A Perfect Defense!

[Tubercular Ox]

the most powerful states in the world have said "nobody else can have these".

In your view, are the most powerful states succeeding or failing in protecting the world from nukes?

[Errorname]

In your view, are the most powerful states succeeding or failing in protecting the world from nukes?

For now, but that's not relevant to the subject at hand, they are not protecting the world from people having nukes.

So no, if we're using Nukes as our model I do not think full disclosure would prevent people from trying to control or harness the Snarl. I think you might be able to rely on the major players reaching a MAD equillibrium where none of them are willing to actually use the gate, but they would all have that capacity, and this is not a state of affairs the gods would tolerate.

[Metastachydium]

Yeah, but it's sort of a "everything proof shield" solution.

And what's wrong with that? (Hey, speaking of: one could even combine the two approaches and encase the Gates in divination-proof multidimensional slabs of stone disguised as one of those dead world markers! Needle, meet haystack!)

In your view, are the most powerful states succeeding or failing in protecting the world from nukes?

Could we not talk about that? Please and thank you.

[Tubercular Ox]

So no, if we're using Nukes as our model I do not think full disclosure would prevent people from trying to control or harness the Snarl.

And again, that's not me. I just got done saying nuclear weapons have a robust defense that depends on surprisingly little secrecy once you get into it. That secrecy was not disdained like brian 333 is recommending, but the backup plan was there from the beginning.

I'm also sad that gbaji gets credit for the adventuring company idea that I put out:

What if you started with Soon's defenses, then added an adventurer outreach program that made Azure City the place for mid- to high-level good aligned adventurers to feel safe?

Maybe I should just keep waiting and eventually you guys will catch up completely.

[Metastachydium]

Maybe I should just keep waiting and eventually you guys will catch up completely.

To be fair, I'm focusing more on the "bury it in something very thick" aspect, with the active defense (its nature almost irrelevant) being merely a failsafe for keeping it that way.

[Tubercular Ox]

To be fair, I'm focusing more on the "bury it in something very thick" aspect, with the active defense (its nature almost irrelevant) being merely a failsafe for keeping it that way.

Tangent, I think people's active defense is too focused on lasting forever despite there being an ever growing number of ways to render the gates irrelevant:

• Convincing TDO to play ball.
• Ascending your own quiddity
• Inventing a ritual that moves the gates somewhere easier to defend
• Encouraging divine intervention

I figure a thousand years and a year, tops, to figure out one of those will work and then execute.

[Peelee]

You would note though that in our crazy world, all the major superpowers have nukes. We did not all band together and say "nobody can have access to these", the most powerful states in the world have said "nobody else can have these".

Weeeeeeelllllllllllllllll........

Ya know, i shan't go there. Unless you'd like to discuss it on Discord or something.

Tangent, I think people's active defense is too focused on lasting forever despite there being an ever growing number of ways to render the gates irrelevant:

• Convincing TDO to play ball.
• Ascending your own quiddity
• Inventing a ritual that moves the gates somewhere easier to defend
• Encouraging divine intervention

I figure a thousand years and a year, tops, to figure out one of those will work and then execute.

The defenses don't have to outrun the bear Snarl. They just have to outrun you it being a threat.

[Metastachydium]

Tangent, I think people's active defense is too focused on lasting forever despite there being an ever growing number of ways to render the gates irrelevant:

• Convincing TDO to play ball.
• Ascending your own quiddity
• Inventing a ritual that moves the gates somewhere easier to defend
• Encouraging divine intervention

I figure a thousand years and a year, tops, to figure out one of those will work and then execute.

I'd concur, in principle, but as you can see:

This thread inspired me to come up with what I believe to be the Perfect Defense for a Rift Gate.

…that's mostly just people staying on topic (I know, it's wild). The premise of the thread is "how to protect a Gate", not "how to remedy the Snarl issue".

[Tubercular Ox]

…that's mostly just people staying on topic (I know, it's wild). The premise of the thread is "how to protect a Gate", not "how to remedy the Snarl issue".

There could be other ways to make the gates irrelevant, the ones I think of are that way because the story is leading us there.

Bottom line, gate defense includes an R&D department. The Scribbles are with me on this, that deadbolt Rich describes was invented after the gate, if I understood it correctly.

[Metastachydium]

There could be other ways to make the gates irrelevant, the ones I think of are that way because the story is leading us there.

Bottom line, gate defense includes an R&D department. The Scribbles are with me on this, that deadbolt Rich describes was invented after the gate, if I understood it correctly.

My point was more like "yes, Gates are not ideal for anyone, but we are talking about how to make Gates safer, not how to obviate the need to have them" here.

[Provengreil]

Weeeeeeelllllllllllllllll........

Ya know, i shan't go there. Unless you'd like to discuss it on Discord or something.

Lets be honest, the nuke metaphor is horribly overextended at this point anyway. Probably best we all move on.

[Tubercular Ox]

Lets be honest, the nuke metaphor is horribly overextended at this point anyway. Probably best we all move on.

What are you talking about? Take the nuke out and put in anything you want and the lessons about how to secure a facility with members of the general populace all remain the same.

[Kish]

I suggest putting in a raspberry muffin.

[Tubercular Ox]

I suggest putting in a raspberry muffin.

I didn't want to be the guy who brought it up first, but yeah, Area 51 is another great example of maximum security that doesn't disdain the secret but had a backup plan for when things got out.

[Errorname]

What are you talking about? Take the nuke out and put in anything you want and the lessons about how to secure a facility with members of the general populace all remain the same.

Well, Nukes are a very late modern concept and D&D tends towards medieval and early modern social dynamics, so it is something of an imperfect match.

[Jurai]

The perfect defense here would be to eat The Snarl.

[hroþila]

Well, Nukes are a very late modern concept and D&D tends towards medieval and early modern social dynamics, so it is something of an imperfect match.

They have Celine Dion records in this universe

[Kardwill]

Actually, if they can be safely moved, then this is just genius. Build Gates; use the Ritual; put them all in the Graveyard of Worlds, a place nobody other than the gods seems to have ever found on their own since the beginning of time; and PROFIT. And now excuse me as I run away before someone gets "harvest the Flower" kind of ideas.

Isn't the "graveyard" a secluded corner of the Astral Plane? The Gods' entire line of defense against the Snarl is "contain it inside the prime material world, so that the outer planes are safe". I don't think they would like mortals moving the god-killing-ticking-bomb closer to their homes.

[Metastachydium]

Isn't the "graveyard" a secluded corner of the Astral Plane? The Gods' entire line of defense against the Snarl is "contain it inside the prime material world, so that the outer planes are safe". I don't think they would like mortals moving the god-killing-ticking-bomb closer to their homes.

Well, yes, but that doesn't put the Snarl on the Astral. The Snarl would still be imprisoned within the Material. Only the Gates would be on the Astral, wher nobody would, in all likelihood, ever find them, so while there would be a small risk involved, I think it'd average out to "kinda still worth it".

EDIT: Also, again, we are talking about protecting the Gates, not the gods or the world, so…

[Kardwill]

Well, yes, but that doesn't put the Snarl on the Astral. The Snarl would still be imprisoned within the Material. Only the Gates would be on the Astral, wher nobody would, in all likelihood, ever find them, so while there would be a small risk involved, I think it'd average out to "kinda still worth it".

EDIT: Also, again, we are talking about protecting the Gates, not the gods or the world, so…

We know the Snarl can lash out from the rifts when the gates fail, and I assume that it emerges from the rifts when it is released. RC's entire plan relies on the fact that moving the gate will allow the snarl to attack the plane it is moved to. So...
"Yes, we just dug a tunnel that will allow the tiger to roam your living room and eat your family, but don't worry. Its actual cage where it spends most of its time is still in the circus"


The big problem of moving the gates (and the rifts they seal) to the outer planes is that, if/when those gates fail (and they always do, after some time. The gods tried several million "perfect prisons", and failed every time), then the Snarl is free to ransack the outer planes. It threatens not only the Prime Material, but also the Gods, the Souls, the Planes, and the entire creation. It's actually worse than "simply" destroying the world.

[Metastachydium]

We know the Snarl can lash out from the rifts when the gates fail, and I assume that it emerges from the rifts when it is released. RC's entire plan relies on the fact that moving the gate will allow the snarl to attack the plane it is moved to. So...
"Yes, we just dug a tunnel that will allow the tiger to roam your living room and eat your family, but don't worry. Its actual cage where it spends most of its time is still in the circus"


The big problem of moving the gates (and the rifts they seal) to the outer planes is that, if/when those gates fail (and they always do, after some time. The gods tried several million "perfect prisons", and failed every time), then the Snarl is free to ransack the outer planes. It threatens not only the Prime Material, but also the Gods, the Souls, the Planes, and the entire creation. It's actually worse than "simply" destroying the world.

Actually, it's not quite as bad as that. That is entirely dependant on the Gate failing. And oddly enough, no Gate has ever failed on its own so far.

[gbaji]

Actually, it's not quite as bad as that. That is entirely dependant on the Gate failing. And oddly enough, no Gate has ever failed on its own so far.

Sure. But someone can make one fail (just as they have the ones in the story). But the risk from a gate being destroyed on the astral plane is vastly worse than it happening on the PMP. So we have the wost of both worlds here. We're both entirely dependent on people not knowing about the gates and where they are *and* we've kinda maximized the whole "risk to the world if they mess with a gate".

And this is before considering how the gods would react to anyone's plan to "Let's just magically move the gates to another plane" in the first place. I mean, that's basically TDO's plan, right there. I'm reasonably certain that if anything were to result in the gods just deciding to punt this entire world and build another one where maybe the morttals would not come up with such a dangerous idea, that would be it.

[Jay R]

I suggest putting in a raspberry muffin.

The perfect defense here would be to eat The Snarl.

Either way, I assume that a doily is involved.

[brian 333]

The perfect defense here would be to eat The Snarl.

Can you imagine the case of indigestion that would cause? You'd have to drink Pepto by that gallon! And what if The Snarl is like a jalapeno: hotter coming out than going in?

On the plus side, I have been wanting an excuse to make Gramma Rose's homemade marinara for a while now.

[hroþila]

May I just say that "the best defense is a good offense" is an often flanderized adage, not an absolute truth, and that sometimes letting the enemy destroy themselves against your defenses is 100% the right call (and also, that active defense is not offense)? I mean, there's a whole genre of video games about this

[Kardwill]

Actually, it's not quite as bad as that. That is entirely dependant on the Gate failing. And oddly enough, no Gate has ever failed on its own so far.

We know that every world has failed after a few thousand years. They all fell to the Snarl, some of them so unexpectedly that the gods couldn't save the souls of the inhabitants.
There has been several millions, berhaps billions, of attempts. None of them survived.

So we have to assume that the Gates won't hold the snarl for all eternity. The gates delay the inevitable, but this world too will fall. The Snarl is more "real" than anything in existence, including the gates.

And seriously, they're not that sturdy. Girard's and Soon's gates blew up after a few solid swings from ordinary humans. Lirian's blew up because of a forest fire.
At one moment or another, for whatever reason (freak accident, decaying magic, "internal pressure" from the Snarl, deliberate attack...), the Astral gate will blow up, ripping open a rift in the middle of the Gods' backyard. If the Snarl gets out at that moment, the gods won't be able to contain it in the PMP. It will be over. Everything will be over, forever.

That's... kinda scary.

[Peelee]

So we have to assume that the Gates won't hold the snarl for all eternity.

Why? It's easily possible that the Gates do work indefinitely, and more rifts popped up than were sealed, eventually culminating in the Snarl getting loose despite other rifts being sealed.

[hroþila]

Prediction: the gates will hold, more rifts will open up, they will be patched up, millions of gates, nothing but gates all around, a gate world

[Kardwill]

Why? It's easily possible that the Gates do work indefinitely, and more rifts popped up than were sealed, eventually culminating in the Snarl getting loose despite other rifts being sealed.

Yeah, it's possible. But given the size of the explosion evert time someone looks at them funny, and the way the small Azure City Rift ripped wide open when it happened... I'm under the impression that those things build up a lot of pressure behind them.
And even if they don't decay nor overload, given enough time, the probability of a freak accident happening at least once tends to approach 1:1

So, putting them in your living room doesn't sound safe.

[Peelee]

Yeah, it's possible. But given the size of the explosion evert time someone looks at them funny, and the way the small Azure City Rift ripped wide open when it happened... I'm under the impression that those things build up a lot of pressure behind them.
And even if they don't decay nor overload, given enough time, the probability of freak accidents happening tends to approach 1:1

So, putting them in your living room doesn't sound safe.

Potential energy doesn't mean pressure. There are many explosives that have incredibly yield but are also quite stable.

Just because the gates go boom big if destroyed doesn't meany that they're not fine to just sit there forever without getting hit.

Also, the gates arent the seals.