OOTS #896 - The Discussion Thread

[Gift Jeraff]

My guess as to what the fiends are planning:

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They want all the Gates destroyed so that the Snarl will be unleashed and destroy the world, which would include the "trivial" slaughter of a bunch of metallic dragons. If they know about the world within the world, they're probably thinking the Gates are enforcing stability unto the Snarl's threads, and destroying all Gates will cause the threads to re-ravel into the Snarl.

Since the Outer Planes were said to be safe from the Snarl, unleashing it would expose a major blunder of the gods to every remaining outsider and soul. After all, it's "technically" true that their scheme is to bring down the gods of Good, and it would still be technically true if their scheme is to bring down all the gods.

I'm also guessing their original plan involved the Linear Guild reaching Girard's Gate while the Order and Xykon fought. Then Sabine was to convince Nale that it was hopeless to defend the Gate from either party, and that his best course of action was to destroy it to spite both Xykon and the OOTS. But Tarquin's interference and Sabine's banishment messed this plan up.

V's debt was only going to be called in at Kraagor's Gate, but since they have more than enough time, they can use some of it here to get things back on track.

[attriel]

Thanks Giant!

But I can't help but wonder, why post 2 1/2 pages rather than each page when you get it finished?

timing. The first page and a half is largely expository, there's no significant denouement until the end of the full.

And if he's not sure how long it'll take him/when he'll be able to finish it, he might want to hang on to it for the full effect rather than leaving his readers baffled between the 2nd and 3rd pages for a week or two

[Scrynor]

I dunno if I would call it senseless. V has been pretty mopey, introspective, and secretive ever since Darth V. Totally out of sorts. Rationale V would tell everyone but I find it plausible that V in that state would not. I don't think V really told anyone anything about his time raiding Xykon's castle. Too many questions and dire implications.

[pearl jam]

Wow! I can't wait for the next strip! I'm afraid to see what V is going to do, however....

1) No, despite his contract for the time share, V is not spiritually responsible what they do while in charge (that does not mean V's teammates can't still blame all such actions on V, just that the nigh omnipotent number crunchers in heaven won't)

2) The contract was for every second, so I do not think there is any clause that says they have to use it all in one shot.

For V's sake , I hope you are right, but I don't really see why he wouldn't be responsible for actions performed through him as a result of an agreement he made to turn himself over to their power. If it was a case of forcible demonic possession without a prior bargain, I could see that as possibly not being V's responsibility, but he signed up for this of his own accord.

[SaintRidley]

I knew there would be some debt time coming before this book ended.

Beautiful.

[rgrekejin]

...well.

I'll wait until next comic for confirmation, but I'm pretty sure I just won a bet with Forikroder concerning when the IFCC is allowed to cash in their time with V's soul.

[Forikroder]

...well.

I'll wait until next comic for confirmation, but I'm pretty sure I just won a bet with Forikroder concerning when the IFCC is allowed to cash in their time with V's soul.

quite possible, but if V is below the gate then destroying it will likely kill him unless someone manages to dig him out in time

or maybe they have some plan that will harness the power of the derstroyed gate and there telling Q to pull the switch

[KillianHawkeye]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm right back on the edge of my seat. Thanks, Giant.

Now I have to wonder if the IFCC are intervening in order to stop V from contacting Roy, or in order to help him because he wasn't getting the job done. We really still don't know anything about what they want with the gates.

[rgrekejin]

quite possible, but if V is below the gate then destroying it will likely kill him unless someone manages to dig him out in time

or maybe they have some plan that will harness the power of the derstroyed gate and there telling Q to pull the switch

Could be. We'll see.

[Saldre]

For once, I am actually posting on this thread!

Just to say- it seems that, at the end of the day (and despite his perceived incompetence), Qarr actually managed to get Vaarsuvius to go exactly where he needed to be to suit the three fiends' purpose.

[Kish]

For once, I am actually posting on this thread!

Just to say- it seems that, at the end of the day (and despite his perceived incompetence), Qarr actually managed to get Vaarsuvius to go exactly where he needed to be to suit the three fiends' purpose.

The IFCC are good at manipulating their pawns. I wonder if their orders for Qarr included, "Make sure the elf doesn't get anywhere near the gate."

[Forikroder]

The IFCC are good at manipulating their pawns. I wonder if their orders for Qarr included, "Make sure the elf doesn't get anywhere near the gate."

or maybe it was "the elf is sitting in the tunnel doing nothing we need him moving give him a good kick then we need you to go here and when we say now activate the rune dont let the elf know"

still though if they do take control of V now to what end? hes still stuck in the tunnel so the most they can do is prevent him from trying to warn Roy any farther

[SteveDJ]

quite possible, but if V is below the gate then destroying it will likely kill him unless someone manages to dig him out in time

Now I have to wonder if the IFCC are intervening in order to stop V from contacting Roy, or in order to help him because he wasn't getting the job done. We really still don't know anything about what they want with the gates.

These two thoughts, combined. I'm thinking that only the one member of IFCC will take his "time" (the short time of 3 minutes, 6 seconds) just to "help" V get out of the situation -- perhaps to PassWall to Roy... perhaps even to stop the gate's destruction, or more likely at least use the "return of V" to distract and delay Roy from destroying the gate until Xykon arrives...???

[Nymrod]

I know of a great endgame for the IFCC. They want the world inside the gates for their own.
The world inside the gates is likely a godless world. That means that any souls that die in there end up on the plane of their alignment as base petitioners, unassigned to any gods. If the fiends get their hands on such a world they will corrupt its cultures so as to produce evil people, souls that will later become larva for the fiendish races. This can give them the boost they need, both in personal power (if they are the highest-up fiends in the chain of corruption) as well as bargaining power with the rest of the lower planes.

[nogall]

Great, great strip.

One minor detail is that it also shows how the defense of the gate was supposed to be better than it turned out to when everybody died. Not only traps, illusions and stuff, but also a set of tunnels that would allow for a more efficient oversight and action over the invaders.

[Knight.Anon]

Its going to take Tarquin part of a free action to see the double bluff when the Vamp squad checks in, and come running with what ever surprise he has. Nale is literally running there to prove to Tarquin what an idiot he is.

So is Dark V going to sit and stew, suicide by self or party, or try to destroy the gate?

All we need now is for X to gate in and it would be perfect chaos.

Also I loved the expression of contempt that Belkar had for the vampires in the last strip. I'm surprised that he was the only one pissed off.

[Sir_Leorik]

First, when I do a strip like this, I finish all of them at the same time. I don't finish one page, then the next; I do all the text, then all the foreground characters, then all the backgrounds, then the speech balloons.

Second, because this is the proper chunk of story to be read at one time. Each strip needs to end with a punchline or a dramatic moment; releasing the first or second page of this strip by itself would have left each one ending with a transitional exposition moment instead of an impact moment. While I try to get one impact moment per page, sometimes it's better to build up tension over more than one page before springing the end panel.

And third, by releasing them all as one giant strip, people can't speculate and predict (and spoil for themselves) what is going to happen between the first panel (when V comes back into the story) and the last panel. There's no time for everyone to debate three dozen theories and all agree that yeah, such-and-such is probably going to happen. And then when it does, no one is surprised.

I've noticed that a lot of the recent strips have been formatted this way (one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half pages of comic). From a technical standpoint, how will that impact the format of the print volume? Will you make some of the half pages larger, the way the panel of Roy jumping onto Xykon's Zombie Dragon became a two page "splash page"?

[exenia]

Oh man... right as V starts toward redeeming good deeds/intentions! (though, what else would you expect from fiends?)

Crazy left-field early prediction!

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V owes time to each of the IFCC bosses. We don't know if that means they can control/release V in tiny increments, but they will definitely get at least 3 turns. They're masters of evil works, they can wreck more in 5 minutes than Darth V's whole duration.

So I predict: Something REALLY bad happens on this first round of payback, to the point V can't stand the idea of being their puppet again later. Not to mention the whole possible damnation hanging there that would put V in their service forever.
As a result, V will go into a rift willingly, even if it means facing the Snarl and being erased.

There is so much stuff coming together in the next 10-20 strips, eeeeee.

[Garwain]

I don't understand why the 'planet inside the rift' is such a revelation.

By now, everybody in Gobbotopia has stared into the rift, given the size of it. And Gobbotopia is supposed to have worked itself up, made allies, probably some trade routes etc... so I would assume that such worldshattering news travels fast to become common knowledge.

So everybody knows instead of a few adventurers who are pyramid crawling?

[RedneckTex95]

Hmmm. I wonder why the IFCC chose to take control of V right now, instead of later, like at the final showdown...? Maybe y'all are right about the IFCC not wanting V to get near the gate, or making contacting with Roy.

But the Order is screwed if the IFCC makes V attack them. Maybe we are about to see the end of poor Belkar

It'll be amazing to see how it all comes together. Great job Giant!

[eras10]

I don't understand what the IFCC can do with V, or even Darth V, in 45 minutes.
I'm trying to think it through.

Thoughts:

First - given the timing of the IFCC's intervention, they seem to want the gate destroyed? It seems like they're going through an awful lot of trouble to go to secure an outcome that's already been happening naturally anyway. Still, their timing here almost seems to make it inarguable, and it fits with what they've spoken about regarding their tactical goals. They did say "the worst thing that could happen would be a victory by either team". And a victory by either team probably leads to the gates NOT being destroyed. Whereas destructive, unneccessary, somewhat balanced conflict leads to a highly likelihood of blowing the gates, especially since Xykon is stronger than the OOTS so they will, as they have been, be repeatedly tempted to blow them up to stop Xykon.

So they want the gates blown. I really don't get how releasing the Snarl helps destroy the Gods of good. And I also don't see how the gates can be used as part of an evil plan with only 45 minutes for V to cast rituals on them. It's going to seem cheap if "Demonic hellspawn ritual only takes 15 minutes and doesn't require a divine caster" is where this goes. I think Rich is too clever for a derivative move like that.

If there is no Snarl, and the gates have... some other purpose... why does destroying them lead to gigantic rifts in the OOTS-dimension-planet? Is there some gigantic army of hellspawn out there being held back by these gates?

I also have two more things I'm wondering about. First, if Darth V emerges to wipe the floor with OOTS, which it seems like she could... it's kind of redundant. Because OOTS was going to blow the gate anyway. Again, if the fiends are trying to take physical possession of the gate for more than 45 minutes, this plan doesn't work, especially if any of the other forces that want it are alive. Thus, one possibility for what happens next is that Darth V is going to go out and wipe the floor with the Linear Guild and Team Evil? Leaving the OOTS to blow the gate anyway? (can we even guarantee that will work? Xykon managed to beat Darth V once already).

Another possibility is that Darth V comes and does a big booga-booga move to threaten the OOTS into blowing the gate right now. But several problems - first of all, the OOTS aren't going to blow the gate at the first sign of *Vaarsiuvius*, so there will have to be a bunch of almost-but-deliberately-not-deadly fighting. I don't see that.

More importantly, though, if The fiends want the gates just destroyed, you have to believe they want ALL of them destroyed. 45 minutes from now, they will be back to having zero earth agents of any real capability. If the plan is, for example, to wipe out OOTS and have Darth V blow the gate herself.. they still have a very, very short time to then go to, precisely locate, and destroy Kraagor's gate despite the hoard of ultra-powerful boss monsters.

And if that's not part of the plan for this 45 minutes, then I don't see how the IFCC gets more than one blown gate out of this. And with the OOTS very crippled, who's going to stop Team Xykon from just curbstomping their way to Gate Five, ASAP?

So many questions...

[LadyEowyn]

Hello, Wall of Text!

Everything's come together now. I suspect Rich had hoped this would be a bit more of a surprise (a lot of people, including me, probably wouldn't have see the V-possession coming if other fans hadn't predicted it) but it's still a very dramatic development. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

And now we know why V had to stay separated from the rest of the party for so long - so that he wouldn't have a chance to tell them about Familicide before the fiends took control. Things look likely to go very, very bad for him.

Also, ha! I'd forgotten Belkar wasn't present during all the explanations about the Snarl.

[Giggling Ghast]

First - given the timing of the IFCC's intervention, they seem to want the gate destroyed?

If that's their intention, then all they need to do is make V shut his/her mouth and dismiss Blackwing. Pretty simple.

Also, they don't necessarily need to use up all of their 'Soul Splice minutes' in one go.

One question I have: why would V assume the destruction of the gate also means the destruction of the inner world?

[nerd-7i+42e]

Oh... no...

But morals aside, there's another, much more basic reason not to destroy the gate (sorry if this has already been said, I didn't have time to read the whole thread): the Order will all die. This is what happened when the first gate was destroyed. This is what happened when the second gate was destroyed. Do you really want to be at the center of that?

[Torvaun]

Can that actually work? I mean, can a set of rooms be designed so you can hear one room, but the other room cant hear you? It just seems that if sound can pass in one direction, it should be able to go the other way too right? Also, I cant wait to see what the "now" is going to do.

Yes. The top of that chamber appears to be parabolic. It would be focusing the sound waves that pass through the rock onto a single point. Anything within the room is easier to hear, while any noise from the chamber would be diffused throughout the room.

[AutomatedTeller]

I think the idea that V is right where the IFCC wants V to be is purely dependent on what action they want V to take. if they want the gate to be destroyed, then probably, they didn't want V there. if they want the gate to not be destroyed and to terrify V more... well, this will work.

[eras10]

still though if they do take control of V now to what end? hes still stuck in the tunnel so the most they can do is prevent him from trying to warn Roy any farther

Odds are pretty high that the contract comes with some re-activated soul splices.

V is weak and trapped right now - it would be a serious anticlimax if the possession process didn't come with a return of superpowers.

Again, for me, the question is what the fiends can do, even with one superpowered wizard, in 45 minutes. Maybe blow one gate, or kill everyone at this location. But there's a fifth gate with intact defenses, and it would be weird if the evil plan requires only 4 of 5 gates down.

The only thing I can think of is that the fiends plan to do something with physical control of this gate by someone they also control - enabling it to warp in something bad that can control the area by itself.

I don't see a successful play for Gate 5 in the next 50 strips. I mean, maybe...

Also, the empire of blood can put quite a large number of troops in this spot. Just sayin'. I think the gate is history. Again, the IFCC's move seems almost superflous (though dramatic and extremely enjoyable to read) - unless the big reveal is that Xykon seizing the gate would have been harmless since everyone is totally wrong, including the Dark One, about what it all means, the OOTS would have blown it anyway, whatever V would have said. And V doesn't know that. Leaving it intact for X to take would have been the biggest risk you can imagine.

Oh well, I have every confidence that, through Rich, the fiends have thought of a way to deal with the intact Kraggor's gate.

[eras10]

Also, they don't necessarily need to use up all of their 'Soul Splice minutes' in one go

I don't agree with this. After they take control of V once, V will know it can happen again. She's not dumb enough to avoid figuring out what happened. She'd kill herself before allowing herself to be used to farther the world's destruction. This is the fiends' only shot.

Also, more dramatic this way.

I suppose, in theory, we could have a "race to save V's soul before they take control of her again" thing going, but I personally doubt it.

[Saldre]

The IFCC are good at manipulating their pawns. I wonder if their orders for Qarr included, "Make sure the elf doesn't get anywhere near the gate."

You're right that we can't be sure- though I hope that's not the case: I find that Qarr has been depicted to be smarter than MitD.

Its my opinion that an attempted manipulation by the IFCC, which underestimates the Imp to that extent "could" have backfired- as he's clearly been shown to both take initiative and be rather relentless instead of simply giving up the chase like MitD did with Miko.

So although they could have not given him specific instruction as to where they wanted the elf to end up, ultimately, I don't think they would have given instructions to ensure the opposite. After all, they described him as a "Go Getter" and he was able to see trough their original plan B proposition."

*Edit- Sorry about that, but I've thought of something else: even though it was a running Gag, ultimately- the fact that the Daemons don't know themselves if V is a She/He/It, points towards the fact that they are not omnipotent. [I am using this instead of the direct reference of Qarr himself that says that should not have known some things without observing them themselves, as his opinion MIGHT be biased and/or ignorant.] Only very clever, perceptive and adept at long term planning and pattern recognition.

[Sir_Leorik]

Magnificent!

"Now." No grand speeches, no theatrics. The IFCC know that less is more. (And what's more impressive is that Director Cedrik is a Demon! D&D Demons are not usually known for their restraint.)

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I guess the IFCC's plans for the Gate are to have them destroyed. Remember when Director Lee had to promise Tiamat that the IFCC would destroy five Good Dragons for every Black Dragon V killed with Familicide? Director Cedrik's response is that if their plans come to fruition, such an outcome will be trivial. Why? Because they are planning to destroy the Gates, release the Snarl and watch from the safety of the Lower Planes as it consumes the OotS' world (and the World inside the Rift). They really aren't on Xykon and Redcloak's side after all.

All Director Cedrik has to do is possess V and make her keep quiet (or better yet flee the pyramid) while Roy destroys the Gate. At most Cedrik needs to spend five minutes of his allotted time to keep V from interfering.

In response to those who argue that the IFCC can't use their allotted time to possess V, the IFCC were highly concerned that V would not escape from Xykon, and more to the point, they never told V that they would get her soul after she died. That was Vaarsuvius' own assumption. The IFCC, as master manipulators, deigned not to correct that unspoken assumption.

I suppose we'll all learn exactly how the IFCC's control of V's soul works next strip, but Cedrik possessing V's body is the most logical possibility for advancing the IFCC's scheme. The real question is: how does releasing the Snarl help the Fiends? The Lower Planes would be in just as much danger from the Snarl as the Upper Planes, the souls of everyone on two worlds would be snuffed out (meaning no Larvae to turn into new Devils, Demons or Yugoloths) and no more mortals to ever tempt. We're missing an important part of the IFCC's long-term plans, and that is worrying!