OOTS #1157 - The Discussion Thread.

[Ganbatte]

But she didn’t have to because, like we repeated ad nauseum last thread, you cannot defend against everything, vampires are ridiculously rare and thus not only not worth focusing on

And as we repeated ad nauseum last thread the mortal defenses and/or supposed rarity of the vampires never mattered.
Dvalin's divine presence hovering above the process does, in a setting that's been proved to have the gods able to look down and care for the world beneath and so putting doubts as of how the vampires intend to put the wool over his eyes, doubts yet to be dispelled by the comic.

The idea of expressing the will of the council through some impersonal method that means Dvalin can’t tell who voted for what is likely intentional to prevent Dvalin from interfering

This doesn't make much sense since if Dvalin had the character necessary for "interfering" we wouldn't be having this final vote in the first place.
He would've just said "then I vote no, the dwarves won't all go to hell" and be done with it.
It's exactly because he's duty bound to the extreme that this is all happening, so the notion that this supposed absence of information of any kind is intentional to prevent him from interfering runs contrary to the character that we've been told about.

and in this case has the unintentional consequence of preventing him from seeing swirly eyes. And most importantly, no one is behavibg stupidly or holding any idiot balls.

Aside of the fact that we don't know if this is actually the case, still disagree on the last part as nothing changed from the previous discussion in terms of actual information.

I'm..having trouble following you here. What exactly are you suggesting?

I'm suggesting that Dio's depiction of our "ideas" was overly exaggerated and thus I removed that exaggeration to more closely resemble our actual thoughts. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Krenn]

Some people above did not read the strip carefully. The blue barrier doesn't just prevent (by turning to stone) people from attacking or casting spells, it does that for any one violating Dwarven law. That would I suspect, include casting Silence and probably some other actions proposed above. Most likely even breaking the ceiling to let in sunlight, since that damages property. Now maybe the ceiling could be broken from outside and that wouldn't trigger the barrier spell.

Although.... I'm a little surprised at how flexible dwarven law apparently is.

"Being a vampire" isn't a violation?

"Using domination to alter a council vote" isn't a violation?

"Wilfully taking advantage of someone in a dominated state" isn't a violation?

Failure to report a crime? Willfull concealment of a crime? Attempted Mass Suicide?

[Dion]

Nope, I'm correcting that needlessly complicated presentation to a more simple and fair one.

Maybe it will happen. I can think of three reasons it probably won’t hppen.

1) if Dvalin cares about interference, he probably already knows, because his high priest is able to tell him

2) if Dvalin were able to break his oath and ignore the will of the council (as expressed through a vote that followed all the rules, which are themselves the carefully expressed will of the council), Hel probably would have chosen a different plan

3) the name of the comic isn’t “The Order of the Minor Dwarven Gods Playing Cheap Rule Lawyer Games”

[Aveline]

Vampires *are* rare, and their rarity *does* matter. There are so very many many rare threats (or not-all-that-rare, depending on your perspective) that any attempt to guard against them all would inevitably contradict itself.

The gods do not watch over all that ever happens. Correct me if I'm wrong but every canon example of a god taking notice of the mortal plane involves them actively observing, and more importantly, a cleric of that god.

As was recently pointed out, Dvalin is not actually aware of the vampires and has no reason to suspect the voting process will be illegitimate - and as I pointed out last thread, he is probably conflicted from observing the proceedings anyway.

[Ganbatte]

Maybe it will happen. I can think of three reasons it probably won’t hppen.

1) if Dvalin cares about interference, he probably already knows, because his high priest is able to tell him

2) if Dvalin were able to break his oath and ignore the will of the council (as expressed through a vote that followed all the rules, that are themselves the will of the council), Hel probably would have chosen a different plan

The thing is the comic says nothing about this so doubts are legitimate.
Especially your second point, there's absolutely nothing telling us that the council's dominated vote would count as a valid expression of the "will of the council".

After all, a mere kernel of basic logic would have anyone admit that someone hypnotized and forced to say "yes" isn't expressing his will.... and it's their will, not their vote, to which Dvalin is bound to.

[Fyraltari]

And as we repeated ad nauseum last thread the mortal defenses and/or supposed rarity of the vampires never mattered.
Dvalin's divine presence hovering above the process does, in a setting that's been proved to have the gods able to look down and care for the world beneath and so putting doubts as of how the vampires intend to put the wool over his eyes, doubts yet to be dispelled by the comic.

What hovering presence? Why do you assume the vote will involve Dvalin scrying on the council rather than, say, them having a device with a "No" and a "Yes" button they can press to send that message to the demigod?

[Dion]

As was recently pointed out, Dvalin is not actually aware of the vampires

We don’t know if he’s aware. The strip has shown us at least three ways he could find out:

(1) his high priest knows, and we have examples on panel of high priests talking directly to their god

(2) even though summon proxy doesn’t let gods hear mortals, we have examples on panel of gods observing important events directly in other ways,

(3) other gods know about the plan, and we have examples on panel of gods talking to each other.

Maybe Dvali already knows Hel’s plan Maybe Dvalin doesn’t already know Hel’s plan. We don’t have enough information to make assumptions one way or the other.

[Ganbatte]

What hovering presence? Why do you assume the vote will involve Dvalin scrying on the council rather than, say, them having a device with a "No" and a "Yes" button they can press to send that message to the demigod?

There's a 30-or-so long thread about this you can go dig up, I'm not gonna start this over again.

[woweedd]

And as we repeated ad nauseum last thread the mortal defenses and/or supposed rarity of the vampires never mattered.
Dvalin's divine presence hovering above the process does, in a setting that's been proved to have the gods able to look down and care for the world beneath and so putting doubts as of how the vampires intend to put the wool over his eyes, doubts yet to be dispelled by the comic.



This doesn't make much sense since if Dvalin had the character necessary for "interfering" we wouldn't be having this final vote in the first place.
He would've just said "then I vote no, the dwarves won't all go to hell" and be done with it.
It's exactly because he's duty bound to the extreme that this is all happening, so the notion that this supposed absence of information of any kind is intentional to prevent him from interfering runs contrary to the character that we've been told about.



Aside of the fact that we don't know if this is actually the case, still disagree on the last part as nothing changed from the previous discussion in terms of actual information.



I'm suggesting that Dio's depiction of our "ideas" was overly exaggerated and thus I removed that exaggeration to more closely resemble our actual thoughts. Nothing more, nothing less.

Firstly, i'm gonna guess that this conflict will be resolved by...see the title of the comic, and, furthermore, will be done so in such a way that, were they not present, it wouldn't have gotten resolved. Furthermore, why are you assuming that Davlin has the captivity or desire to watch in person? He's a Demigod, and even full gods aren't all-knowing, excepting maybe Rooster, Tiamat, and Odin, depending on how one defines that erm.

[Krenn]

Although.... I'm a little surprised at how flexible dwarven law apparently is.

"Being a vampire" isn't a violation?

"Using domination to alter a council vote" isn't a violation?

"Wilfully taking advantage of someone in a dominated state" isn't a violation?

Failure to report a crime? Willfull concealment of a crime? Attempted Mass Suicide?

Also, wait.... he didn't say the SPELL forbids attacking people, he said the LAW forbids attacking people, and then the Spell causes law-breakers to turn to stone...

Doesn't Dwarven Law include a "defense of others, or otherwise clear neccessity" affirmative defense clause?

I mean, even if it's not technically written down, most bodies of law have all sorts of implied exceptions and standardized defenses, which the courts will generally recgonize as being legally valid...

Technically, "THE LAW" refers to both what is written down, AND the standard and routine methods of interpreting or applying what is actually written down..

[Fyraltari]

There's a 30-or-so long thread about this you can go dig up, I'm not gonna start this over again.

Yeah, and you never answered that question in it. You have no indication one way or the other and one way makes the story have no sense so why not accept that it is not the way it is going to go down?

[Aveline]

There's a 30-or-so long thread about this you can go dig up, I'm not gonna start this over again.

This matter is not settled (although it ought to be), and it cannot be used to support another argument until it is. "Just read the thread again" is equally applicable to both sides: it is worthless.

If your concerns are that there is not enough information to fully describe the story, and that this leaves you with doubts, then please have patience and continue reading the strip. Rich is working very hard and I assure you that none of the recent panels are wasted.

[Kish]

Although.... I'm a little surprised at how flexible dwarven law apparently is.

"Being a vampire" isn't a violation?

"Using domination to alter a council vote" isn't a violation?

"Wilfully taking advantage of someone in a dominated state" isn't a violation?

Failure to report a crime? Willfull concealment of a crime? Attempted Mass Suicide?

These are all a mix of "it would be bizarre if that was illegal" and "no one's doing that."

"Being a vampire" is something that would be bizarre if it was illegal.

"Using domination [any further words]" is something no one is doing past the blue barrier; spelling that out is the primary point of the latest strip.

"Willfully taking advantage of someone in a dominated state" would be redundant with a law against Domination; it would only apply in a situation like this one where the law starts being enforced on stepping between rooms, and laws aren't written for that sort of situation. A vampire also mentioned that the people who designed the defenses might have wanted to keep the ability to use mind control to stack the vote available to themselves.

"It's a crime to not report a crime" taken to the level of "everyone past the blue barrier must immediately seek out an authority to inform that they saw someone double-parked outside or turn to stone" would prevent the Council from functioning, ever. It also strikes me as vaguely Orwellian. Some people should absolutely be required to report specific crimes (e.g., nurses and teachers with evidence of child abuse). A society which went as broad as "everyone is legally required to report every crime" would strike me as somewhere between LN and LE (or NE or CE, depending on whether the intent of that law was actually to be obeyed or to set up a situation where everyone was guilty of a crime and could be arrested if the party making the law wanted them to be).

"Willful concealmant of a crime" is either vague to the point of meaninglessness or a wordier phrasing of the prior claimed crime.

"Attempted mass suicide" is something no one is doing. The dominated dwarves are saying "Yes" in a haze. The vampires are 1) already dead and thus unable to commit suicide, and 2) apparently planning to Plane Shift out of the end of the world. It's also, I think, pretty obvious that nothing that's being brought to a Council vote is an "it's illegal to vote Yes" situation.

[Dion]

There's a 30-or-so long thread about this you can go dig up, I'm not gonna start this over again.

That thread seemed to boil down to this:

Everyone seems to agree that Rich has constructed a world where Dvalin and the other gods will probably follow the rules and will not simply ignore the will of the council (as expressed through their vote).

But a lot of people find the world that Rich has constructed to be somewhat improbable.

I personally agree with both of those views.

[Caerulea]

"Being a vampire" should not be a violation of dwarven law. According to The Giant, there are good / not evil vampires. Their existence shouldn't be criminalised.

—Caerulea

[Draconi Redfir]

thought just occurred to me while reading this thread.

you turn to stone if you do any violent acts inside that second barrier.

i'll bet you that's how Belkar dies, probably doing something heroic to save the day and snap all / enough of the dwarves out of it in the process.

[Krenn]

These are all a mix of "it would be bizarre if that was illegal" and "no one's doing that."

"Being a vampire" is something that would be bizarre if it was illegal.

"Using domination [any further words]" is something no one is doing past the blue barrier; spelling that out is the primary point of the latest strip.

"Willfully taking advantage of someone in a dominated state" would be redundant with a law against Domination; it would only apply in a situation like this one where the law starts being enforced on stepping between rooms, and laws aren't written for that sort of situation. A vampire also mentioned that the people who designed the defenses might have wanted to keep the ability to use mind control to stack the vote available to themselves.

"It's a crime to not report a crime" taken to the level of "everyone past the blue barrier must immediately seek out an authority to inform that they saw someone double-parked outside or turn to stone" would prevent the Council from functioning, ever. It also strikes me as vaguely Orwellian. Some people should absolutely be required to report specific crimes (e.g., nurses and teachers with evidence of child abuse). A society which went as broad as "everyone is legally required to report every crime" would strike me as somewhere between LN and LE (or NE or CE, depending on whether the intent of that law was actually to be obeyed or to set up a situation where everyone was guilty of a crime and could be arrested if the party making the law wanted them to be).

"Willful concealmant of a crime" is either vague to the point of meaninglessness or a wordier phrasing of the prior claimed crime.

"Attempted mass suicide" is something no one is doing. The dominated dwarves are saying "Yes" in a haze. The vampires are 1) already dead and thus unable to commit suicide, and 2) apparently planning to Plane Shift out of the end of the world. It's also, I think, pretty obvious that nothing that's being brought to a Council vote is an "it's illegal to vote Yes" situation.

Under various US laws, I believe there actually are laws for "Misprision of a felony" (actively and willfully concealing an ongoing felony-level crime) , as well as for "Taking advantage of impaired consent" (You weren't the one who spiked her drink, but you figured out that her drink must have been spiked... and then you used the opportunity to sleep with her anyway."

[Ganbatte]

This matter is not settled (although it ought to be), and it cannot be used to support another argument until it is. "Just read the thread again" is equally applicable to both sides: it is worthless.

o.0

"A 30 pages long thread of throughly explanations for your ideas cannot be used to support you here, you need to explain them all again to me from scratch".

No I don't?

[Krenn]

"Being a vampire" should not be a violation of dwarven law. According to The Giant, there are good / not evil vampires. Their existence shouldn't be criminalised.

—Caerulea

Not even "No vampire shall secretly enter a secure facility without first identifying themselves?"

[Aveline]

o.0

"A 30 pages long thread of throughly explanations for your ideas cannot be used to support you here, you need to explain them all again to me from scratch".

No I don't?

If you expect anybody to acquiesce to your disputed position, yes you do.

[Dion]

o.0

"A 30 pages long thread of throughly explanations for your ideas cannot be used to support you here, you need to explain them all again to me from scratch".

No I don't?

Can you help me out? I *think* your position is “I agree that under the rules of this story world, the vote probably matters, but I find it difficult to accept the rules of this story world, and here’s why.”

Is that your position?

[Fyraltari]

thought just occurred to me while reading this thread.

you turn to stone if you do any violent acts inside that second barrier.

i'll bet you that's how Belkar dies, probably doing something heroic to save the day and snap all / enough of the dwarves out of it in the process.

The petrification only last until the end of the session.

Not even "No vampire shall secretly enter a secure facility without first identifying themselves?"

Well they are already inside the facility. Alternatively :
Gontor*, muttering to himself: my name is Gontor Hammerfell.

[Ganbatte]

If you expect anybody to acquiesce to your disputed position, yes you do.

Lol, guess I'm lucky then that I don't care for you or fyalthari to acquiesce on the matter.
The explanations are all here, click back two strips and you'll find them.
If you don't want to, I can live with that.. because certainly I'm not gonna retype 30 pages of discussion for your sake.

So long!

[Fyraltari]

fyalthari

That's a new one.

[Ganbatte]

Can you help me out? I *think* your position is “I agree that under the rules of this story world, the vote probably matters, but I find it difficult to accept the rules of this story world, and I find that disturbing.”
Is that your position?

The way the comic portrays this arc to us readers is by a stance of "the vampire's plan is a real threat", but I'm finding that difficult as a reader to digest, given the divine presences involved and the scale of the consequences this vote decides.

It feels like even the smallest of things, say, Dvalin deciding to drop a peek down just in case to make sure everything is in order would foil all their machinations instantly.
With so many gods invested in this it's just hard to accept that the Oots are our only hope, instead of, say, Thor dropping a deva to Dvalin alerting him that Hel is rigging the vote, or a million other things that can go wrong.

Basically, there's so much stuff that can go wrong so easily in this that I'm finding the vampire's/Hel's plan kind of utterly ridiculously naive, or heavily relying on everyone else being way too dumb to even move properly so it can work.

[Caerulea]

Not even "No vampire shall secretly enter a secure facility without first identifying themselves?"

Maybe? I mean, presumably that would be taken care of by the security at the facility, so it doesn't need to be a law​.

[woweedd]

The way the comic portrays this arc to us readers is by a stance of "the vampire's plan is a real threat", but I'm finding that difficult as a reader to digest, given the divine presences involved and the scale of the consequences this vote decides.

It feels like even the smallest of things, say, Dvalin deciding to drop a peek down just in case to make sure everything is in order would foil all their machinations instantly.
With so many gods invested in this it's just hard to accept that the Oots are our only hope, instead of, say, Thor dropping a deva to Dvalin alerting him that Hel is rigging the vote, or a million other things that can go wrong.

Basically, there's so much stuff that can go wrong so easily in this that I'm finding the vampire's/Hel's plan kind of utterly ridiculously naive, or heavily relying on everyone else being way too dumb to even move properly so it can work.

Or relying of Davlin himself being Lawful Stupid.

[Draconi Redfir]

The petrification only last until the end of the session.

forgot about that point, nevermind then.

[Ganbatte]

Or relying of Davlin himself being Lawful Stupid.

Can't say I've ever been fond of Lawful Stupid characters. When the success of your machinations relies more on your opponent's stupidity than the cunningness of your planning it kinda feels unsatisfying to me.

[Aveline]

Lol, guess I'm lucky then that I don't care for you or fyalthari to acquiesce on the matter.
The explanations are all here, click back two strips and you'll find them.
If you don't want to, I can live with that.. because certainly I'm not gonna retype 30 pages of discussion for your sake.

So long!

In the same thread there are also counters. I invite you to either make a new argument, reiterate one that hadn't been addressed, or accept that we disagree.

However anyone interprets that separate discussion, the fact of the matter is that there is no clear agreement on whether Dvalin will directly oversee the council meeting, and this disagreement carries forth into any points made based upon his level of involvement.

If you don't want to keep debating, that's fine. But please do not impugn us simply for disagreeing.