Should the Gods destroy the world every now and then regardless?

[dancrilis]

It seems that the current plan is to fix this world to make it permanent - but does that really serve the interests of the Gods?

Thor mentions here that they are getting better at extending the time that worlds last (panel 8 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1140.html)) which might mean that the current world is the longest surviving world.

However we see Odin here is still impacted by the previous world and will take centuries more to heal from it (panels 18, 19 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1145.html)) - so mortals can have a serious impact on deities in even a relatively short time.

As such is it really in the Gods interest to allow a world of mortals to survive forever - at any point mortals might create new gods, forget old ones, mess with who a god is etc - which on an individual level might be fine but it would seem like a recipe for some Evil god (or even a Good or Neutral one) to try a campaign branding other gods as less powerful then they and as merely servants (and not actually gods) or as 'evil spirits' to not be worshiped or even feared.
Also as Gods seem to have only limited ability to interact with the world within their rules it is possible that mortals might themselves decide that gods are merely powerful outsiders not deserving of worship and who can be largely ignored and forgotten.

It would seem to me that it would be in the Gods best interest to set a time limit for each world so that they can start fresh with a new batch of mortals every few thousand years, that way they can maintain themselves and their power better then they might be able to otherwise - and if the Snarl ever does get out of its stronger prison they will be there to cage it again.

[woweedd]

I mean...But that would be a major **** move, and it's clear the Gods do have SOME sense of empathy. I';d think the others would shoot down destroying something they put so much work into for no real reson.

[hroþila]

I would imagine the constant destruction/creation cycle is not the most effective use of their resources, even if well-established gods have the resources to survive the transition without a hitch. So fixing the world is probably in the interest of most gods, including Neutral and Evil ones. The problem is convincing them that it is feasible and that the risk is worth it.

[RatElemental]

At the very least they need to keep this world going long enough that the dark one will probably survive the interim period, otherwise they're back to square one when it comes to containing the snarl.

[Spirare]

All of those reasons sound like potential threats to react to, not necessarily something to base a time limit around; they might do something to prevent those outcomes manually, if there's a risk involved, but there's no reason to destroy a perfectly good world over a threat that might come into play in the theoretical future.

With that said, I figure that the gods have enough power over the world to minimize the chance of the gods being "mislabeled" like that. If they didn't, they probably wouldn't be able to achieve any worship in the first place. The mortals know what the gods are in each world.

[Metastachydium]

As such is it really in the Gods interest to allow a world of mortals to survive forever - at any point mortals might create new gods, forget old ones, mess with who a god is etc - which on an individual level might be fine but it would seem like a recipe for some Evil god (or even a Good or Neutral one) to try a campaign branding other gods as less powerful then they and as merely servants (and not actually gods) or as 'evil spirits' to not be worshiped or even feared.
Also as Gods seem to have only limited ability to interact with the world within their rules it is possible that mortals might themselves decide that gods are merely powerful outsiders not deserving of worship and who can be largely ignored and forgotten.



The gods have protocols and means (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0954.html) to discourage each other from doing stuff like that.

[brian 333]

My thought is that if some group of deities have the resources and want to create a new world, why not keep this one going and create a second one? It seems the one-at-a-time approach was the result of needing to maintain power reserves for when The Snarl inevitably broke free.

As an example, Hel might want to keep getting what power she gets from Stickverse and build a new world where she gets to have clerics. There are bound to be other deities who are also less than pleased with how Stickverse worked out and want to try something else.

With the threat of The Snarl mitigated, the need to horde power against its escape is lessened, and an infinity of options arise.

[InvisibleBison]

My thought is that if some group of deities have the resources and want to create a new world, why not keep this one going and create a second one?

It strikes me as probable that all living deities need to work together to create a world - otherwise why were the good and evil deities willing to collaborate with each other to create the first, pre-Snarl, world?

[Worldsong]

I imagine that this cycle of destruction and creation proves Alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange means that the gods are on a relatively low power level: creating a world must cost energy and they don't have a lot of time to build up their reserves before the cycle repeats itself.

Keeping this world around for as long as possible would most likely allow them to build up their power.

[Jacky720]

I imagine that this cycle of destruction and creation proves Alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange means that the gods are on a relatively low power level: creating a world must cost energy and they don't have a lot of time to build up their reserves before the cycle repeats itself.

Keeping this world around for as long as possible would most likely allow them to build up their power.

I thought the "raw threads of reality" required to make a world were separate from the god nutrients, so even if this world lasted long enough to get a lot more souls, you wouldn't be able to make another world out of it.

[brian 333]

The Snarl is made of these same threads.

It may be that there is only enough 'reality' for one world, but I was going with the infinite multiverse with uncountable worlds concept which had as yet not been realized due to the need for the gods to hoard their power so they could survive to the next rebuild.

I assume they only built one world at the start because their power was low. However, there may already be countless other worlds created by other pantheons we'll never hear about because they never matter to this story.

I don't think Thor lied about anything, but I don't think he told us everything. We don't know how the gods came to be, or how many appeared at some time after the first world's creation, to give two examples. I assume there were many such ommissions that were simply irrelevant to Durkon's mission.

[Quizatzhaderac]

So, assuming that the threats Dancrili mentioned are a real problem for the gods, that raises the question: does each year a world exists more/ less, or the same threat as the last?

If the same, creating one world that lasts a million years wouldn't pose any less than creating a thousand that last a thousand years.

If anything, I'd imagine the earlier period of a world would involve more change as people and cultures aren't yet set in their ways.

Unrelatedly, if the gods do destroy a world without a time limit, what might that look like? Maybe making everyone infertile and waiting for old age?

[ijuinkun]

When the Gods rebuild the world, it is not simply the planet which is remade, but the entire Prime Material Plane. Each new "world" has its own cosmic rules/"laws of physics"--for example, Stickworld has D&D mechanics built into it, whereas for example, a "space opera" world would have FTL built into it, as well as having numerous planets that could be inhabited/terraformed. Some "worlds" may only need to contain a single solar system, with the stars being simply background images, whereas ones where the Gods intend to have space travel could contain an entire galaxy.

[KorvinStarmast]

When the Gods rebuild the world, it is not simply the planet which is remade, but the entire Prime Material Plane. Each new "world" has its own cosmic rules/"laws of physics"--for example, Stickworld has D&D mechanics built into it, whereas for example, a "space opera" world would have FTL built into it, as well as having numerous planets that could be inhabited/terraformed. Some "worlds" may only need to contain a single solar system, with the stars being simply background images, whereas ones where the Gods intend to have space travel could contain an entire galaxy. The world filled with sentient movie theater snacks (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1140.html) had just what it needed for them to thrive, before they too were consumed by the Snarl.

[ijuinkun]

Exactly--each world (universe) contains only what is needed for the scope of the kind of stories that the Gods want to happen in it. TvTropes (which I will not link, because it's too easy to get mired in that site) calls it "World Limited to the Plot".

[Roland Itiative]

It would appear that the gods have limited "stuff" with which to make worlds with. The fact they destroy the previous world before making a new one, rather than just abandoning it and making the new one "around" the old one seems to imply they're reusing the same threads of reality over and over again.

As for remaking the world every once in a while anyways, it probably is the best idea for a god thinking only about self-preservation. It's also a very evil idea, so the Good and (at least some of the) Neutral gods probably would keep the Evil gods from enacting such a plan.

[Psyren]

Right now - "unmake it and cash in the souls before the Snarl eats them all" is the only compromise the gods can reach consensus on, with the only real question being how soon to do it once rifts begin appearing. Trying to mandate any other trigger or interval for that slaughter/destruction besides the Snarl itself will just cause disagreement among the gods, which means more Snarls, and risking reality itself. In short, terrible idea.

[Tvtyrant]

It seems that the current plan is to fix this world to make it permanent - but does that really serve the interests of the Gods?

Thor mentions here that they are getting better at extending the time that worlds last (panel 8 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1140.html)) which might mean that the current world is the longest surviving world.

However we see Odin here is still impacted by the previous world and will take centuries more to heal from it (panels 18, 19 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1145.html)) - so mortals can have a serious impact on deities in even a relatively short time.

As such is it really in the Gods interest to allow a world of mortals to survive forever - at any point mortals might create new gods, forget old ones, mess with who a god is etc - which on an individual level might be fine but it would seem like a recipe for some Evil god (or even a Good or Neutral one) to try a campaign branding other gods as less powerful then they and as merely servants (and not actually gods) or as 'evil spirits' to not be worshiped or even feared.
Also as Gods seem to have only limited ability to interact with the world within their rules it is possible that mortals might themselves decide that gods are merely powerful outsiders not deserving of worship and who can be largely ignored and forgotten.

It would seem to me that it would be in the Gods best interest to set a time limit for each world so that they can start fresh with a new batch of mortals every few thousand years, that way they can maintain themselves and their power better then they might be able to otherwise - and if the Snarl ever does get out of its stronger prison they will be there to cage it again.

They get energy from worship, so I imagine once they don't have to 24/7 monitor the world they will go on a world spamming spree using the power from older worlds to make new ones. The Gods should get stronger the more worlds there are, there isn't an incentive to wipe them out without the Snarl.

[dancrilis]

As for remaking the world every once in a while anyways, it probably is the best idea for a god thinking only about self-preservation. It's also a very evil idea, so the Good and (at least some of the) Neutral gods probably would keep the Evil gods from enacting such a plan.

But is it Evil though?
Consider this lets say that it takes 2000 years for a God to fade if things on the mortal world go bad seemingly significantly longer then Hel has been suffering.
Now assuming that the gods have created a billion worlds and that they have on average lasted 100+ years than the Gods are 100 billion years old (ignoring the cool down period for the Snarl).

Thor say that if they patch the rifts this world could last millions or maybe billions of years - more then enough time for a god to get messed over (or multiple gods to get messed over), but not actually a long time given the lenght of there existences.
And if the Gods should fade then the next time the Snarl gets out that will be it - the end.

You can take a look though gods reasons for keeping this world or not here (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0999.html).
At a guess on who would favour a timeframe:
Odin: Who knows.
Thor: No - he voted no to allow his followers to try to fix things (and likely to see about getting the Dark One on board) but for a end date ... I had this initially as maybe but as he was the guy talking about billions of years I am setting as a no.
Sif: I think probably not.
Tyr: Yes - he wouldn't want mortals to have the advantage.
Balder: Depends on Odin and Thor seemingly.
Hemidall: Yes - it is a caution option.
Freya: No - she wouldn't like to end the lives but as they wouldn't exist at the time of the decision she might be neutral, but I think not.
Freyr: No - he would likely see the investment in that could be made in a longer timeframe and no down time.
Sunna: Unsure - she might want to wipe it out or she might think keeping it is better.
Frigg: No - and a fairly clear no at that.
Njord: Yes - I would think they would almost instantly want to change something based on what Thor said about them.
Mani: No - less work.
Skadi: Yes - the gods survival is likely simplier to continue the cycle.
Hoder: Yes - they appreciate the cycle of death.
Fenrir: Yes - I would say anyway.
Vafthrudnir: Unsure leaning towards no.
Loki: I want to say yes but unsure.
Hel: Likely yes - but her voting reasons were much more to do with this world.

Assuming that my absolute guess work is even fairly reasonable than that leaves 6 yes, 5 no and 7 unknown - so no would need to win 4 sevenths of the unknown to break even - and that is assuming that no one merely enters a timer as part of 'their turn their choice' world creation system (subject to the rules surrounding that).


They get energy from worship, so I imagine once they don't have to 24/7 monitor the world they will go on a world spamming spree using the power from older worlds to make new ones. The Gods should get stronger the more worlds there are, there isn't an incentive to wipe them out without the Snarl.

Assuming they can make multiple worlds - which would change the logic, but if they can't make multiple worlds and they are stuck with the one is where I was basing the initial question from.

[Tvtyrant]

I'm assuming by existence of multiple planes of existence that they can either make other worlds, or if they didn't make the planes they aren't really Gods. Netheril was right, they are more like immortal extraplanar wizards in that scenario.

[Psyren]

Odin's response to me strongly indicates that he (and possibly only he?) is aware of the world inside the rift. But he's too loopy to communicate it clearly to his fellow pantheon, so he's simply moving the pieces (Durkon in particular) to where they need to be to solve the problems no one else is anticipating.

[RatElemental]

But is it Evil though?
Consider this lets say that it takes 2000 years for a God to fade if things on the mortal world go bad seemingly significantly longer then Hel has been suffering.
Now assuming that the gods have created a billion worlds and that they have on average lasted 100+ years than the Gods are 100 billion years old (ignoring the cool down period for the Snarl).

Thor say that if they patch the rifts this world could last millions or maybe billions of years - more then enough time for a god to get messed over (or multiple gods to get messed over), but not actually a long time given the lenght of there existences.
And if the Gods should fade then the next time the Snarl gets out that will be it - the end.

The whole point of this plan is that the snarl won't ever get out if it's locked behind a reality that is as strong as it is. And as others have said, there's not much appreciable difference between one world and another when it comes to the gods sustaining themselves. Hel's bet is an extreme case, having a world around they can intervene in is probably a lot better for their godly health than not having one at all for however many centuries the snarl rampages before they make a new one. Especially since every time they nuke the world they're letting the eldritch abomination that the world is now happily keeping contained forever out for... what reason, exactly? To fiddle with the starting conditions?

[Roland Itiative]

But is it Evil though?
Sacrificing millions if not billions of intelligent life forms just for your own continued existence? Pretty sure that is evil, yeah. It's basically the same thing the Vector Legion has been doing in the Western Continent for years, but on a cosmic scale.

The only reason the current situation with the gods can be argued to not be evil is that they're working with the assumption that the deaths of the people in the prime material plane are guaranteed to happen soon regardless of their actions, so they're choosing the "best" death on a certain death scenario. Take away the Snarl, and destroying the world every once in a while turns into a huge abuse of power.

As for the gods eventually getting a risk in a world that is allowed to exist for long enough, that shouldn't be a problem save for very few cases. The only two cases of gods being hugely affected in a negative way by their followers beliefs are Odin and Hel. Both were caused by themselves hugely limiting their pool of followers, Hel by taking part in an ill-advised bet and Odin because the gods let the previous world's northern continent become a pretty close-minded society of barbarians. Note that neither of those things happened despite their efforts, even if the gods can't act directly, they can still convey information to chosen individuals (like Tiamat with her Oracle, and The Dark One with his Crimson Mantle) and grant powers to clerics, providing more than enough incentive for mortals to follow and worship them.

Furthermore, just like a world without a time limit can mean the death of gods, it has also been proven that it also means the ascencion of new ones becomes possible. It's very unlikely that a world where deities grant tangible powers to even their most humble followers would devolve into full-on atheism any time soon.

[BaronOfHell]

Based on Hel's current "health" I doubt the time in between worlds is that long, or would all (or most) of the gods look like Hel when they are about to create a new world?

If they go bad mentally, like when you haven't eaten all day, but in stead it is for a couple of centuries, isn't there a risk of creating a snarl simply because they lose their grip and start infighting?

Based on it never having happened before (as far as we know), and the amount of worlds in consideration, I would think not. But if that is the case, then I doubt the gods will assume Hel's unfortunate state of being, so unless her condition is mainly because of malnutrition, and not lack of praying by itself, then I don't think the time between worlds is longer than the current world has existed.

[Emanick]

Based on Hel's current "health" I doubt the time in between worlds is that long, or would all (or most) of the gods look like Hel when they are about to create a new world?

If they go bad mentally, like when you haven't eaten all day, but in stead it is for a couple of centuries, isn't there a risk of creating a snarl simply because they lose their grip and start infighting?

Based on it never having happened before (as far as we know), and the amount of worlds in consideration, I would think not. But if that is the case, then I doubt the gods will assume Hel's unfortunate state of being, so unless her condition is mainly because of malnutrition, and not lack of praying by itself, then I don't think the time between worlds is longer than the current world has existed.

Yeah, I firmly agree with that. I've been operating under the assumption that the time between worlds is something like fifty years, give or take one order of magnitude. Otherwise, being bored with the old world becomes a pretty implausible reason to nuke it and start anew - instead, you get centuries or millennia of no mortals to watch at all, and not much to lord over.

[ijuinkun]

Speaking of Hel, what is likely to become of her if Stickworld continues for tens of millennia or more? She's apparently growing rather weak from lack of worship already. Would it be possible at all for her to get clerics and worship without having to rebuild the world?

[MilleniaAntares]

I doubt most gods would be up for destroying the world on a regular basis, except for those who want something new and those who relish mass death.


Speaking of Hel, what is likely to become of her if Stickworld continues for tens of millennia or more? She's apparently growing rather weak from lack of worship already. Would it be possible at all for her to get clerics and worship without having to rebuild the world?
I think it would be possible if everyone involved with the bet were to mutually agree to call it off. However, that may not be likely because of issues with pride/face and all that.