.

[hroþila]

The explanation of the problem there is terrible. The gods at least know the backstory and can judge the threat. The dwarves have no sense of what’s happening or how imminent it is or anything. Even aside from the vampire problem.
That's an inherent and inevitable problem with Dvalin's shtick, the simple fact of the matter is that he has a much fuller and broader understanding of the situation than the clan elders. He can't even tell them about the Snarl, after all. Plus he probably tries to avoid saying too much because he doesn't want to bias the council.

I suspect that's going to be part of the lesson regarding the dwarves as a whole: it's good to want to listen and do things by consensus, and it's good to be honourable, but you don't need to be so inflexible that it does more harm, nor so zealous that you use honour as a weapon against things you disapprove of and which need not be considered dishonourable (like Hilgya's general attitude towards tradition).

[Anansiil]

Don't the dwarves need to die honorably in battle, rather than just honorably?

I eagerly await the next strip :D

*edit
Malak (may he rest in peace) asked that question, and Durkon answered it!
So, the council might be saved but all others would likely go to Hel.
Tough break...

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Not quite, Rich has stated (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?442359-Why-aren-t-95-of-dwarven-souls-going-to-Hel-anyway&p=19822713#post19822713) that a dwarven politician assassinated for their work would not go to Hel even if they didn't die in combat.

But they aren't being assassinated for their political actions. The world is being blown up, not because they voted for it but because Himdall and Dvalin voted for it, some time after they recommended it to Dvalin. There are just too many jumps of activity and time.

Dying of exposure while delivering supplies: honorable, because they are delivering supplies. Stabbed in the back by political opponents' hired ninjas while in office due to your political activities (a la Shojo or Hinjo), honorable. Voting to tell Dvalin to end the world... as I say, might count as honorable for the council, but it very well might not, because the activity is over the moment Dvalin goes back. The council is not ongoing in their efforts to end the world.

This is mostly academical, though, because as someone else pointed out, 12 souls aren't going to make a difference either way.


Don't the dwarves need to die honorably in battle, rather than just honorably?

No, not at all. This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19823274&postcount=36) has a wonderful example of other ways to die honorably.

Grey Wolf

[gatemansgc]

My bet is on returning hammer + collapsible ceiling OR Dispel magic from outside of the chamber as we have a nice sky window for it now. The barier prevents casting from inside of the barier if i understand the wording right.

ooh that's a creative one. actually, whynotboth.jpg

[Ruck]

And then you consider that Durkon has a weapon he can throw into the ceiling and have return directly to him, without relying on that pesky gravity...

Yay!


We don't know that-- and, in fact, given how much chipping at rocks the subterranean Dwarves must have to do, I could actually believe there's no blanket ban on demolition.

Boo!


1) It's a returning hammer.

2) If he hit it "just like yer Pa did", then the ceiling is about to collapse on them.

And even if not #2, see #1. The hammer still has to come back to Durkon, and I'm guessing it's going to take the most direct route rather than courteously guide itself through the initial hole.


I just noticed: Durkon collapsing the ancient voting place would also be a nice take on the destruction part of his prophecy.


Indeed. We can add it to the list with Odin's Meeting Hal, and the outer chamber of this place. The Historical Preservation society is going to be wanting his blood.

Grey Wolf

Thankfully, the deliberative body of the Historical Preservation Society is just as bureaucratic and as to whether to take his blood will take long enough that by the time they reach a decision, Durkon will be off at Kraagor's Gate. (Assuming they don't take so long that he's already returned home by then.)


Well I feel vindicated. I'm one of those who pointed out that destroying Dwarven property was against Dwarven Law and that if Durkon tried it, he would be petrified. {scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{scrubbed}

[IntelectPaladin]

I'm sorry, but I feel it best to point out that the stone-crushing hammer is now returning to a stone Durkon.
This strip hit as hard as Mr. Burlew intended, which has me utterly mortified for the next strip. Let's try to hope for the best, but brace for the worst.

[Peelee]

I'm sorry, but I feel it best to point out that the stone-crushing hammer is now returning to a stone Durkon.

Thats, uh.... huh. Really hoping the handle is less stone-crushing than the head.:smalleek:

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'm sorry, but I feel it best to point out that the stone-crushing hammer is now returning to a stone Durkon.
This strip hit as hard as Mr. Burlew intended, which has me utterly mortified for the next strip. Let's try to hope for the best, but brace for the worst.

Meh, when you've been brought from the dead once, then a second time seconds later, it's no big deal to be brought back from the dead after being smashed by your own hammer while stoned the next morning. Sure, that's a third level he'd be losing, but that's a small price to pay to save the world.

Death is cheap, when you have access to Raise Dead clerics.

Grey Wolf

[Morquard]

The hammer was given to Durkon by Thor (well kinda). It's quite possibly a divine artifact.

I guess one of these two possibilities:
a) The hammer when it returns also removes paralyze effects, so Durkon will just keep throwing that hammer a few more times, and the vampires can't do anything about it now.
or
b) The point was not the hole in the ceiling but to get the hammer outside, under open sky. And now it summons a massive lightning bolt into the ceiling.

[Alex Warlorn]

The hammer hasn't come back down ...

[Eva]

What we really need now is a mirror.

[dtilque]

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}


{scrubbed}

[GreatWyrmGold]

If the Dwarves vote for the destruction of the world despite themselves all going to Hel because of "dying without honor" in order to save the souls of other species, wouldn't that be the honorable thing and cancel out the dishonor?
That argument could and (probably) would be made.
"Curses! My plan to take over the world has been foiled by red tape!"



Even if Thor could successfully argue that it should be deemed honorable, that would only apply to the council itself, not to every other dwarf. We just saw Hel give up more souls just so she could keep focusing on the big prize. I don't think this factors into her plan, she merely wanted to ensure the vote went her way.
Don't be ridiculous. Thor could absolutely argue that the entire dwarven race died an honorable death. Whether or not that argument would be upheld depends on who was picked for the jury.



Um, the reason why we consider murder to be so bad is because it isn't reversible.

So what would actually be interesting is if people's opinions about it didn't change when it became reversible.
The thing is, only parts of it are reversible. Being killed still (presumably) causes all the psychological trauma of attempted murder, except presumably worse because you're actually killed. Yet when resurrection is an option, people never seem to treat murder as seriously as we'd treat real attempted murder.



Note that the damages should be the full cost of a true resurrection: 25,000 GP for diamonds + 1,530 GP for spell casting. And this assumes the availability of a level 17 cleric or equivalent.

Raise dead or normal resurrection costs you 2 points of Con or a level, permanently.

This is enough that death isn't really reversible for most people as a practical matter, even if there weren't a serious shortage of level 17+ clerics doing commercial spellcasting in the OotS world.
You don't need a level 17 cleric if you have a corpse. Raise dead only takes a 9th-level cleric and 5,000 gold in diamonds, for a total of 5,450 gp. And then there's the budget option, reincarnate, which only requires a 7th-level druid and 1,000 gp in oils and stuff, for a total of 1,280 gp (with complementary return to Young Adult age category).
Sure, level/Constitution loss and possible change of race are serious, but they're hardly brick walls against resurrection if you don't have a demigod-priest and a spare diamond mine. (Most people would barely notice the mechanical loss; it would feel like catching an unusually persistent flu while in therapy for PTSD.) It all depends on what law and custom dictate.


My glass house is pretty uncomfortable this time of year. Why'd you ask?




A discussion about who deserved an apple once sparked a war. Flower arrangements that come to a vote could most definitely affect the clans. Say, if it'd mean re-decorating temples all round the dwarven lands to match. Those 30 coppers per temple aren't going to mine themselves

Grey Wolf
It sounded like you were saying something more like "What flowers should we spend that three silver per temple?"



Meh, when you've been brought from the dead once, then a second time seconds later, it's no big deal to be brought back from the dead after being smashed by your own hammer while stoned the next morning. Sure, that's a third level he'd be losing, but that's a small price to pay to save the world.

Death is cheap, when you have access to Raise Dead clerics.
You'd need resurrection to deal with being all smashed up. Also stone to flesh, FWIW.



That seems to be working on the same kind of sliding time frame that will give us fusion power and self-driving vehicles.

Grey Wolf
The estimated timeframe for self-driving vehicles is a lot less than 20 years by now. It's shrinking slower than one year per year, but still fast enough that I expect to see them on the road before too long. (Probably without recognizing they're self-driven.)
Heck, depending on where you put the cutoff between "drive itself" and "help a human drive," we might already have self-driving cars on the road. One of Uber's hit a biker because of an unfortunate alignment of programming eff-up and driver not realizing he had to do a thing.



{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
To be fair to that guy, this plotline has already relied on the presence of stupid administrative laws and loopholes. To be fair to you, none of those were quite as stupid as "Nobody wrote a law against vandalism in general".



Huh? That's not enough information for the elders to make an informed decision.
At least they're using all the information they have available, which puts them miles above [insert politician you dislike here].

[Ruck]

{scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{scrubbed}

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It sounded like you were saying something more like "What flowers should we spend that three silver per temple?"
Well, it was supposed to be a joke example of something banal that'd explain why they weren't expecting to weight in on the fate of the world and every soul in it, so I hadn't really thought that far. Really, pick your own "he made us trip to the surface for this" topic and slot it in. A difference of opinion on the most appropriate flower arrangement for a major Northern Pantheon celebration was what I had mostly in mind. How that'd affect all the clans to the point Dvalin calls for a vote is left as an exercise for the reader.


The estimated timeframe for self-driving vehicles is a lot less than 20 years by now. It's shrinking slower than one year per year, but still fast enough that I expect to see them on the road before too long. (Probably without recognizing they're self-driven.)

From your mouth to the appropriate deity or fundamental shaping force of the universe's ear. But I ain't holding my breath. That they've figured out the easy bits early and fast doesn't seem to have translated into similar breakthroughs in the harder bits, and it feels like the effort has stalled for the last year or two.

Grey Wolf

[Prowl]

C-A-L-E-N-D-A-R

and that's how you spell calendar

[137beth]

Well, that's not looking good.

I'll have to remember to preorder the book when I get home.

[KorvinStarmast]

and every recipe I am googling seems to be written in some kind of undecipherable script. Or German. But I repeat myself. When a friend of mine was learning German, he kept on saying "I'd like to buy a vowel!" :smallcool:

[Grey_Wolf_c]

When a friend of mine was learning German, he kept on saying "I'd like to buy a vowel!" :smallcool:

Strangely, that wouldn't concern me as much as their seemingly critical shortage of spaces. You'd think that they'd be taxed per word or they're keyboards are missing the long key at the bottom (together with the baffling translocation of z and y).

Grey Wolf

[Snails]

The explanation of the problem there is terrible. The gods at least know the backstory and can judge the threat. The dwarves have no sense of what’s happening or how imminent it is or anything. Even aside from the vampire problem.

That, yes.

It is a terrible statement of the problem, because it does not mention the timing -- and that timing is the critical aspect of the vote at the godsmoot. If it were a question of committing to either destroying the world now or doing absolutely nothing later if/when it is clear the Snarl is about to be released and destroy the world, it is highly likely Dvalin would not even be involved in the vote.

"If it arrives" does not explain it is not actually known yet whether the Snarl will be released in the foreseeable (by human the scale of humanoid lifetimes), and there is reason to believe it is premature to destroy the world now, albeit the risk of delaying is probably greater than zero.

As stated, it is both reasonable and hilarious that some of these elders are voting Yes.

[2xMachina]

The rest of the order may now enter the room via the hole

[t209]

Four, Rich wants the ultimate downer ending and the world is destroyed.



I think it was invalidated with an Goblin business owner in his elderly age (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0326.html).
Meaning that the world did survive.

[Hekko]

There's a line of blue runes way below the ceiling. This line seems to have zapped Durkon into stonedom so I guess it's providing the blue barrier. Just sayin'.

Also, weren't there still THREE circles of protection in place? Three rings, to be precise. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1152.html) We've only seen two.

[Kantaki]

Strangely, that wouldn't concern me as much as their seemingly critical shortage of spaces. You'd think that they'd be taxed per word or they're keyboards are missing the long key at the bottom (together with the baffling translocation of z and y).

Grey Wolf

Is that supposed to be a shot against compound words?:smallconfused:
I mean, you're putting two (or more) words together to make a new one
Of course you're writing them without spaces.
What's next? Complaints about our capitalization rules?:smallconfused:

[Rinazina]

Sometime I'm a bit too much magic-solve-everything kind of type. But...
If the hammer is an holy relic, let's imagine Thor can give some special power in special condition...
and maybe, make the hammer coming back with mass dispel charm + transmute earth to mud....:smallyuk:

I mean, Hel would complain, but that folder Loki has with him, which meaning can have beside showing her "Holy relics can be enhanced in certain conditions" ? :wink:

[understatement]

Nice twist. Awesome!

I want the Exarch to be the next Kubota by receiving an unceremonious end. Way too smug for his own good.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

There's a line of blue runes way below the ceiling. This line seems to have zapped Durkon into stonedom so I guess it's providing the blue barrier. Just sayin'.

Also, weren't there still THREE circles of protection in place? Three rings, to be precise. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1152.html) We've only seen two.

The third ring of defense is the chasm and narrow bridge outside.

Grey Wolf

[Snails]

While I will give kudos to someone who predicted destroying the ceiling would be against Dwarves Law and it would matter, I would point out that we are only holding this vote at all because there are arguable big gaps in the rationality of both Dwarven traditions and magical defenses regarding the counsel.

[KorvinStarmast]

Returning hammer collapses ceiling looks likely, but another possibility is Sigdi takes out a mirror and shines that sunlight on everyone. I am not thinking that sunlight will do anything about the domination, but it will discomfit the vampires.
I have it on very good authority that within 20 years, everyone will be speaking German. Or a German-Chinese hybrid. We who speak English already speak a German/French/Latin/Greek/whathaveyou hybrid.


That seems to be working on the same kind of sliding time frame that will give us fusion power and self-driving vehicles. I am far more interested in seeing fusion power than self driving vehicles.
There probably isn't a law against having mirrors in the sun in the council chamber, if only because no one would ever expect that to be a thing. Aye.
Imagine if death could be reserved like in D&D. The legal punishment for killing someone would probably be the cost of the diamonds to raise the person and a prison sentence similar in duration to assault. With additional prison time added if the murder was done in a particularly cruel or painful way. Or mayhem, which I think carries a higher penalty but that's just in the one country that I am familiar with.
Hammer goes out
V casts Forcecage around the table through the small hole
Hammer goes back in, causing the whole roof to collapse
The vampires die due to excess vitamin D I like it, not sure if it will work out that way.

I mean, if a single thrown hammer could rip a hole in the ceiling,
It's not a "single thrown hammer" it's a magical/artifact/legeneary weapon made by a deity.

narrative reason: this book has a focus on Durkon and his family. I don't think the rest of the order will solve everything while he is stoned. I'll offer five quataloos on a bet supporting this take.
That's an inherent and inevitable problem with Dvalin's shtick, the simple fact of the matter is that he has a much fuller and broader understanding of the situation than the clan elders. He can't even tell them about the Snarl, after all. Plus he probably tries to avoid saying too much because he doesn't want to bias the council.

I suspect that's going to be part of the lesson regarding the dwarves as a whole: it's good to want to listen and do things by consensus, and it's good to be honourable, but you don't need to be so inflexible that it does more harm, nor so zealous that you use honour as a weapon against things you disapprove of and which need not be considered dishonourable (like Hilgya's general attitude towards tradition). I like your take on that, not sure what Rich is going to do with it.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Is that supposed to be a shot against compound words?:smallconfused:
I mean, you're putting two (or more) words together to make a new one
Of course you're writing them without spaces.

Other languages manages to create the same concept while retaining the space, aiding immeasurably to reading comprehension by clearly but succinctly separating noun and adjective. For example, I find it easier to parse "food intolerance" than "Nahrungsmittelunverträglichkeit". And not because you have a weirdly long word for "food", but because in English I see two words that modify each other, and by recognizing the first, it makes it easier to figure out the second, rather than trying to hunt for where one ends and the other starts.

"It's the way we do it" is not an excuse for "this is not an easy way to do it when it comes to learning a language". It'd be like the Spanish or French saying "yes, of course verbs are an indecipherable mess of conjugations. How else are we supposed to do it?".

Grey Wolf

[littlebum2002]

Strangely, that wouldn't concern me as much as their seemingly critical shortage of spaces. You'd think that they'd be taxed per word or they're keyboards are missing the long key at the bottom (together with the baffling translocation of z and y).

Grey Wolf

They created their language to optimize the Sending spell. You can fit a whole lot more information into 25 words when you don't use spaces.

[Nazzo, the 102nd]

So, clockwise, from Dvalin's cleric:


Cobalt
Stonebrow
Irongoblet*
Steelbeard*
Whiterock*
Ironthumb*
(drooling)*
(brown low bun)*
(green hat)*
Copperpot*
Goldknee*
(bald grey beard)
(monocle)
(grey bun)
(Lord Speaker)

* = dominated

9-6. It's more than the "slighlty more than half" I imagined. :smallbiggrin:

[hroþila]

They created their language to optimize the Sending spell. You can fit a whole lot more information into 25 words when you don't use spaces.
*laughs in agglutinative*

edit: For real though, I want to sneak into a game and then abuse Sending by insisting that current linguistic analysis sees no difference between German and English compounds. Even if graphically separated, they're still a single compound word.

[Reboot]

Note that the damages should be the full cost of a true resurrection: 25,000 GP for diamonds + 1,530 GP for spell casting. And this assumes the availability of a level 17 cleric or equivalent.

Raise dead or normal resurrection costs you 2 points of Con or a level, permanently.

This is enough that death isn't really reversible for most people as a practical matter, even if there weren't a serious shortage of level 17+ clerics doing commercial spellcasting in the OotS world.

Here's the thing - if (IRL) you injure someone badly enough, with intent, that they're comatose (including medically-induced comas) for an extended period of time and require extensive rehabilitation to recover fully... you still don't get charged with murder, and even attempted murder is a lesser charge.

In the DND-style world, if you lost a level from Raise Dead/Resurrection (as opposed to the CON points for not having a level to lost), regaining the XP is basically equivalent to rehabilitation after injury. It takes time and effort, and harm has definitely been done, but it's still very certainly lesser harm than permanent murder.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

They created their language to optimize the Sending spell. You can fit a whole lot more information into 25 words when you don't use spaces.

I've often mentioned just how broken the Command spell is in Spanish, where they can chain so many modifiers behind a verb that it allows them to give the order "kill them all", to the point where the manual recommended pretending you couldn't just so the spell wouldn't be completely broken for the level it was in.

Grey Wolf

[tigerusthegreat]

I just fail my moral check and I don't know what's gonna happen.

It's a hammer of returning. Just wait....it'll come back, collapse the ceiling, and all the vampires will dust.

Noteworthy is that it returns Thor style, not with a pop of magic but with a full boomerang effect, which matters for things like a gravity assisted crumbling of the roof.

[Clistenes]

Why didn't he cast Magic Circle Against Evil? That would supress Domination without attacking anybody or breaking any law...

[JT]

What we really need now is a mirror.

Not just a mirror... a rotating disco ball!

[ibgdude]

We've all assumed that Durkon's prophecy of death and destruction was referring to the actions that the High Priest of Hel took using Durkon's body. The characters have also made this assumption.

However, it looks like Durkon himself is about to cause quite a deal of destruction, and quite possibly death as well. Could the prophecy have actually been talking about the actions Durkon's about to take?

[nmphuong91]

Why didn't he cast Magic Circle Against Evil? That would supress Domination without attacking anybody or breaking any law...
Using any spell or supernatural ability is against the law.

[Ornithologist]

Why didn't he cast Magic Circle Against Evil? That would supress Domination without attacking anybody or breaking any law...

One, the blue barrier effects all spells cast. So Durkon would still get stoned.

Two, I'm going to bet 5 Quatloos that this will be much more interesting to see.

[dtilque]

That's a cute reframing coming from someone who basically said "Someone on here, I won't say who (although I will link directly to the post and call it out by number, so it's not like I'm actually trying to avoid calling out this person), had a really stupid and improbable suggestion."

Well, it was my thought as I posted, so it wasn't a reframing. However, you're right that I should not have posted the link. My apologies.

[Peelee]

*laughs in agglutinative*

edit: For real though, I want to sneak into a game and then abuse Sending by insisting that current linguistic analysis sees no difference between German and English compounds. Even if graphically separated, they're still a single compound word.

You could argue that all you wanted, but at my table it'd end with me saying "cool, so is English or Common the language you're Sending in, because zero creatures have English in their known language lists." :smallamused:

[DavidSh]

Spells or supernatural abilities not applied to creatures are not known to be forbidden. I'm uncertain as to whether Magic Circles are applied to areas or to creatures in areas.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Here's the thing - if (IRL) you injure someone badly enough, with intent, that they're comatose (including medically-induced comas) for an extended period of time and require extensive rehabilitation to recover fully... you still don't get charged with murder, and even attempted murder is a lesser charge.

In the DND-style world, if you lost a level from Raise Dead/Resurrection (as opposed to the CON points for not having a level to lost), regaining the XP is basically equivalent to rehabilitation after injury. It takes time and effort, and harm has definitely been done, but it's still very certainly lesser harm than permanent murder.
I'd like to again point out that people were throwing around "Durkon could just accidentally the entire council and hope they get raised later" much more casually than (I hope) they would throw around "Durkon could just put the entire council into a coma," which was the phenomenon I was remarking on. Not the difference in perspective, but the magnitude of said difference.



Not just a mirror... a rotating disco ball!
There's probably a dwarven law against turning official councils into dance parties.



Spells or supernatural abilities not applied to creatures are not known to be forbidden. I'm uncertain as to whether Magic Circles are applied to areas or to creatures in areas.
I'm pretty sure that kind of thing would also be illegal, because good gods are there a lot of disruptive spells that technically don't target creatures.



Why didn't he cast Magic Circle Against Evil? That would supress Domination without attacking anybody or breaking any law...
Also, this is the dwarf who didn't think to prepare control wind for the Windy Canyon...



I am not thinking that sunlight will do anything about the domination, but it will discomfit the vampires.
They can't dominate people if they're dead. Dead again, I mean.



Not just a mirror... a rotating disco ball!
I'm not sure the sunlight would stay on the vampires for three consecutive rounds.



From your mouth to the appropriate deity or fundamental shaping force of the universe's ear. But I ain't holding my breath. That they've figured out the easy bits early and fast doesn't seem to have translated into similar breakthroughs in the harder bits, and it feels like the effort has stalled for the last year or two.

Grey Wolf
I suppose it also depends on what you define as "self-driving". To me, the cars driving around with humans at the wheel in case something happens (which are being used by a variety of businesses today) are just a smooth slope of incremental improvements from being "self-driving".
There's also the separation between "Self-driving cars exist, yay!" to "Self-driving cars are cheap and common, yippee!" The latter is going to take a lot longer.


I am far more interested in seeing fusion power than self driving vehicles.
Same, but sadly the technical hurdles for doing the awesome stuff tend to be higher than the technical hurdles for doing the kinda cool stuff.



Other languages manages to create the same concept while retaining the space, aiding immeasurably to reading comprehension by clearly but succinctly separating noun and adjective. For example, I find it easier to parse "food intolerance" than "Nahrungsmittelunverträglichkeit". And not because you have a weirdly long word for "food", but because in English I see two words that modify each other, and by recognizing the first, it makes it easier to figure out the second, rather than trying to hunt for where one ends and the other starts.

"It's the way we do it" is not an excuse for "this is not an easy way to do it when it comes to learning a language". It'd be like the Spanish or French saying "yes, of course verbs are an indecipherable mess of conjugations. How else are we supposed to do it?".

Grey Wolf
In fairness, English has its own set of grammatical oddities. Most of which come from the fact that we selectively borrow other languages' grammatical oddities for some words, but still.

[Furious J]

I have it on very good authority that within 20 years, everyone will be speaking German. Or a German-Chinese hybrid.

Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

(Identity theft is not a joke, Mod on the Silver Mountain!)

[Kalirren]

"Just like your Pa did?"

Anyone remember how Durkon's Pa died?

Durkon just removed the keystone of the dome. The sunbeam landing on the vampire is incidental.

Rocks will fall. Everybody will die. Except for possibly the third circle of protection. I don't know what that is.

Although I guess it means the new high priest is toast if the ceiling collapses immediately...

[slowplay]

That last panel. There's nobody else in the room and I said out loud, "Ohh, Durkon. Hrm." That's how you know this is a great comic. Love this story!

[littlebum2002]

Why didn't he cast Magic Circle Against Evil? That would supress Domination without attacking anybody or breaking any law...


Using any spell or supernatural ability is against the law.

I would imagine that "giving someone a gift" isn't against the law though. So he should have just brought Belkar's clasp of Protection from Evil and given it to one of the dominated clan members, who would in turn give it to the next Dominated clan member. Even if it was against the rules, I imagine you could drop it on their head before turning into stone, and then they could drop it on the head of their neighbor, etc. Having half the council be Stone would be better than having them all be Dominated.

[Cazero]

An interesting developement. Once again, Durkon found a way to save the day by standing perfectly still and doing nothing for some time.

Well, hopefuly not much time.
The way I see it, it's too late to simply dust the vampires. What Durkon needs to do is adjourning the council. Dwarves live underground, they most likely have sensible regulation about collapsing building, like "interrupt everything you're doing and evacuate". We then see the non-dominated elders leaving the room in a calm and orderly fashion, the meeting is officialy adjourned due to the risk of collapse, and Durkon is un-petrified just in time for the hammer to return in his hand.
Then he beats up the vampires properly and no one has to be crushed under a big pile of rock. Not today.

[Clistenes]

Using any spell or supernatural ability is against the law.

As the Vampires themselves have shown us, you can cast the spell outside the barrier, entering afterwards... All Durkon would need to do is to walk close to the Dominated Dwarves, freeing their wills...

[Ruck]

There's a line of blue runes way below the ceiling. This line seems to have zapped Durkon into stonedom so I guess it's providing the blue barrier. Just sayin'.

Anyone tried to decipher what those runes say yet?


I think it was invalidated with an Goblin business owner in his elderly age (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0326.html).
Meaning that the world did survive.

Also, this story will have a happy ending (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0331.html).

[D.One]

There's a line of blue runes way below the ceiling. This line seems to have zapped Durkon into stonedom so I guess it's providing the blue barrier. Just sayin'.

Also, weren't there still THREE circles of protection in place? Three rings, to be precise. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1152.html) We've only seen two.


The third ring of defense is the chasm and narrow bridge outside.

Grey Wolf

I can buy the "the first ring was the chasm" theory if it's the true, but when he talks about "its own set o...", I start to think maybe there's more to it.

Pure speculation: maybe the third ring isn't normally activated, and only gets on under a perceived outside invasion, which could be emulated with the hammer's return.


Not just a mirror... a rotating disco ball!

LOL

[Ruck]

Aside: Where's Tarquin (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0756.html) or Vaarsuvius (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0323.html) to rules-lawyer that technically, all Durkon did was throw a hammer into a high space-- any destruction thereafter was caused by an unpredictable heavy flying object?

[robbie374]

What if the council just made the rule, "For a vote to be officially counted, the voter must stand in the ray of sunlight in full view of all, explain his position at length, and raise his hand to declare his vote"?

[Hemoparty]

You can't fool me, it's a returning weapon!

...It, uhh. It will return, right? Even though Durkon's been stoned? And it'll matter when it does return, right? Yeah?

[Nazzo, the 102nd]

Anyone tried to decipher what those runes say yet?

I did, back when they first appeared in #1168.


The runes at the top of the 3rd panel say "follow the law". That's my guess.

[Mightymosy]

I think the issue with self-driving cards is that some people do NOT want them.

I am relatively sure that - as a civilization - we could, already, technically have self-driven cars if we could all agree that this was the way to go.

In other words: I am confident one could set up a traffic system with self-driven cards ONLY, but having self-driven cars drive around in a traffic system where SOME cards are deiven by idiotic humans is too difficult too set up yet.

Which brings up an interesting philosophical question:

We all know traffic accidents cause LOTS of grief each day.

Consider a world where EVERY car drives automatically, NO human steering necessary. But that requires each car to be connected to some type of internet (let's call it carnet) so that computers can calculate courses to avoid any collision and pick the best way for everyone.
So, in this world you lose the freedom to drive and steer yourself, and you have to give away your position to a central computer network, the carnet.

What weighs more? The personal freedom of the individual to steer however they like, or the right of everyone else who wants to reach their destination unharmed?

[Ruck]

What if the council just made the rule, "For a vote to be officially counted, the voter must stand in the ray of sunlight in full view of all, explain his position at length, and raise his hand to declare his vote"?
Unfortunately, too many of the Council members are currently dominated to sign off on that.


I did, back when they first appeared in #1168.
Danke.

[Dion]

I think the issue with self-driving cards is...

I’d love to have this discussion!

I think the issue with self driving cars is that human beings have an almost infinite capacity for self deception. Do you know that I’ve met actual human beings who have fooled themselves into the preposterous notion that they are good at driving?

I know. Crazy, right? They’re terrible at driving! Absolutely awful! A lump of fat in a calcified cranium trying to make sense of the world and steer around a bunch of meat to poke at wheels and pedals. How could that ever drive well? Absurd!

But there are fools that think they’re good at it!

[SlashDash]

So the majority here bets on returning hammer collapsing the ceiling? To be honest, that would be my bet.

It's a very (Marvel) Thor thing to do at least.



However, just for the heck of it, I'll toss another suggestion*

If the ceiling is open and V can cast spells through it, then she can cast something that would dispel the vampire domination. I mean s\he tell us they memorized Mind Blank, right?




* Still think it's ceiling collapsing



P.S
Isn't it a bit weird that the dwarven sacred meeting place is actually right under direct sunlight instead of deep underground?

What if the trees attack?!?

[D.One]

I’d love to have this discussion!

I think the issue with self driving cars is that human beings have an almost infinite capacity for self deception. Do you know that I’ve met actual human beings who have fooled themselves into the preposterous notion that they are good at driving?

I know. Crazy, right? They’re terrible at driving! Absolutely awful! A lump of fat in a calcified cranium trying to make sense of the world and steer around a bunch of meat to poke at steering wheels and pedals. How could that ever drive well? Absurd!

But there are fools that think they’re good at it!

I'd like to point out that those will be the ones programming the systens on the self-driven cars... :smalltongue:

[Dion]

I'd like to point out that those will be the ones programming the systens on the self-driven cars... :smalltongue:

Oh no! That’s the beauty of machine learning! We’ll have literally no idea how cars work.

[SlashDash]

One more thing, I'm still betting on some punchline to arise from the Exarch's "do whatever a vampire tells you to do" line from before

[Peelee]

Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

(Identity theft is not a joke, Mod on the Silver Mountain!)
No identity theft at all, I'm not even in the territorial army!

Danke.

Sorry, I don't understand. My German is pre-Industrial and mostly religious.

[D.One]

Oh no! That’s the beauty of machine learning! We’ll have literally no idea how cars work.

And thus all the jokes about "what would happen if our cars were controlled by operating systen X, W or I" became real...


Sorry, I don't understand. My German is pre-Industrial and mostly religious.

Almost Prussian... :smallbiggrin:

[Cazero]

Oh no! That’s the beauty of machine learning! We’ll have literally no idea how cars work.
Well, we'll know for sure a thing or two about how the engine work and what side of the road cars should roll over in normal circumstances.
We'll have no idea how car think, but since we have no idea how people do it either that can't possibly be a problem, right?

[Ruck]

Sorry, I don't understand. My German is pre-Industrial and mostly religious.

Well, shoot. I don't even have enough German that could be considered "my German."

[littlebum2002]

I think the issue with self-driving cards is that some people do NOT want them.

I am relatively sure that - as a civilization - we could, already, technically have self-driven cars if we could all agree that this was the way to go.

In other words: I am confident one could set up a traffic system with self-driven cards ONLY, but having self-driven cars drive around in a traffic system where SOME cards are deiven by idiotic humans is too difficult too set up yet.

Which brings up an interesting philosophical question:

We all know traffic accidents cause LOTS of grief each day.

Consider a world where EVERY car drives automatically, NO human steering necessary. But that requires each car to be connected to some type of internet (let's call it carnet) so that computers can calculate courses to avoid any collision and pick the best way for everyone.
So, in this world you lose the freedom to drive and steer yourself, and you have to give away your position to a central computer network, the carnet.

What weighs more? The personal freedom of the individual to steer however they like, or the right of everyone else who wants to reach their destination unharmed?

We've already had this discussion. Plenty of people HATED wearing seatbelts when they first came out. In fact, unless she was driving, my grandmother always sat in the back seat where she did not have to wear one. So did we cater to these people, and let them drive however they wanted? No, we said that safety is #1 priority and made them wear a seatbelt.

The same will go with self driving systems. Once they are reliably safer than the average driver, it will be a very short time before they are mandated for all new cars.

When I told this to my stepdad, he was very turned off by the idea, and said that a hacker could take over all the cars and kill everyone. I told him you'll almost certainly be safer on a highway with a bunch of people in hacked cars (as long as those cars still have an emergency brake pedal, which they should) than on a highway next to a drunk or tired driver.

[Caerulea]

Which brings up an interesting philosophical question:
Not really. Which is more important, your and other's right to be alive or your right to make mistakes and harm others?
That said, it will be a while before human-driven cars are illegal on roads. But I think it will only be a year or two before we see completely self driving cars on the road.
Additionally, carnet is not absolutely necessary. It would make route planning more efficient, but you could have self driving cars that operate like human drivers, and only consider the cars nearby. They could communicate, but your position wouldn't be stored in some AWS datacenter somewhere.

Oh no! That’s the beauty of machine learning! We’ll have literally no idea how cars work.
But we know it works because math. Unless the human screwed up (again). Also, maybe we know what it is going to do? (https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2019/06/testifying-at-the-senate-about-a-i-selected-content-on-the-internet/) (Wolfram's proposal is really interesting. The applicable part is the bit about computation contracts to specify what the AI could do.)

[Dion]

If the ceiling is open and V can cast spells through it...

This is an intriguing idea, but I can’t tell if an opening was created directly between the outer chamber and the inner chamber.

It seems possible that V is still completely underground, without direct access to the new hole between the inner chamber and the sky.

[Hopeless]

I wondered if Thor or Balder pops down with Mjolnir in hand.
Balder to ask who threw the hammer at him or Thor using this opportunity to manifest and really offend both Hel & Loki in the process?

[ManuelSacha]

That balding dwarf in the purple shirt in panel one--his hair is a bird. Just wanted to point that out.

Then somebody's argument must be invalid. :smallcool:

[Mightymosy]

I actually don't think you even NEED that much machine learning to have working self-driven cars - at least in the scenario that ALL cars are computer-controlled.



We've already had this discussion. Plenty of people HATED wearing seatbelts when they first came out. In fact, unless she was driving, my grandmother always sat in the back seat where she did not have to wear one. So did we cater to these people, and let them drive however they wanted? No, we said that safety is #1 priority and made them wear a seatbelt.

The same will go with self driving systems. Once they are reliably safer than the average driver, it will be a very short time before they are mandated for all new cars.

When I told this to my stepdad, he was very turned off by the idea, and said that a hacker could take over all the cars and kill everyone. I told him you'll almost certainly be safer on a highway with a bunch of people in hacked cars (as long as those cars still have an emergency brake pedal, which they should) than on a highway next to a drunk or tired driver.

I'd go out on a limb here and say that I think computer driven cars would already be safer in my scenario.

City A: only human controlled cars.
City B: only computer controlled cars (setup done with technology available today, with highest standards in mind, and with people who want to do a good job).

Which city do you think would be safer?

[Dion]

Balder to ask who threw the hammer at him

And the hammer is mistletoe! Or does it hit him in the heel? I get those confused.

[Tuhlore]

Assuming that the no take backs rule apply here too, then vamps have voted yes 4 times (assuming domination release doesn't allow a revote) and 2 non-dominated members voted no.
By my count there are 15 members, though I'm not sure if the High Priest gets a vote.
I'm still unsure if not voting can stall the process l, or if it's just until a majority is reached (i.e. "it doesn't matter, there's more of them than us!").
Assuming it's until a majority, they only need 4 more votes and it doesn't matter.
At least these idiots have some remorse for what they've done though.

[Rrmcklin]

I'm kind of confused why some of you are talking about respecting the council members being willing to sacrifice themselves, when it was clear at first they didn't actually think the situation was real and were merely speaking hypothetically or were being tested. They were talking about it in the same way people talk about those hypothetical "there are two hanging tram cars, and the people have to decide whether to make the other one fall, or both drop" or "there's a fire and you can either save one sibling, or five strangers" scenarios.

That's not even to say that some of them wouldn't still vote "yes" with full comprehension of the situation, but that's not the situation as highlighted by this strip. There's a very big distinction between pondering a cultural ideal, and actually living up to it when you and everyone you know is in danger.

[Jasdoif]

I actually don't think you even NEED that much machine learning to have working self-driven cars - at least in the scenario that ALL cars are computer-controlled.I somehow doubt deer, or the occasional not-as-supervised-as-we-would-like child, walking across the street are going to conform to expectations...and collision avoidance may as well be able to handle other vehicles, self-driven or not, while it's at it.

What you're talking about sounds more like light rail.

[CrispyCriminal]

Interesting, I wouldn't be surprised if structural integrity of the sanctum being damaged would null the vote if all respected parties are in danger as a result.

That or spells being casted outside the dome will stick if there is no barrier to stop them.

[Dion]

That looks like a small hole. It’s probably too small for V to fit through.

But do you know who would fit through that hole? A sexy shoeless god of war.

[Fish]

Hackers? Bah.

The part that worries me about self-driving cars is that sooner or later, some bright spark will realize that a car is now a cage for a captive audience that can be delivered to whatever destination a bunch of advertisers wish it to be. You get in the car and sit around watching ads on a screen. You say, “Take me to Pizza Stockade.” It replies, “If you want pizza, let’s go to Pizza Fortress!” and you don’t have a way to override the controls. And you’ll sign a User Agreement when you buy the car (or rent the autocab) that signs away your rights to decide where you’re going.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Which city do you think would be safer?
Safety is not the only consideration. After all, cars without engines or wheels are far more safe than any car AI or human driven. But the thing is that the system also needs to work, and at current, no AI system has been built capable of dealing with city traffic.


a hacker could take over all the cars and kill everyone
I never will understand how this scenario is even possible (and it is quite possible, and has been done with individual cars on the road right now). Why the heck do cars allow remote instructions while operating? Or indeed, any kind of outside instruction that doesn't need to be confirmed by someone in the vehicle prior to applying? The whole scenario is not unlike xkcd's antivirus in a voting machine (https://xkcd.com/463/) adage.


I somehow doubt deer, or the occasional not-as-supervised-as-we-would-like child, walking across the street are going to conform to expectations...and collision avoidance may as well be able to handle other vehicles, self-driven or not, while it's at it.

There is a story about google's AI slowing down in a forest and the engineer inside it thinking it was a bug... because it couldn't see the deer that the car had detected and was slowing down to make sure it wouldn't hit it until they were right next to it. By that measure, AI cars are far less likely to hit a deer or indeed a child, because it's not going to make assumptions like thinking "nah, they won't run into the road, I can keep going 60 kph".

Grey Wolf

[happycrow]

Well done, Cleric, and many happy returns.

[Peelee]

And you’ll sign a User Agreement when you buy the car (or rent the autocab) that signs away you’re rights to decide where you’re going.

That already exists as a concept. It's called "kidnapping." I highly doubt anyone would be dumb enough to implicate themselves by putting their intent to kidnap in writing before the fact. But hey, I'm always willing to be surprised.

[dtilque]

Just curious. Why is there a discussion about self-driving cars in this thread?

[Peelee]

Just curious. Why is there a discussion about self-driving cars in this thread?

Humans steered it in that direction.

[diremage]

Because Durkon's got a self-driving hammer.

He forgot to yell, "Stop! Hammer time," though.

Also, if I was the DM and the player decided to use German to bypass the 25-word limit of Sending I'd just start charging by the syllable. Because even if you're a tinker gnome andcanfitfivehundredlettersperwordthelawsofreality arenotamused.

[Kantaki]

Humans steered it in that direction.

Clearly we need self-driving threads.:smallbiggrin:

[Riftwolf]

What if the hammer returns and shatters Durkon!?

Clearly we need self-driving threads.:smallbiggrin:

I just assume most posts in this forum are on autopilot and everyone's just testing to see if their chatbot can learn morality.

[Nazzo, the 102nd]

I'm sure people wheel start discussing the comic again soon.

[Kantaki]

What if the hammer returns and shatters Durkon!?

His mom can start a zen-garden?

[KorvinStarmast]

Sorry, I don't understand. My German is pre-Industrial and mostly religious. I am guessing that you sing in the choir or in a glee club. Close? My German, what I have left of it, is/was Hoch Deutsch. Fading faster than Cat Stevens' blue jeans, though ...

What you're talking about sounds more like light rail. LIght rail would and will be cheaper, where it is implemented. (I was recently in Vancouver BC who have a decent light rail set up ...)
But do you know who would fit through that hole? A sexy shoeless god of war. But he's still busy with a big blue worm.

The part that worries me about self-driving cars is that sooner or later, some bright spark will realize that a car is now a cage for a captive audience that can be delivered to whatever destination a bunch of advertisers wish it to be. You get in the car and sit around watching ads on a screen. You say, “Take me to Pizza Stockade.” It replies, “If you want pizza, let’s go to Pizza Fortress!” and you don’t have a way to override the controls. And you’ll sign a User Agreement when you buy the car (or rent the autocab) that signs away you’re rights to decide where you’re going. Yep, the EULA ... true evil incarnate. :smallbiggrin:
Well done, Cleric, and many happy returns. You nailed that pun. :smallcool:

[JT]

I think it was invalidated with an Goblin business owner in his elderly age (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0326.html).
Meaning that the world did survive.

The Gods agree to recreate the universe just as it was, minus the rifts (which will still eventually form, of course). :)

[jokem]

I feel bad for Durkon, he's spent so much of the past few stories immobilsed, hahaha.

On the plus side, petrification is probably easy to fix at their levels. Stone salves, turn stone to flesh, remove curse.

I think it would require Break Enchantment instead of Remove Curse. Minor niggle...

[Peelee]

I am guessing that you sing in the choir or in a glee club. Close?

Apologies to Marx for butchering his joke here, but I would never want to be part of a choir or glee club that would have me as a member. I'm largely quoting The Office (US) here, mostly Dwight. I did make a The Office (UK) reference with the territorial army, to Dwight's British counterpart Gareth.

[KorvinStarmast]

Apologies to Marx for butchering his joke here, but I would never want to be part of a choir or glee club that would have me as a member. I'm largely quoting The Office (US) here, mostly Dwight. I did make a The Office (UK) reference with the territorial army, to Dwight's British counterpart Gareth. Ah. With the two pointers being (I had thought) 18th - early 19th century (pre industrial) and religious, my mind went to Oratorios in the classical and baroque periods. I was raised on classical music, and while I sang for a while that talent plateaued sometime in high school and has since degraded thanks to smoking for too many years.

[Schroeswald]

What if the hammer returns and shatters Durkon!?


I just assume most posts in this forum are on autopilot and everyone's just testing to see if their chatbot can learn morality.

Clearly that is not working.

[Cazero]

I just assume most posts in this forum are on autopilot and everyone's just testing to see if their chatbot can learn morality.I'll settle for getting my Turing driving license.

[DavidSh]

Assuming that the no take backs rule apply here too, then vamps have voted yes 4 times (assuming domination release doesn't allow a revote) and 2 non-dominated members voted no.
By my count there are 15 members, though I'm not sure if the High Priest gets a vote.
I'm still unsure if not voting can stall the process l, or if it's just until a majority is reached (i.e. "it doesn't matter, there's more of them than us!").
Assuming it's until a majority, they only need 4 more votes and it doesn't matter.
At least these idiots have some remorse for what they've done though.
There's no particular reason for the Godsmoot "no take back" rule to apply in a Dwarven council of clans meeting. For a more normal vote that didn't immediately lead to the destruction of the world, I would think every member would want to have his/her vote recorded. If they are going to allow votes called out before the discussion is closed, it only makes sense for the chair to ask for confirmation after all votes are in, in case somebody is convinced to change his/her mind. I suppose there would need to be some kind of time limit so that a member can't block the vote.

(This isn't forbidden politics, is it? My experience in such procedure comes from various clubs, not from government.)

[Kantaki]

Clearly that is not working.

Well duh.
How are A.I. supposed to learn about morality if that's a forbidden topic?:smalltongue:

[CriticalFailure]

dare we hope that Durkon also has some ranks in Knowledge (Engineering)

[nmphuong91]

As the Vampires themselves have shown us, you can cast the spell outside the barrier, entering afterwards... All Durkon would need to do is to walk close to the Dominated Dwarves, freeing their wills...
1. Durkon is not known for his rule-lawyering ability. Given the time-sensitive nature of the event(don't have time to heal someone else), he doesn't have enough time to think about it and doesn't want to risk being late to the party.
2. The exact wording the Exarch said is "...explicitly forbid attacking or using any spell or supernatural on any creature...". The key word is "using", not "casting". That is, doesn't matter who/what/where you cast the spell on, if any creature inside the chamber is affected by said spell, you will be punished. I'd say that you can cast Magic Circle on yourself, walk in (just like the Dominated folk). But the moment your Circle start touching someone else, you are out. Probably you guy are not the first one who think about "I bring an explosive rune/symbol of x inside the chamber" kind of spell.

Even if that weren't the case, Durkon wouldn't want to test the theory. He only got one chance to make this work, and no DM to ask whether his interpretation of the rule is right (or the DM doesn't want him to metagaming, consider that this is in-universe rule).

[Rogar Demonblud]

poor Mildred Thickbelt who died of pneumonia
And she only got to that point because not a single dwarf cleric or paladin thought "Screw it, we'll set up a payment plan after I cure disease".

I told him you'll almost certainly be safer on a highway with a bunch of people in hacked cars (as long as those cars still have an emergency brake pedal, which they should) than on a highway next to a drunk or tired driver.

Or more likely, a texter. I watched a cop jump the curb today because he was too busy with his Personal Distraction Device.

[Caerulea]

What if the hammer returns and shatters Durkon!?


I just assume most posts in this forum are on autopilot and everyone's just testing to see if their chatbot can learn morality.
Note: This account operated by a GPT-2 (https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/) based chatbot, version 2.71828.

[DavidSh]

Now I wonder, if all of the clan chiefs violate the law and are turned to stone, is the meeting automatically adjourned for lack of a quorum?

[Jay R]

My guess is that the hammer returns, and the roof collapses. People have time to dodge, and survive, but the room floods with sunlight. No vampires, no domination, and the ones who haven't voted yet vote to save the world.

End of council, and Durkon turns back to flesh.

[Not really. While I believe that this is the most "likely" result, the most likely result rarely happens in this strip. Rich has surprised me before, and I suspect that he is going to surprise me again, with a result that looks very reasonable after the fact, but which we didn't see coming.]

[Doug Lampert]

I just assume most posts in this forum are on autopilot and everyone's just testing to see if their chatbot can learn morality.

Nah, we have the destination of the self-driving threads set to Star Wars here. We're trying to get a chatbot that can write a better script than the Prequel movies.

[Wraithfighter]

I'm guessing this has already been brought up... but in a story full of rules-lawyering already, including by Lawful types like Thor and Durkon, couldn't Dvalin just say "Uh, I can plainly see that all of the people voting 'Yes' are dominated by vampires, which means that they are not voting, the vampires are voting, who do not have standing here to cast a vote"?

It'd make for a less entertaining story, I guess, but its been this giant issue with the subject for a while now. It's like signing a contract with a gun to your head: The contract is null and void, because it was done under duress, and this is like a hundred miles past duress...

[Fish]

The contract is null and void, because it was done under duress, and this is like a hundred miles past duress...
Durkon: Says here, “If any party is found not t’ be in ‘is right mind, th’ entire contract is automatically nullified.”

Vampire: I don’t know about that.

Durkon: Tha’ is in ev’ry contract. It’s known as a Sanity Clause.

Vampire: You can’t fool me, there ain’t no Sanity Clause.

[MartianInvader]

Durkon: Says here, “If any party is found not t’ be in ‘is right mind, th’ entire contract is automatically nullified.”

Vampire: I don’t know about that.

Durkon: Tha’ is in ev’ry contract. It’s known as a Sanity Clause.

Vampire: You can’t fool me, there ain’t no Sanity Clause.
Durkon once learned saxophone, not opera.

[Fish]

He’s a dwarf. Could’ve been a rock opera.

Besides, are you tellin’ me that “Durkon Thundershield” isn’t a Groucho Marx name?

[selyan]

I was kind of hoping that Durkon will try to change the main proposal to something like: "Should vampirism be illegal by dwarven law?" instead. Oh well :smallsmile:

[Iruka]

My faith has been rewarded. :smallbiggrin:

All hail Peelee!

[Peelee]

All hail Peelee!

I could get used to posts like this.:smallwink:

[Squire Doodad]

I could get used to posts like this.:smallwink:

Pelee be sleeted!

That close enough? :smallbiggrin:

[Rogar Demonblud]

I'm guessing this has already been brought up... but in a story full of rules-lawyering already, including by Lawful types like Thor and Durkon, couldn't Dvalin just say "Uh, I can plainly see that all of the people voting 'Yes' are dominated by vampires, which means that they are not voting, the vampires are voting, who do not have standing here to cast a vote"?

It'd make for a less entertaining story, I guess, but its been this giant issue with the subject for a while now. It's like signing a contract with a gun to your head: The contract is null and void, because it was done under duress, and this is like a hundred miles past duress...

The odds of this being resolved by anyone but the Order is minimal.

[Dion]

How book ends:

Durkon is smashed by his own hammer.

Sigdi flies into a barbarian rage and kills all the vampires. Sigdi doesn’t turn to stone because vampires aren't living creatures.

Minrah joins the order.

Book ends with funeral for durkon’s dust.

The end.

[schmunzel]

That was a Hel of a Knowledge (Astronomy) check on Durkon's part. To know exactly where the sun was in the sky (and how the underground chamber is oriented with respect to the surface world), and do the math on the fly to spear the ex-exarch dead-on with a ray of sunlight.

Unless, of course, that was all just dramatic coincidence, and the hammer throw was for another purpose altogether...

Mechane - here she comes :P

sch

[Dion]

Mechane - here she comes

Deus ex Mechane, eh?

[sillymel]

Note: This account operated by a GPT-2 (https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/) based chatbot, version 2.71828.
Nice job using e instead of the more common pi.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Oh no! That’s the beauty of machine learning! We’ll have literally no idea how cars work.
We'll have a better idea of how the cars work than how our brains work.



Well, we'll know for sure a thing or two about how the engine work and what side of the road cars should roll over in normal circumstances.
We'll have no idea how car think, but since we have no idea how people do it either that can't possibly be a problem, right?
At the end of the day, we'll handle both systems the same way; you get taught, if you do well enough you can keep driving, otherwise we kick you off the road. The big difference is that we can copy a self-driving program that works well to millions of different cars, whereas legal and ethical restrictions prevent us from copying the mind of a good driver into everyone who drives a car. (Also, the self-driving cars risk existential annihilation for failure where humans would only get a fine.)



Also, maybe we know what it is going to do? (https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2019/06/testifying-at-the-senate-about-a-i-selected-content-on-the-internet/) (Wolfram's proposal is really interesting. The applicable part is the bit about computation contracts to specify what the AI could do.)
Cool on several levels. Thanks for sharing the link!



I actually don't think you even NEED that much machine learning to have working self-driven cars - at least in the scenario that ALL cars are computer-controlled.
Assuming all pedestrians, bikers, and passing wildlife are also computer-controlled? Sure. Otherwise, making self-driving cars isn't meaningfully simpler than if some cars are still human-driven.



Hackers? Bah.

The part that worries me about self-driving cars is that sooner or later, some bright spark will realize that a car is now a cage for a captive audience that can be delivered to whatever destination a bunch of advertisers wish it to be. You get in the car and sit around watching ads on a screen. You say, “Take me to Pizza Stockade.” It replies, “If you want pizza, let’s go to Pizza Fortress!” and you don’t have a way to override the controls. And you’ll sign a User Agreement when you buy the car (or rent the autocab) that signs away your rights to decide where you’re going.
The only time people have agreed to things like that have been A. when nothing obviously tangible was on the line and B. when some service was being offered in return (e.g, watching an ad that consumes nothing but time and phone charge before you can play a game). I can't think of any way to make that sort of business model work when the end user has to literally surrender their right to decide where they get to go. Especially since Pizza Fortress is unlikely to get enough unwilling customers to balance out the horrible backlash they'd get for kidnapping said customers.



That already exists as a concept. It's called "kidnapping." I highly doubt anyone would be dumb enough to implicate themselves by putting their intent to kidnap in writing before the fact. But hey, I'm always willing to be surprised.
And also in computer code, which is in some ways far more damning than asking people to sign over their right to be kidnapped. One just says "I might kidnap you when I feel like it," the other explicitly says "I will kidnap anyone who meets these conditions".



I would imagine that "giving someone a gift" isn't against the law though. So he should have just brought Belkar's clasp of Protection from Evil and given it to one of the dominated clan members, who would in turn give it to the next Dominated clan member. Even if it was against the rules, I imagine you could drop it on their head before turning into stone, and then they could drop it on the head of their neighbor, etc. Having half the council be Stone would be better than having them all be Dominated.
Durkon Elan: "Here, councilman who's been dominated by a vampire! Please, accept this gift of a clasp which absolutely isn't enchanted with anything!"
Gontor: "...No."



What if the council just made the rule, "For a vote to be officially counted, the voter must stand in the ray of sunlight in full view of all, explain his position at length, and raise his hand to declare his vote"?
Gontor isn't casting a vote, he doesn't need to stand in the sun. As far as we know, only vampires themselves are hurt by sunlight.



I'm guessing this has already been brought up... but in a story full of rules-lawyering already, including by Lawful types like Thor and Durkon, couldn't Dvalin just say "Uh, I can plainly see that all of the people voting 'Yes' are dominated by vampires, which means that they are not voting, the vampires are voting, who do not have standing here to cast a vote"?
It's not entirely clear how Dvalin's oath to the dwarves went, but it seems that it doesn't require him to actually pay more attention to the proceedings than the clan heads and their families do. And given that this entire arc has painted dwarven honor as being sillily restrictive, it's quite possible that he forgot to write himself an "In case of obvious stupidity" clause into the oath.



I'm kind of confused why some of you are talking about respecting the council members being willing to sacrifice themselves, when it was clear at first they didn't actually think the situation was real and were merely speaking hypothetically or were being tested.
Because some people take things people say when they "know" they're being tested more seriously than they should.



I just assume most posts in this forum are on autopilot and everyone's just testing to see if their chatbot can learn morality.
I am on the GitP website so you are a robot.



dare we hope that Durkon also has some ranks in Knowledge (Engineering)
Clerics don't get enough skill points to tie their own shoelaces, and while Durkon has a higher Intelligence than Elan or Belkar, it doesn't seem exceptional.
But he still has some skill points. If he doesn't spend them on Knowledge (religion) or Spot, what does he spend them on? Could be cross-class ranks in (Architecture & Engineering).



And she only got to that point because not a single dwarf cleric or paladin thought "Screw it, we'll set up a payment plan after I cure disease".
I assume that most churches have doctrine forbidding their clergy from forming HMOs.



Nah, we have the destination of the self-driving threads set to Star Wars here. We're trying to get a chatbot that can write a better script than the Prequel movies.
So far, all we've gotten are ones that bitch about the sequels.

[Sloanzilla]

"You know where to hit it lad, just like yer pa did."

Heh, good innuendo.

[antipodeF]

"If there is only one choice - to accept, or to be imprisoned, until you accept - is it truly a choice at all?"

I heard this puzzle somewhere else recently. It seems startlingly relevant here.

The non-dominated elders have realized that the dominated outnumber them, AND they've realized that the vote is very likely going to result in the end of the world, if it resolves.

They can't easily overturn the vote, but they could stall for time. Perhaps if they were very determined, they could sit and refuse to take any action for days or weeks. However long it would take to starve or dehydrate.

And if they don't have the guts to take that kind of stand, Sigdi is there. She might have something inspiring to say, to get them to stall for the good of the world. And that might well be the difference, to give the adventurers and warriors time to figure something out.

(this probably won't happen, but if it does, I want it on record that I called it. : P)

[Peelee]

Pelee be sleeted!

That close enough? :smallbiggrin:


Pelee

*eye twitch*

[Ironsmith]

Well, on the upside being turned to stone drastically increases your changes of surviving a ceiling collapse.

I'm not too sure about that. Sure, you're less likely to die of internal injuries that way, but being pounded into dust can't be good for your "survival" as a statue. Plus, a buried dwarf could probably still call for help when the search and rescue teams start coming around; a statue might never be found (and presumed dead), which is probably as bad as dying, if not worse. Also, in Durkon's case in particular, the odds don't look so good; he threw a returning hammer, which has just been shown to be capable of penetrating several feet of rock, and it's going to be coming straight back to him.

In regards to the council's response, though, I don't think a "yes" response has such an optimistic outcome. Granted, the elders are willing to risk their own eternal rewards for the greater good, which is honorable, but none of the dwarves in their domain are able to make that same choice; if there were more time and it were a popular vote of the entire dwarven population, it'd look better for them, but as it stands most of them would die dishonorably.

[b_jonas]

Do you suppose Thor could get a precision lightning strike (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0352.html) through that hole? And would Dwalin be very angry at him if he killed the high priest to delay this vote? (Update: I see Kashem suggested this too (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24058663).)

[Kantaki]

Do you suppose Thor could get a precision lightning strike (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0352.html) through that hole? And would Dwalin be very angry at him if he killed the high priest to delay this vote?

He might be a bit annoyed, yeah.
Fortunately for Thor Dwalin's High Priest is currently at the Godsmoot, far away from the Council of Clans.
Whether Dwalin cares about some random priest is a different question.

[Fish]

The trouble is, I can easily see a scenario where people would sign away their rights to steering the car or choosing their course — insurance liability. The auto manufacturers might decide to accept liability for accidents caused by their magic autocars if and only if the passengers agree not to interfere with its course.

And if Pizza Fortress has a advertising contract with the autocar company, they might pay $X for a simple ad, but $3X for every passenger delivered, which incentivizes the car company to err on the side of delivering passengers to whoever is paying.

When you put control of your car into the hands of people who brought you personality quizzes that conduct mass identity scraping while asking Which Potato Are You?, you can bet they’ll think of ways to monetize the vehicle that you supposedly own.

[Squire Doodad]

I was kind of hoping that Durkon will try to change the main proposal to something like: "Should vampirism be illegal by dwarven law?" instead. Oh well :smallsmile:

No, they had a ruling about that a few generations back. Was denied on account of marginalizing and discriminating against the minority of vampires in the land, as well as coincidentally all of the tick farmers. It was also the time that being Dominated was deemed acceptable for clan business, on account of the head of each clan being dominated into doing so an attempt to allow a greater audience to have a voice of their own regardless of their state of being magically influenced.


*eye twitch*

Hm, guess it wasn't.


Also, in Durkon's case in particular, the odds don't look so good; he threw a returning hammer, which has just been shown to be capable of penetrating several feet of rock, and it's going to be coming straight back to him.

Oh. Divine guided hammer lasers minimizing collateral damage vis a vis self-inflicted wounds?

[Schroeswald]

Nah, we have the destination of the self-driving threads set to Star Wars here. We're trying to get a chatbot that can write a better script than the Prequel movies.

My chatbot is on both, whatever it finds easier it'll steer to. Also, your only aiming for the Prequel movies? At least tell me your trying for Revenge of the Sith. Mines aimed at The Force Awakens but its almost good enough to reach Solo.

[Squire Doodad]

My chatbot is on both, whatever it finds easier it'll steer to. Also, your only aiming for the Prequel movies? At least tell me your trying for Revenge of the Sith. Mines aimed at The Force Awakens but its almost good enough to reach Solo.

I made one meant to make Rogue One still a solid movie, but less bleak and depressing. It wasn't running well, so I made a second one. Then the two started arguing about whether or not the ones who actually sent the plans were supposed to have never been seen again, and got nothing done.


The trouble is, I can easily see a scenario where people would sign away their rights to steering the car or choosing their course — insurance liability. The auto manufacturers might decide to accept liability for accidents caused by their magic autocars if and only if the passengers agree not to interfere with its course.

That's one of the nastiest ways I've heard to punish someone for trying to save their own life. If the car gets totaled because the passenger switched to manual to make the accident go from "4 cars colliding, holds up interstate and kills 3" to "not strictly speaking impossible to survive, one car veers off and hits the side of the road", and then because the passenger switched to manual to avoid a bigger crash they have to pay for it? That is downright diabolical. It might not necessarily be the permutation you were looking for, but its in the same vein and one of its unfortunate conclusions without relevant laws saying that in the event of a life-threatening situation the passenger is not at fault/cannot be penalized for side effects pertaining to switching to a manual mode.

To clarify, this is continuing the hypothetical scenario that's being discussed and in no way referring to any real life political situation.
Actually, I might use this as a way to setup a slightly futuristic, probably mildly dystopic (more "suckier version" than outright dystopia) setting (party is together because they have to settle a bill and have to do a heist or something to actually get enough money to secure their opportunity to make it to court/to pay the fine, maybe add in later espionage bits).

[The Aboleth]

But they aren't being assassinated for their political actions. The world is being blown up, not because they voted for it but because Himdall and Dvalin voted for it, some time after they recommended it to Dvalin. There are just too many jumps of activity and time.

Dying of exposure while delivering supplies: honorable, because they are delivering supplies. Stabbed in the back by political opponents' hired ninjas while in office due to your political activities (a la Shojo or Hinjo), honorable. Voting to tell Dvalin to end the world... as I say, might count as honorable for the council, but it very well might not, because the activity is over the moment Dvalin goes back. The council is not ongoing in their efforts to end the world.

Grey Wolf

Yeah, I always figured that the reason behind the death is what made it "honorable" or not.

A politician assassinated because of his political beliefs and/or actions while in office? Honorable death even if they're killed in their sleep because the reason for their death is tied up in their political works.

Death due to extreme cold while carrying desperately needed supplies to a town through a blizzard? Honorable, because the reason for their death(s) is tied up in the act of delivering the supplies.

Death via combat is simply the easiest (and therefore easiest to understand) way of dying honorably. There's less guesswork involved in knowing whether or not it was honorable, which I think is why it's the most common method of escaping Hel's clutches. But certainly there are other ways of dying honorably than just limiting it to combat.

[Schroeswald]

I made one meant to make Rogue One still a solid movie, but less bleak and depressing. It wasn't running well, so I made a second one. Then the two started arguing about whether or not the ones who actually sent the plans were supposed to have never been seen again, and got nothing done.


Ah tone, that's always hard, by chatbot can write a better story for the prequels but when I tried to make it keep the general plot the same but settle on a consistent tone, well let me just say I've lost a few chatbots in that endeavor

[Sir_Galliant]

The vampire's mortal host's full name was Gontor Hammerfell, yes? Could that be... prophetic?

[Squire Doodad]

Ah tone, that's always hard, by chatbot can write a better story for the prequels but when I tried to make it keep the general plot the same but settle on a consistent tone, well let me just say I've lost a few chatbots in that endeavor

A friend of mine set up a basic neural network of several quality chatbots hooked up to one another with the intention of making a way to make the midichlorian thing work without sacrificing the mysticism of Star Wars. Long story short he theorized based on the wreckage that, for about a minute and a half, there was a functioning prototypical synthetically created intellect in existence. Course, it spent that time screaming bloody murder, so that might be a bit of a problem unto itself.

[Mandor]

Love it. It's not quite an exact match, but I see shades of Bablyon 5 the Starfire Wheel in this.

https://hill-kleerup.org/blog/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Babylon-5-4x14-Moments-of-Transition-Starfire-Wheel-Neroon.jpg

[Squire Doodad]

Love it. It's not quite an exact match, but I see shades of Bablyon 5 the Starfire Wheel in this.

https://hill-kleerup.org/blog/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Babylon-5-4x14-Moments-of-Transition-Starfire-Wheel-Neroon.jpg

"You are under arrest for making serious alterations to the meeting room!"
"For making serious alterations? That's too vague. If I were to change the light setting, would that be an issue?"
"Well, there's nothing to be said about that, but-"
"Problem solved, nice talking to you."

[Schroeswald]

A friend of mine set up a basic neural network of several quality chatbots hooked up to one another with the intention of making a way to make the midichlorian thing work without sacrificing the mysticism of Star Wars. Long story short he theorized based on the wreckage that, for about a minute and a half, there was a functioning prototypical synthetically created intellect in existence. Course, it spent that time screaming bloody murder, so that might be a bit of a problem unto itself.

At least they managed to work together, I only had a single chatbot left when I finally pulled out of the situation, and it was just as advanced in all chat-related situations as before, though I have found some bots have disappeared when they met mine, I'm keeping it away from all artificial bodies to be safe.

[Squire Doodad]

At least they managed to work together, I only had a single chatbot left when I finally pulled out of the situation, and it was just as advanced in all chat-related situations as before, though I have found some bots have disappeared when they met mine, I'm keeping it away from all artificial bodies to be safe.

They're supposed to be Star Wars fans talking about the prequels.
Who ever said they got the chatbots to work together? :smalltongue:

[Kantaki]

A friend of mine set up a basic neural network of several quality chatbots hooked up to one another with the intention of making a way to make the midichlorian thing work without sacrificing the mysticism of Star Wars. Long story short he theorized based on the wreckage that, for about a minute and a half, there was a functioning prototypical synthetically created intellect in existence. Course, it spent that time screaming bloody murder, so that might be a bit of a problem unto itself.


At least they managed to work together, I only had a single chatbot left when I finally pulled out of the situation, and it was just as advanced in all chat-related situations as before, though I have found some bots have disappeared when they met mine, I'm keeping it away from all artificial bodies to be safe.

I wonder, is gaining the capability to commit suicide and/or murder a sign of a developing artificial intelligence?
And if so, is it a step into the right direction?
It certainly is a natural reaction to the given task, though.

What I'm saying is, keep those chat bots the Hel away from the nukes.

[WindStruck]

Seems interesting, in that since there is now a hole in the ceiling, it looks like it may be possible for outsiders to intervene. For one, now that we have a hole and a clear place to begin, there'd be nothing stopping any other race from enlarging that hole... Trouble is, we don't see any on that panel showing outside, yet.

Another possibility is non-dwarves being able to drop in through the hole? The orange barrier stopped non-dwarves from entering, but going through this hole directly drops them into the council room and bypasses it. In fact.. if outsiders enter from the hole, and do not pass through the runed barriers, it may even be possible to completely bypass the rules completely!

[Peelee]

The trouble is, I can easily see a scenario where people would sign away their rights to steering the car or choosing their course — insurance liability. The auto manufacturers might decide to accept liability for accidents caused by their magic autocars if and only if the passengers agree not to interfere with its course.

Sure, but course and destination are very different things. You can't sign a contract with illegal clauses and suddenly they're not illegal anymore; if I hire you in Alabama and you agree to work for fifty cents an hour, regardless that we both signed a contract for it, it's still illegal and I'm still not allowed to do that.

[The Aboleth]

The vampire's mortal host's full name was Gontor Hammerfell, yes? Could that be... prophetic?

Wow. That's so perfect, I will now be upset* if it doesn't happen.

*Mildly upset, anyway.

[Baelzar]

Apologies to Marx for butchering his joke here, but I would never want to be part of a choir or glee club that would have me as a member. I'm largely quoting The Office (US) here, mostly Dwight. I did make a The Office (UK) reference with the territorial army, to Dwight's British counterpart Gareth.That's Groucho Marx, not the other Marx currently in vogue, young people.

[Squire Doodad]

I wonder, is gaining the capability to commit suicide and/or murder a sign of a developing artificial intelligence?
And if so, is it a step into the right direction?
It certainly is a natural reaction to the given task, though.

What I'm saying is, keep those chat bots the Hel away from the nukes.

I want to make a joke about an air vent being sealed to stop anything from blowing, but its too soon for that.


That's Groucho Marx, not the other Marx currently in vogue, young people.

Marx that young people would know (https://kirby.fandom.com/wiki/Marx)?


Sure, but course and destination are very different things. You can't sign a contract with illegal clauses and suddenly they're not illegal anymore; if I hire you in Alabama and you agree to work for fifty cents an hour, regardless that we both signed a contract for it, it's still illegal and I'm still not allowed to do that.

If I remember correctly, I think "an illegal/amoral/inhumane contract is still illegal/amoral/inhumane" is one of the key reasons why people dislike Nozick's philosophy and how it would end up working. That's kind of a good half hour drive away from this subject though.

[Peelee]

That's Groucho Marx, not the other Marx currently in vogue, young people.

I don't think Harpo, Zeppo, Chico, or Gummo are terribly popular these days (damn you, Gummo, I always have to Google when I get to you!).

Groucho is timeless though.

[MartianInvader]

Regarding a potential filibuster: Durkon and Sigdi are probably familiar enough with Dwarven law to know if such a thing could work. Based on how they seem to think they're out of time once the voting starts, it makes me think the rules don't allow for stalling in this case.

[Caerulea]

The trouble is, I can easily see a scenario where people would sign away their rights to steering the car or choosing their course — insurance liability. The auto manufacturers might decide to accept liability for accidents caused by their magic autocars if and only if the passengers agree not to interfere with its course.
Would you buy a car that wouldn't take you where you told it to go? How many people do you think would? Now, if you said "take me to a pizza place" and it took you to Pizza Fortress instead of pizza stockade because of a deal, I could see that. But you saying "take me to Pizza Stockade" and it taking you to Pizza Fortress? Very unlikely.

[The MunchKING]

Marx that young people would know (https://kirby.fandom.com/wiki/Marx)?


I want to make a joke about him being a Salmonid, but google won't let me find/show the picture...

[Larre Gannd]

That's Groucho Marx, not the other Marx currently in vogue, young people.

Groucho will always be in vogue. He always hit his comedy Marx.

[Peelee]

Groucho will always be in vogue. He always hit his comedy Marx.

Fun fact! He died the same day as Elvis Presley, so hardly anyone was aware of his death. For one of the (if not THE) greatest comedians ever, that was a tragedy.

[dmc91356]

Elvis isn't dead. He pumped gas for my car and sold me a coke just the other day . . .

[Peelee]

Elvis isn't dead. He pumped gas for my car and sold me a coke just the other day . . .

Oh come on, how could he have possibly done that from his spaceship?

[diremage]

That's one of the nastiest ways I've heard to punish someone for trying to save their own life. If the car gets totaled because the passenger switched to manual to make the accident go from "4 cars colliding, holds up interstate and kills 3" to "not strictly speaking impossible to survive, one car veers off and hits the side of the road", and then because the passenger switched to manual to avoid a bigger crash they have to pay for it? That is downright diabolical. It might not necessarily be the permutation you were looking for, but its in the same vein and one of its unfortunate conclusions without relevant laws saying that in the event of a life-threatening situation the passenger is not at fault/cannot be penalized for side effects pertaining to switching to a manual mode.

To clarify, this is continuing the hypothetical scenario that's being discussed and in no way referring to any real life political situation.
Actually, I might use this as a way to setup a slightly futuristic, probably mildly dystopic (more "suckier version" than outright dystopia) setting (party is together because they have to settle a bill and have to do a heist or something to actually get enough money to secure their opportunity to make it to court/to pay the fine, maybe add in later espionage bits).

Unfortunately this is a real question that the software engineers who write code for self-driving cars have to address. If a car gets itself into a situation where it can either kill TWO people who are not in the car, or avoid those two people and kill JUST the driver of the car, how should the car react?

Also, what they're finding with the current implementations of self-driving cars is that

1) The manufacturers are not willing to accept liability under any circumstances because regardless of how good their software is (and it's not really all that great), there are situations where it DOES kill people, and apparently their method of finding those situations is to let the cars onto the streets and seeing who dies. The autopilot might be a better driver than the typical human, and maybe even cause many fewer deaths on average than a human driver, but it's nowhere near perfect.

2) By the time the software makes a mistake and requires a human to take over, the human isn't left with enough time to take the controls and react to the situation, and most implementations currently fail silently so the human doesn't know there was a problem anyhow.

3) The manufacturers require a dummy behind the wheel who is willing to accept liability for when the software kills people for legal reasons, and that person is more or less at the mercy of software that was most likely outsourced to the lowest bidder.

As a software engineer, since I don't especially have a death wish and would rather my car not blame me when it decides to kill someone, I can't recommend self-driving cars in any setting, for any reason right now. Some of my data is old, in some cases years old, but I've seen no evidence that the various manufacturers of self-driving cars are willing to accept any responsibility whatsoever for the deaths their failures cause, and they ARE willing to kill people to get their product on the streets.

I will grant that there is another interpretation of the data: if a self-driving car causes fewer deaths, on average, than a human driver, then pushing it live is a social good even if it does kill people. This is potentially a valid argument, but again, the manufacturers are not willing to accept any responsibility of any kind for the people that wind up dying for their profit. There are a lot more incentives for them to push a bad product live than there are for them to wait until their product is really good, because if they wait the competition will eat their lunch.

[GreatWyrmGold]

He might be a bit annoyed, yeah.
Fortunately for Thor Dwalin's High Priest is currently at the Godsmoot, far away from the Council of Clans.
Whether Dwalin cares about some random priest is a different question.
Probably, he seems like the kind of guy who cares about dwarves. He might need to convene a new Council of Clans before taking any action about it, but he'd probably be mad if Thor killed one of his priests.



Seems interesting, in that since there is now a hole in the ceiling, it looks like it may be possible for outsiders to intervene.
Nah, you'd need a gate to the Outer Planes for that.
...You meant the creature type, right?



The trouble is, I can easily see a scenario where people would sign away their rights to steering the car or choosing their course — insurance liability. The auto manufacturers might decide to accept liability for accidents caused by their magic autocars if and only if the passengers agree not to interfere with its course.

And if Pizza Fortress has a advertising contract with the autocar company, they might pay $X for a simple ad, but $3X for every passenger delivered, which incentivizes the car company to err on the side of delivering passengers to whoever is paying.

When you put control of your car into the hands of people who brought you personality quizzes that conduct mass identity scraping while asking Which Potato Are You?, you can bet they’ll think of ways to monetize the vehicle that you supposedly own.
First off, there's a difference between agreeing to not interfere with the car's course and not interfering with its destination. Second, you didn't address the question of how the heck Pizza Fortress is going to get that $3x back from customers who didn't want to be there even without considering the PR feedback. Finally, your cynicism about how horrible the future could be, while not entirely unwarranted, is entirely misdirected. You're worrying too much about blunt-force manipulation when your paranoia would be much better spent on the subtle kind. Since that kind, you know, works.



Unfortunately this is a real question that the software engineers who write code for self-driving cars have to address. If a car gets itself into a situation where it can either kill TWO people who are not in the car, or avoid those two people and kill JUST the driver of the car, how should the car react?
How would you react? I'd hope it's some variation of "try to save everyone and fail," but realistically, it's going to be some variation of "not realize the full trolley problem until it's too late," because if you notice a potential accident early enough to figure out who's going to be killed by what action, it's probably early enough to avoid the accident altogether.
Don't get me wrong, it's a question that needs to be answered, but I don't get why people treat it as the conceptual problem that needs to be solved before we can trust self-driving cars. I'd put it in the same general tier as "How much should the car break the law to compensate for other people breaking the law"? (Because that question is something that needs to be answered for self-driving cars to handle your typical four-way stop sign in a reasonable amount of time.)
If I had to pick a "the conceptual problem," it would be the liability thing you mentioned. How liable is the manufacturer of an autocar for accidents caused in part by their software screwing up and in part by the driver not noticing that they screwed up until it's too late? The reason this is the question is because there isn't a single obvious answer. There's a fairly clear solution to any vanilla trolley problem, and most of the "Who should die in the tiny percent of a percent chance that the car recognizes an accident too late to stop it but early enough to decide who should die" scenarios are basically trolley problems, except that logically there shouldn't be clear answers due to the lack of tracks and stationary victims. The liability question, on the other hand, is not only much more likely to come up, but much harder to answer, because some fault lies with each party. You can't make a universal ratio of "The driver is x% liable and the manufacturer is y% liable," because each accident is different.


I will grant that there is another interpretation of the data: if a self-driving car causes fewer deaths, on average, than a human driver, then pushing it live is a social good even if it does kill people. This is potentially a valid argument, but again, the manufacturers are not willing to accept any responsibility of any kind for the people that wind up dying for their profit. There are a lot more incentives for them to push a bad product live than there are for them to wait until their product is really good, because if they wait the competition will eat their lunch.
I'd argue that the fact that there aren't any bad products which have already been pushed to the general market (with the exception of a few being used internally) provides empirical evidence against your claim. It's almost as if the public's anti-technology paranoia is having enough of a stopped-clock moment that tech companies investing in this field know they need to keep this bun in the oven a bit longer to avoid a company-ruining PR backlash...


Part of me is convinced that at least some of the chatbots people are talking about actually exist. It has been properly shamed.



My chatbot is on both, whatever it finds easier it'll steer to. Also, your only aiming for the Prequel movies? At least tell me your trying for Revenge of the Sith. Mines aimed at The Force Awakens but its almost good enough to reach Solo.
Aside: This makes it sound like you think Solo was better than TFA. I think Solo had more potential than TFA, given that the latter movie seemingly tried to show how the sequel trilogy would be different from the original trilogy via a series of subtle differences more than it tried to tell its own story, but Solo had enough tonal and structural issues (with the ones around L3 being the worst, since the movie couldn't seem to decide whether she was a plot device, a joke or someone with serious concerns worth addressing) that I can't say it was the better movie of the two.



I wonder, is gaining the capability to commit suicide and/or murder a sign of a developing artificial intelligence?
And if so, is it a step into the right direction?
It certainly is a natural reaction to the given task, though.

What I'm saying is, keep those chat bots the Hel away from the nukes.
If your chat bots have "launch nukes" programmed as a potential output, you've done something horribly wrong. Not even Elan wrong, that's more like Homer Simpson levels of "whoops".
That, or some idiot hooked your chatbot up to ICBM early warning systems and it got confused by a tangent about Starkiller Base.



Elvis isn't dead. He pumped gas for my car and sold me a coke just the other day . . .
Liar! Gas stations don't have gas-pumpy attendant people anymore!

[AutomatedTeller]

Seems like the obvious answer, to me, is that now there is a hole in the ceiling and V can still fly.

V flies up and casts Dispel Magic. V isn't in the chamber, so is not affected. Several of the clan members are no longer dominated.

Vote fails.

[Peelee]

Liar! Gas stations don't have gas-pumpy attendant people anymore!

You clearly don't live in Oregon or New Jersey.


Seems like the obvious answer, to me, is that now there is a hole in the ceiling and V can still fly.

V flies up and casts Dispel Magic. V isn't in the chamber, so is not affected. Several of the clan members are no longer dominated.

Vote fails.

V is in the chamber. From the looks of it, the domed room is right up against the edge of the mountain, as the hole in the ceiling opens straight to daylight. Unless V can Dimension Door to outside the mountain, it doesn't look like they'll be able to do anything with that hole.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Exceptionally Random

Liar! Gas stations don't have gas-pump attendant people anymore!

No, there are states where self-serve gas is actually illegal. New Jersey and Oregon, IIRC.

[Jasdoif]

You clearly don't live in Oregon or New Jersey.As of last year, self-serve gas is legal at some locations in Oregon...but not at any I've been to personally (they helpfully have signs indicating they're not self-service locations).