OOTS #1229 - The Discussion Thread

[Goblin_Priest]

Ex-Paladin
Soon's technically clean of that one.

Girard's Gate was destroyed by his reliance on "family" to keep it safe and hidden, without considering magic that would target a family lineage.
What was Serini's motif behind her defenses, "brute strenght"?

Kinda interesting that instead of using strenght to defend her Gate she's going the opposite way by bending over and helping the threat do as it pleases.

Nah, man, Miko was still raised and trained by the Saphire Guard, and a standing member of said order until just about the final moment. And for technicalities, I don't think they had the time to formerly expel her from the order. :P

Girard's defenses had a vulnerability that was exploited, but otherwise, he had nothing to do with its destruction. It's not his own trees that tore it apart. It's not his own rune that blew it up. It's not his own paladins that broke it. It's an outside entity that broke through the defenses and destroyed it. He was bested, but at least he, unlike the others, did not defeat himself.

A vote to blow the world early because it's about to get Snarl's anyway is deadlocked. The Order knows this. I wouldn't call that a ringing endorsement of "so long as one Gate is left standing we're good". It's the rate of acceleration that the last Gate controls, but that doesn't mean the world isn't still speeding towards doom. It's already accelerated four times, twice due directly to the actions of the protags at the canyon while knowing what they were doing.

I wonder: Is Serini aware of the gods' motivation to pre-emptively destroy the world, at all?

For all that Shojo invokes "the gods" as the source of his authority*, is there any evidence the Scribblers (including Soon) ever even knew about the gods' intentions? Let alone had the gods' intentions in mind, as opposed to their own motivation**?
_{* - "citation needed", as they would say on Wikipedia
** - "Keep the people-eating rifts (that could destroy the world all by themselves) enclosed"}

The Sticklers' first focus was "Stop Xykon from controlling the gates at all costs" (i.e. don't let him have even one gate no matter what). Then once they found out the gods would rather destroy the world than let the Snark do it, it became "Stop the gods from deciding to destroy the world". They've never thought of things from Serini's point of view, that destroying even one gate is like "We can blow one tire on a car traveling 70mph because hey we still have three left". But then again, she may not have thought about it from their new point of view -- not only because her focus has remained that of the Scribblers**, because she's never had the information that the gods have blown up billions of worlds and are about to do so again.

This was pretty much going to be my reply. The only people aware of what the Godsmoot was all about are the people who were at the Godsmoot, all of whom are still there, with the exception of the Order of the Stick and the select few they told the story to.

And even in the odd chance that the Order was scryed on 24/7 and that Sirini learned about the Godsmoot from the Order explaining it to others, all gates had been destroyed prior to that point. So almost nobody knows about this threat, and no gates have been destroyed since those that do have learnt it.

*shrug* that’s too bad. Then I guess Xykon will control the gate for the next infinity plus a hundred billion years.

Still better than destroying the world, I’d wager.

Him getting control of the Gate now does not decrease the odds of the Gate falling when he is defeated. It increases it.