OOTS #1214 - The Discussion Thread

[hroþila]

I think "I need to keep my family safe" was just V's convenient rationalization, and that disproportionate retribution was their real motivation. They just wanted to wield as much power as possible to crush the ABD as thoroughly as possible.

That said, "let's stay the hell away from the wizard that was capable of wielding such destructive power" would not be an unlikely outcome even if any potential dragon avengers wanted to investigate.

[Worldsong]

I think "I need to keep my family safe" was just V's convenient rationalization, and that disproportionate retribution was their real motivation. They just wanted to wield as much power as possible to crush the ABD as thoroughly as possible.

That said, "let's stay the hell away from the wizard that was capable of wielding such destructive power" would not be an unlikely outcome even if any potential dragon avengers wanted to investigate.

Agreed on both accounts. I'm pretty sure that at that point Vaarsuvius was just power-tripping and rationalizing their desire to use their power against the first target they considered 'fair game'.

And given the scope of Familicide most black dragons are probably going to think that they don't want to get involved in whatever conflict involves genocide on a global scale. That's supernatural disaster levels of nope.

[Fyraltari]

I think "I need to keep my family safe" was just V's convenient rationalization, and that disproportionate retribution was their real motivation. They just wanted to wield as much power as possible to crush the ABD as thoroughly as possible.
I’d say that Inkyrius asking them to stand down and V refusing is meant to convey that.


That said, "let's stay the hell away from the wizard that was capable of wielding such destructive power" would not be an unlikely outcome even if any potential dragon avengers wanted to investigate.

Quest-giving NPC: Somebody just killed 1/4th of the entire black dragon population!
Epic adventuring group: Finally! A chance to get some XP!

[dancrilis]

That said, "let's stay the hell away from the wizard that was capable of wielding such destructive power" would not be an unlikely outcome even if any potential dragon avengers wanted to investigate.


And given the scope of Familicide most black dragons are probably going to think that they don't want to get involved in whatever conflict involves genocide on a global scale. That's supernatural disaster levels of nope.

I disagree - Black Dragons (and other dragons) are intelligent and wise creatures, when they heard about ~25% of there number got wiped out instantly with no warning or time to react (along with half dragons and dragon descendants) I think it is unlikely that thought 'better keep my head down' and more thought 'better find out what this is all about - where is the oracle of our people again', one could show up with a host of loyal kobolds, children, minions etc and get the full story pretty quickly with fairly limited risk.
Ignoring a threat like that would likely be unacceptable to many of them - and to many other dragons also (after all this might be a test run on some dragon killing superweapon).

[Rogar Demonblud]

In fact, as with TDO's plan with the Snarl, there would be a strong element of "get that *expletive* before that *expletive expletive expletive* comes after us."

[Doug Lampert]

It occurs to me that Vaarsuvius's premise for using the Familicide spell is faulty. Taking out all dragons who are blood-related, so that nobody would have a reason to go after their family again, has a fundamental flaw, of the "de kind vere ve keel everybody dot notices dot ve's killin' people" (https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20031017) variety. Even without Tiamat's involvement, the remaining black dragons would be looking into how and why a quarter of their population abruptly died. And very likely doing something about it.

Hats would be lost.

It's worse than that. The ABD mentions that she was visiting her son's uncle when he was killed.

Her son's uncle....
That could be her brother, but then she'd say "visiting my brother".
It could be her sister's husband, not a blood relative unless there's another unmentioned relationship.
It could be her dead mate's brother, not a blood relative unless there's another unmentioned relationship.
It could be her dead mate's sister's husband, not a blood relative unless there's another unmentioned relationship.

Basically, there is no chance that the dragon she was visiting was hit unless unless there's another unmentioned relationship. The claimed relationship would leave him untouched and possibly pissed.

Additionally:
There was a mention somewhere of "that nice green dragon" her son might have mated with. Also not a relative.

The two dragons we know of that might conceivably want revenge were not hit by familicide. So, yeah, it was totally ineffective for the stated purpose and the sort of thing that results in lost hats. The only reason that Tiamat hasn't arranged for V to be very dead is that she blames the IFC instead.

[Quizatzhaderac]

She might have been referring to her brother using her late son's perspective. Not usual, but not unheard of.

In the case of her sister's husband: if they had a living child, the spell would kill the aunt, then the cousin, then the uncle.

In the case of her brother's husband: since they can't have biological children, the brother in law would be alive.

But yes, it does fall apart majorly by assuming black dragons only care about people that are directly related to them. Vaarsuvius did seem to be surprised that the Draketooth dragon was married.

[hungrycrow]

But yes, it does fall apart majorly by assuming black dragons only care about people that are directly related to them. Vaarsuvius did seem to be surprised that the Draketooth dragon was married.

Yeah, up until then, V saw dragons as monsters that only care about treasure hoards, and not as people.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah from my analysis of the whole Familicide Incident in another thread, there is a strong theme of escalation. every time someone is responding to another person's revenge, the number of people targeted escalates higher:
First-1 young adult black dragon
Second-2 elf children
Third-one quarter of the black dragons on the planet
Fourth-five good dragons for every one killed by Vaarsuvius, demanded by Tiamat herself

its not about getting even, its about crushing someone else lower than when someone crushed you. Vaarsuvius is probably going to have a lot of trouble after this even if they do save the world.

Redcloak has a similar problem in that he escalated from his village being slaughtered to conquering an entire city in response. One wonders if his entire Plan is just his subconscious desire to get revenge on gods he never met and a world he hates.

[Fyraltari]

Redcloak has a similar problem in that he escalated from his village being slaughtered to conquering an entire city in response. One wonders if his entire Plan is just his subconscious desire to get revenge on gods he never met and a world he hates.

What do you mean "subconsious"?

[Lord Raziere]

What do you mean "subconsious"?

Yeah, I guess I'm being charitable with that.

[Riftwolf]

What do you mean "subconsious"?

It's his subconscious, conscious, and superconscious plan.

[Worldsong]

It's his subconscious, conscious, and superconscious plan.

Don't forget his ultraconscious.

[Schroeswald]

Don't forget his ultraconscious.

What about his uber-duper-super-giant-bigboy-conscious?

What do you mean half the reason I posted this was because it felt weird to not have posted in this yet, go away, its still funny, at least a little bit.

[Grey Watcher]

Quest-giving NPC: Somebody just killed 1/4th of the entire black dragon population!
Epic adventuring group: Finally! A chance to get some XP!

Man, are those guys going to be disappointed to discover who the final boss actually is. "A wizard 6 levels below us!? Are you kidding me!?"

[Cazero]

Man, are those guys going to be disappointed to discover who the final boss actually is. "A wizard 6 levels below us!? Are you kidding me!?""And not even fighting back, mumbling something about deserving it !"

[bunsen_h]

"And not even fighting back, mumbling something about deserving it !"

"It's a trap! Run away! (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0194.html)"

[urbanwolf]

In the case of her sister's husband: if they had a living child, the spell would kill the aunt, then the cousin, then the uncle.



I think it would kill the aunt and the cousin, then the uncle, or kill the aunt, than the cousin and stop. iirc the spell dose two checks. First check kills all the people related to the target, then second check kills all the people related to the people killed in wave 1.
Targets that where killed in wave 2 do not trigger a third wave.

[Rogar Demonblud]

And anybody already dead serves as a circuit breaker for phase two.

[danielxcutter]

It has to go for longer than more than one wave and dead people don't break the spread either.

The Draketooth clan was wiped out by Familicide because they were all descended from a black dragon - who Blackwing noted had been dead for years by the present time. And the children stolen away served as connections to the innocent people, who were also killed, and then their family lines were destroyed as well. Rich did mention that if it'd been cast in our world it might have wiped out the entire human race.

[Worldsong]

There have been two threads on how Familicide works where Rich himself stepped in and tried to put it in cut and dry terms to stop people debating about it.

To keep it simple:

First Wave: Anyone who shares blood with the original target is dead. No exceptions, no finagling. If you shared a common ancestor with the original target ten generations back you're still dead.

Second Wave: Anyone who has a direct living link to one of the creatures hit by the first wave is also dead. The main difference with the first wave is that this works more like a chain reaction, which means it can be stopped by a missing link (more specifically, someone who is already dead).

Overall it's very likely that there's still quite a few dragons alive who aren't happy with what happened, either because they had no relation to the ABD and her blood at all or because they would've been part of the second wave if the link between them and the ABD hadn't died already.

Most likely aside from the whole power tripping issue Vaarsuvius was a bit too focused on the fact that the ABD's motivation for revenge was based on family.

[Lethologica]

It has to go for longer than more than one wave and dead people don't break the spread either.

The Draketooth clan was wiped out by Familicide because they were all descended from a black dragon - who Blackwing noted had been dead for years by the present time. And the children stolen away served as connections to the innocent people, who were also killed, and then their family lines were destroyed as well. Rich did mention that if it'd been cast in our world it might have wiped out the entire human race.
It is described as two waves, but is effectively three. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?234374-Familicide-Mega-Thread/page36&p=12856280#post12856280)

Step 1 kills everyone related by blood to the original target. Step 2 kills everyone descended from still-living ancestors of people killed in Step 1. Which means it is more effectively described as Step 2, kill all living direct ancestors of people killed in Step 1, and Step 3, kill all living descendants of people killed in Step 2.

The son's uncle may be a blood relative, and died; or he may be an in-law, and did not. Or he may be both a blood relative and an in-law, and died.

[danielxcutter]

So does that mean the Draketooth clan got nuked in step 1 or 2, then? I'm still a bit confused.

[Lethologica]

So does that mean the Draketooth clan got nuked in step 1 or 2, then? I'm still a bit confused.
The Draketooth clan could have been nuked in step 1 if the Draketooth dragon was related to ABD by blood, in which case a lot of humans outside of the Draketooth clan also died.

Or, perhaps e.g. ABD's nephew has grandparents on the other side of the family from ABD, and the Draketooth dragon was descended from them. Then the Draketooth clan would have been nuked in Step 3.

[danielxcutter]

The Draketooth clan could have been nuked in step 1 if the Draketooth dragon was related to ABD by blood, in which case a lot of humans outside of the Draketooth clan also died.

Or, perhaps e.g. ABD's nephew has grandparents on the other side of the family from ABD, and the Draketooth dragon was descended from them. Then the Draketooth clan would have been nuked in Step 3.

It wouldn't have killed Penelope if the Draketooths got a Total Family Kill on step 3, because the descending part would have stopped at her daughter.

[Lethologica]

It wouldn't have killed Penelope if the Draketooths got a Total Family Kill on step 3, because the descending part would have stopped at her daughter.
Ah, I forgot about her. Step 1, then.

[danielxcutter]

Ah, I forgot about her. Step 1, then.

I don't think it's too far-fetched that the progenitor dragon was a cousin or something. It's a bit of a coincidence, but at the least it's still V's fault for not thinking about the possible fallout regarding other species. Which they acknowledged.

[NihhusHuotAliro]

The Giant thinks that people read his stuff for the characters, so he doesn't really care about the fussy details and patterns of how Familicide works outside of how it serves the story he wants to tell.

Familicide, as presented in the comic (not including out-of-comic authorial fiat), is fascinating and can be interpreted in a lot of ways (honestly, it's probably the most interesting idea in OOTS).

Given that Rich Burlew's posts on the subject were primarily made to get people to stop talking about Familicide and start talking about things he actually considers relevant to his work, I don't find his explanations particularly interesting or important (so, though focusing on the setting rather than the characters may be the "wrong" way to enjoy his story, I say that authorial fiat is no reason to end a perfectly good discussion on how stuff works as-presented-in-comic).

With that said, my personal theory was that (step 1) the spell went up the genealogy line to the first ancestors (created directly by the gods) of the victim, and then went down to all descendants of said ancestors, killing anybody who shared any ancestry with the victim ("any living creature that directly shares your bloodline is dead."). Then (step 2), it did step 1 again to all those new victims ("Every living creature that is directly related to any of those creatures is also dead"). Then (step 3), it kept doing steps 1 and 2 until it ran out of living things to kill ("Anyone who could possibly make a claim to be part of your family is gone now").

The reason why not everything is dead is that the planet was created with a large enough population, and is new enough (only about a thousand years old), that there are still separate genealogical "forests" (think of an aspen forest, connected at the roots) which share no ancestral relation with one another.

Casting Familicide on anybody from any branch in a "forest" produces the same result as if you cast it on anybody else in the same "forest", making Familicide analogous but not identical to "species-cide" (there are still Black Dragons).

EDIT: Didn't notice the new comic, heh.