OOTS #1139 - The Discussion Thread

[Doug Lampert]

WarCraft III's Acolyte: "Where's the harm? In 100 years they'd all be dead anyway."
Discworld's St Brutha: "Maybe so. But, right here, right now, we are alive."*

Every conflict is insignificant at the scale of the universe. That doesn't make them unimportant.

Yeah, just last comic we had a demonstration of which alignment can have "nothing matters" as its motto. In our world, they issue you a death when they issue you a life. Date of delivery of the death is all that's uncertain about the death part.

But what you do in between is still important.

But, right here, right now, we are alive.

[Chantelune]

Woah... That actually sent a chill down my spine.

[Worldsong]

If you know you'll be dead in a few years, you'll spend that time enjoying life, not trying to secure a lifetime of power.

We're all aware we're going to die, but that's not stopping some people from spending all their time trying to get as powerful and influential as possible.

[Shining Wrath]

Given the Law of Large Numbers, there must have been times the Snarl got free and the gods had to flee, and other times the gods destroyed the world and remade it. Evidently the Snarl can't reach the astral plane (does it have no thoughts?) so the gods can simply flee and make a new world to contain it; perhaps, like hags, they can touch something on the Prime Material Plane without entering it.

Now ... Thor told Durkon he needed Durkon to do something for him. And as part of that request, he's showing Durkon this graveyard of dead worlds.

Either Thor wants Durkon to save the world by resealing the Gates, or Thor wants Durkon to let the Snarl out so it can eat all the gods and end this cycle of destruction and recreation.

[Windscion]

I guess the Order of the Stick are the first ones who can break this pattern, and for that reason they should fight. But the others... why bother?

Because otherwise nothing will get better, and hope is what gets a lot of people out of bed in the morning. Compare Therkla's reaction (in GDGU) to having her future told.

[Skull the Troll]

I wonder if those gravestones wouldn't represent all the campaign worlds that have been abandonned over the years once the GM and players got bored and started playing a different game.

Or perhaps the ones where the players argued until no one wanted to play anymore? Probably too meta, but its a fun idea.

[Alaska Fan]

Ha!


And yeah, this one got me with a gobsmacked, wide-eyed, prolonged gasp.

I want to commend Rich on his use of the medium of the computer screen. Part of what makes this such a shocker is that you keep scrolling and scrolling and more and more tombstones are revealed. A powerful piece of reveal is made still more powerful by the technique used to convey it. Nice!

[Ninja Dragon]

That was sobering.

I guess that puts the lore of the Sapphire Guard in context now. They believe the gods had to choose between starting anew to make a prison the Snarl couldn't escape from, or going with the Gates thing even though they knew that wouldn't fix the problem forever. Clearly, that's not the case, because any remade prison is liable to become unstable and fail after all. It's pretty obvious why the Twelve would keep that particular detail hidden from their followers, though.

At some point, maybe the gods should have given up on populating their worlds, out of a sense of moral responsibility. But I imagine they simply can't - that creative impulse must be part of their natures. And hey, maybe they figured out early on how to do a controlled demolition of the world and save everyone's souls, so that only the first few cases resulted in everybody being eaten by the Snarl, in which case maybe they could argue that it was still worth it.

I think the gods are locked into representing ideas and pursuing their default goals, because that's just what they do. Thor is a hero, he helps the mortals and he fights monsters. Loki schemes against other gods. Hel tries to collect souls and become more powerful than Odin. And so on.

They can't do differently, because they exist to do those things. And they can't help trying to create new worlds, because they exist to do that too. It's what their being is about. So they never quit.

It's the mortals who can make changes. The only hope for defeating the Snarl and creating a permanent world lies with the mortals, because only them have the ability to break from patterns. They gods can only keep repeating their patterns over and over.

[Lord_Drayakir]

Wow. Look at what happens when you stop virtue signalling and focusing on characters nobody cares about - you get actual plot and an interesting complication! I'm actually mildly interested now!

[rkyeun]

On the topic of why it matters that Hel gets all currently living dwarves if there are millions of previous worlds. Maybe the "soul power" of dead souls diminish over time. This would make the sudden influx of dead dwarven souls constitute a large portion of total "soul power" even though they are only a small part of all souls ever (not killed by the Snarl). Hel could use that to elevate herself to the top position of the Northern pantheon and thereafter use her new powers over the pantheon (whatever they are) to maintain that position.

It... it really is just a bet, with no ulterior motive, just for gambling points and chips. Don't you see? It doesn't MATTER how powerful they are or aren't. Power is MEANINGLESS. Let's say Hel is the most powerful, and has a thousand worlds of dwarf souls behind her. SHE CAN'T DO GREASE WITH IT, because conflict creates another Snarl. The bet is POINTLESS. Aside from keeping gods alive and making new worlds, the ACQUISITION OF SOULS is pointless. You can't FIGHT each other. If you just have a disagreement too hard while making worlds, you get Snarls.

[137beth]

Wow! I did not expect that we were on anything but the second world.

[Mightymosy]

Wow. That's the bleakest comic since #84. Ugh.

[Ninja Dragon]

Because otherwise nothing will get better, and hope is what gets a lot of people out of bed in the morning. Compare Therkla's reaction (in GDGU) to having her future told.

My point isn't that mortals shouldn't try anything, it's that the specific things they are trying are pointless given the lack of information they have about the bigger picture.

Xykon is the best example of that. He believes he's in some grand scheme of power grabbing but he's only speeding up his own death.

[Cinnibar]

Holy.....

The very end result of "Never give up, never surrender!"

[NRSASD]

Yeah, just last comic we had a demonstration of which alignment can have "nothing matters" as its motto. In our world, they issue you a death when they issue you a life. Date of delivery of the death is all that's uncertain about the death part.

But what you do in between is still important.

But, right here, right now, we are alive.

To quote Babylon 5:

Dr. Stephen Franklin: I realize that I always defined myself in terms of what I wasn't. I wasn't a good soldier like my father. I wasn't the job. I wasn't a good prospect for marriage or kids. Always what I wasn't, never what I was. And when you do that, you miss the moments. And the moments are all we've got. When I thought I was going to die, even after everything that's happened, I realized I didn't want to let go. I was willing to do it all over again, and this time I could appreciate the moments. I can't go back, but I can appreciate what I have right now. And I can define myself by what I am instead of what I'm not.

Captain John Sheridan: And what are you?

Dr. Stephen Franklin: Alive. Everything else is negotiable.


I think Thor's final sentence would make a good epitaph for humanity. "We gods humans may have a lot of bad qualities, but we sure aren't quitters."

[Fyraltari]

I know but, some of those things don't even make sense when you have all the information.

Just how long does Hel expect to hold power, and why does it even matter compared to all the time she has lived?

How long has Odin held it?

And the others... Redcloak would probably give up and switch to a plan that involved negotiating future worlds if he knew what was coming.

Why? The Goblins alive now can be at the top if plan A suceeds.

Xykon would go back to mudering random people.

That's what Xykon plans to do once he's emperor of the world, anyway.

Maybe the Order of the Scribble could actually accomplish something with the gates, I don't know. But if they can't, what was the point?

Saving as much people from the Snarl as possible?

If you know you'll be dead in a few years, you'll spend that time enjoying life, not trying to secure a lifetime of power.

Who said anything about a few years?

I guess the Order of the Stick are the first ones who can break this pattern, and for that reason they should fight. But the others... why bother?

Why not?

Evidently the Snarl can't reach the astral plane (does it have no thoughts?)

Roy can't reach the Astral plane either and yet he has thoughts.

Either Thor wants Durkon to save the world by resealing the Gates, or Thor wants Durkon to let the Snarl out so it can eat all the gods and end this cycle of destruction and recreation.

Why would Thor do that? He doesn't appear particularly depressed and he cares for his followers individually. Yeah the worlds keeping getting destroyed suck majorly, but if the Gods had stopped making worlds, Minrah, for example would have never been alive in the first place?

Or perhaps the ones where the players argued until no one wanted to play anymore? Probably too meta, but its a fun idea.

That's the Order of the Scribble, though.

[Minty]

Wow.

Although, oddly similar to the resting place of the Ace Rimmers in Red Dwarf...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qUmB0sUUSk

"They all did it. They all became Ace..."

[Barmoz]

This sounds like you've exchanged "Good vs Evil" with "Order vs Chaos"

Compassion is an extremely important part of being Good. Even if you're a representation of the concept of Good I highly doubt you'd stop caring because you're too busy being mad at the Evil gods.

I see what you're saying, but I don't agree. I might have not explained my thought well enough. Compassion is absolutely part of being good, but a being of pure good, be they chaotic or lawful etc. can't ever act evil, because they exist as foundational stones of a specific morality, they don't have the flexibility. Because a deity knows it always acts according to good, it can't possibly feel personal guilt, because it wouldn't change it's opinions or behaviors.

Look at the godsmoot, the gods appoint proxies to act on their behalf etc. and as someone earlier in the thread suggested it's probably to prevent the creation of another snarl, they take steps to avoid bringing their reality altering powers into direct conflict, but they don't do anything to change their own natures, because they aren't capable of it. Taking steps to prevent another snarl is the closest they can come, because they aren't capable of second guessing themselves.

[Worldsong]

I think Thor's final sentence would make a good epitaph for humanity. "We gods humans may have a lot of bad qualities, but we sure aren't quitters."

I feel like that's the story of life in general.

Life is many things, but it doesn't give up easily. Very much so, since everything which DOES give up easily is dead.

[hamishspence]

I see what you're saying, but I don't agree. I might have not explained my thought well enough. Compassion is absolutely part of being good, but a being of pure good, be they chaotic or lawful etc. can't ever act evil, because they exist as foundational stones of a specific morality, they don't have the flexibility.

Since when were D&D deities ever portrayed as "beings of pure good"? Mostly they tend to be "as morally flexible as mortals".

[Ninja Dragon]

Who said anything about a few years?

The gods, and the fact they just had a voting to decide if they should unmake the world given the incoming Snarl escape.

[Psychronia]

I'm getting chills. Good Thor this is...what even is this? Should I be horrified? Terrified? Angry and indignant? Whatever the case, it definitely worked and kudos to The Giant.

...Well, hey. On the bright side, it turns out history is a lot, lot longer than what Blackwing thought.

[Darkhands]

How long are the odds on "The Dark One is actually the Snarl"?

I mean... He wants the gates destroyed. He wants to become a god. He has (potentially) quintillions of souls saved up, and with that much soul power, would be a god to the gods...

[JavaScribe]

Is this one of the first few worlds that was stable enough to produce ascended mortals? Or is the Dark One's backup plan doomed to failure, since there don't exactly seem to be thousands of ascended mortals from previous worlds?

[Rawr]

Holy @#%$!

[Seto]

Wow, big surprise. Wasn't expecting that at all - I'll need to take a moment to consider all the implications and ramifications.

Also, I have some newfound respect for the gods. If not right, it now seems more understandable that they're considering destroying the world - they have witnessed countless worlds being destroyed, what's another one? And even more respect for the gods who DIDN'T adopt that train of thought, who voted "No", who are proving capable of valuing mortal lives and worlds enough to still give them a chance, even when lesser creatures would have given up long before.

[Worldsong]

I see what you're saying, but I don't agree. I might have not explained my thought well enough. Compassion is absolutely part of being good, but a being of pure good, be they chaotic or lawful etc. can't ever act evil, because they exist as foundational stones of a specific morality, they don't have the flexibility. Because a deity knows it always acts according to good, it can't possibly feel personal guilt, because it wouldn't change it's opinions or behaviors.

Look at the godsmoot, the gods appoint proxies to act on their behalf etc. and as someone earlier in the thread suggested it's probably to prevent the creation of another snarl, they take steps to avoid bringing their reality altering powers into direct conflict, but they don't do anything to change their own natures, because they aren't capable of it. Taking steps to prevent another snarl is the closest they can come, because they aren't capable of second guessing themselves.

I understand the line of reasoning and it does make sense, but I would still like to provide two arguments for my own position.

The first one is that even if a Good god is incapable of being Evil they might still be capable of being wrong, not caused by malicious intent but by incompetence or limited information. A Good god could look at the gravestone of a lost world and think about how even if every action they took was ethically correct, they still didn't save as many souls as they would have liked. They can think about what other completely ethical actions they could take that might be more successful (since the idea of there being only one correct path is usually assigned to Lawful Neutral, possibly Lawful Good).

The second is that you don't need to be locked into only being able to take certain types of actions to be incapable of changing your ways for the better. People seem to do that all the time and we humans are supposed to have full freedom of choice.

[Emperor Time]

I know but, some of those things don't even make sense when you have all the information.

Just how long does Hel expect to hold power, and why does it even matter compared to all the time she has lived?

And the others... Redcloak would probably give up and switch to a plan that involved negotiating future worlds if he knew what was coming. Xykon would go back to mudering random people.

Maybe the Order of the Scribble could actually accomplish something with the gates, I don't know. But if they can't, what was the point?

If you know you'll be dead in a few years, you'll spend that time enjoying life, not trying to secure a lifetime of power.

I guess the Order of the Stick are the first ones who can break this pattern, and for that reason they should fight. But the others... why bother?

And we know that the Order will have some kind of victory or else the Oracle saying that at least Elan will have a happy ending will not come to pass which is impossible.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'm guessing the elf and dwarf ascended deities are also unique to this world. Raising the question - what's made this world so different from the past ones?

They depend on the belief of the mortals to exist. Any previous such deities probably died when the souls of the believers got devoured.

Bit of an oversight for the Dark One, I'd say, but that's what you get when you trust the info provided by other Evil deities.

---

This does put Loki's argument about waiting for the Snarl to set itself free in a new light, I think. If they blow up the world now, everyone's souls in it get to go to an afterlife. If they wait for the Snarl, the souls get eaten. A small price to pay for Loki, but quite the bill for any god that gives half a damn about their followers.

Grey Wolf

[Snails]

"They all did it. They all became Ace..."

Good catch. Kudos and thanks, for providing link!