The OotSquiggle found 5 rifts...

[Scottzg]

This is something bothers me a little bit.

The Squiggle found 5 rifts that were just chilling, being open rifts for who knows how long. They put gates on them eventually. That means that the gods didn't decide to abandon this world when there were 5 rifts before.

So why are the gods so fired up about this last gate now?
Why is 5 unblocked rifts important? Why not 9, or 47?
The Azure City rift is massive compared to what the Squiggle found, shouldn't that be more of a factor than the quantity of rifts?

I don't mind really cuz it's just storytelling, but the Squiggle finding a bunch of unattended rifts really undermines the urgency surrounding Kraagor's gate.

[dancrilis]

That means that the gods didn't decide to abandon this world when there were 5 rifts before.


They thought about it and voted against it, panel 10 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0998.html).

[Dr.Zero]

They thought about it and voted against it, panel 10 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0998.html).

But Loki says that the Snarl needs 10 to 15 minutes before it comes out, and they need to pull the plug.
But it doesn't seem to match with the time needed by a whole epic campaign.

We can imagine that, maybe, the explosion of the gates damages the universal fabric around the gates themselves, making the process quicker, but still giving a whole campaign of time to some adventurers to create the Gates, when they have destroyed billions of worlds, seems a lot unnecessary and dangerous.
Specially if then half of them fret about the situation when a gate still exists.

[Scottzg]

They thought about it and voted against it, panel 10[/URL].

Good catch! I don't think it really changes much though.

[NerdyKris]

The problem now is that the Snarl is reaching out through the rifts. Also they were already voting no to destroying the world before Hel showed up. So it's not unreasonable to assume that these were the same votes cast last time. The only reason anything happened was because of Hel's unexpected mechanations.

[BaronOfHell]

We know for all previous worlds the Snarl eventually escapes, through rifts forming I imagine.

So unless there is:
1) A maximum amount of rifts that can form at a time [like you can only stretch an elastic so far], or:
2) Already existing rifts affects the risk of further rifts in some manner [maybe the Snarl creates these rifts through a process where it can only hold a maximum of X rifts, and each rift created requires more and more energy, alternatively perhaps one rift makes the next rift easier to create as it weakens the overall structure], or:
3) The creation of the gates somehow affected the risk of further rifts forming.

Then I imagine there is always a certain risk of a rifts opening, but it is an extremely low risk considering we know of 5 rifts in a 1000 year old world, heck it might even be the older the world the greater risk of forming rifts.
Further we know the formation of a rift in itself does not have to be immediately dangerous to all of existence, in stead it is a sign of the end of time.
However we do not know anything of the in-between time period of the first rifts forming to the Snarl freeing itself.

Based on this lack of knowledge, the only source we can turn to is those who have knowledge through experience, i.e. the gods. Since the gods believe the matter to be urgent, I think we can conclude it is urgent.

Then again perhaps it is a matter of self-conservation, once you fear something there may be a bias. Perhaps the Snarl won't escape if the final gate is blown up and the fifth rift gets exposed, but since the urgency is directly linked to the gods being ready to unmake the world, it really doesn't change anything as I see it.

Edit:

The problem now is that the Snarl is reaching out through the rifts.

Didn't it reach out at least three times before where its victims were a hen and a goblin, Soon's wife and Kraagor?
In fact so far has we not only seen it reach out when anyone tries to interact with the rift? Meaning did RC decide not to throw the azurities into the rift in fear of the Snarl lashing out against him, and had Xykon's phylactery entered would he had been immediately unmade?
It is difficult to tell since we don't know how mrs. Shattersmith is doing.

[facw]

we know of 5 rifts in a 1000 year old world

It's not really especially relevant to the topic here, but do you have any to believe OOTS's world is 1000 years old? Just the calendar? Because a quick look at our own world should tell you that calendar years are irrelevant to the age of the world. Thor says that they "are up to a few thousands years each give or take", which would make this world somewhat unusual to be threatened so quickly if it's only 1000 years old. On the flip side, it doesn't seem like there would be anything to prevent the gods from creating a world whose inhabitants believe the year to be something much more than 0, though obviously if the god created the world only 150 years ago, that would make the rifts in the world even a bigger abnormality.

[hroþila]

The world is explicitly older than 1184 years - that's just the years that have passed since the foundation of That Kingdom.

As for the unsealed rifts, I assume they were still small and not yet growing fast when the Order of the Scribble first found them, but that it takes a short time (maybe a year or two) from the time they first appear until the prison is weakened enough for the Snarl to get out. If you remove the gates now, the rifts will be too big for the prison to hold for longer than a few minutes, because the act of destroying a gate and a seal is inherently damaging to the fabric of the world (hence the patch ripping metaphor above).

[NerdyKris]

The world is explicitly older than 1184 years - that's just the years that have passed since the foundation of That Kingdom.

When was that stated? I don't remember it.

[hamishspence]

Apparently, in the Don't Split The Party PDF.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24090656&postcount=112

[BloodSquirrel]

I don't think the details are very important. What's obviously true, for one reason or another, is that the rifts are worse now than they were when the Scribble first found them, and that instead of having an adventuring party going around sealing them, the gates are now a source of conflict and they're being destroyed.

Also, we don't really know how different the gods' attitude is between then and now. We don't know how close the vote was back then, and the vote now is only a tie because of Hel's machinations (and she wasn't part of the moot before). For all we know, the gods who were there last time may have voted the exact same way this time.

[KorvinStarmast]

How many rifts hardly matters. What matters is the rate of decay of the Snarl's prison. That's what triggered the Godsmoot. The gods noticed that the rate of decay, arrested by the gates somewhat, had changed or otherwise manifested an undesirable change in state.

Given that the deities have been through this millions, or perhaps billions, of times (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1140.html) it is abundantly clear that they know how the Snarl eventually erodes its bonds (a given iteration of "world") before it has gone far enough that the deities have to scrap it and build a new prison for it (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0275.html) - another world. As Rich described it through the character V:

...the world we live in is merely the padlock on the jailhouse door of reality
If you have to make enough locks and jails and jailhouse doors, for the same prisoner, you get to learn a lot about your prisoner. :smallwink:

[Quebbster]

Didn't it reach out at least three times before where its victims were a hen and a goblin, Soon's wife and Kraagor?
In fact so far has we not only seen it reach out when anyone tries to interact with the rift? Meaning did RC decide not to throw the azurities into the rift in fear of the Snarl lashing out against him, and had Xykon's phylactery entered would he had been immediately unmade?
It is difficult to tell since we don't know how mrs. Shattersmith is doing.

Do we know in what order these breaches came? I assume Kraagor was the last victim as it seemed to be the last gate to be sealed. Could the goblin and the chicken breach have happened after the Scribblers started sealing the gates?
Mijung was obviously before any gates were sealed, but if it was an early breach the gods may have decided to wait and see what happened.

[NerdyKris]

The goblin and chicken would have been before, because otherwise Lirian wouldn't have been investigating the chicken's disappearance, and the goblin would not have been allowed near the well guarded and sealed rift.

[Dire_Flumph]

Do we know in what order these breaches came? I assume Kraagor was the last victim as it seemed to be the last gate to be sealed. Could the goblin and the chicken breach have happened after the Scribblers started sealing the gates?
Mijung was obviously before any gates were sealed, but if it was an early breach the gods may have decided to wait and see what happened.

Assuming the flashbacks have accurate dating, the Goblin+chicken breach happened about 65 years before the start of the story (Start of Darkness, pg41). Mijung was killed 66 years before book two (Strip 276 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html)) and the gates were made sometime before 30 years prior to the start of the story, but after the Scribbler's adventuring days.

So the gates were sealed well after the goblin and chicken breach.