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2019-05-24, 07:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
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- Lake Wobegon
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2019-05-24, 07:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
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2019-05-24, 07:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
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Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2019-05-24, 07:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
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Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
"Held hostage" is a bit much. They're not imprisoned, they're living in the Empire. And Tarquin doesn't have them in his back pocket to do with personally as he likes at any moment. They would be executed by other agents of his - that is to say, other members of the same organization, probably designated MPs. That's not oppression, that is internal organizational discipline.
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2019-05-24, 07:25 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
- Location
- Charlotte, NC
- Gender
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
I'd say Hel is a good planner. She isn't able to see the future like Odin, but a good one in any case. What she doesn't have is a lot of power.
1) The bet was a good idea. There have been countless worlds before this one, and at the time there was no reason to think this one wouldn't end any differently. Honestly, it still may be a good bet at this moment if the Order weren't the heros of the story. All Hel needs to have happen to win is the world get unmade before the Snarl is released, which will happen if the Order doesn't interfere with the vote or stop Xkyon from taking control of the final gate. Even then, they have to convince Red Cloak to help save the world against the Dark One's wishes or this problem will crop up again in the nearish future and Hel still wins.
2) She has made plans within plans to get this vote passed within a couple of weeks. She convinced the demigods to vote in her favor, which had to take some time and persuasion probably before the plan was in place. Then move an army of frost giants into position to stop an airship that may be passing through. There are plenty of other means of transportation.
3) I'd argue the pox was good planning as well. You never know how long these kinds of fights take place, and now she has a plan in play to take out the airship.
4) Durkla researched the "raise dead faster" spell instead of protection from daylight. Going to the dwarven homeland was always a contingency, and they had that all planned before the vote.
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2019-05-24, 07:36 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
- Location
- Brazil
- Gender
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Each one of us, alone, is but a drop in the sea
Our powers pale compared with the great heroes
Our battles don’t hit theheadlines or shake the earth
But they are few, can’t be everywhere, and we, many
So, when the world or universe needs saving, they come
But when people needs saving, we are the ones to appear
We're underdogs, but we rise up to the challenge to be heroes.
(Wishing Joe, a low-powered superhero)
"I really like the Geek Math'ology we do here"
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2019-05-24, 07:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2019-05-24, 07:57 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Gender
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2019-05-24, 08:00 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Gender
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
I completely agree. She is a good planner. She’s just not been characterized as a great long-term planner.
She’s had years and years to come up with this plan, but if Durkon didn’t Just So Happen to get vampirized right before the Godsmoot, she wouldn’t have been able to put it into action. She had no grand, long term plan to get a high priest. She hadn't done a single thing to make this opportunity happen.
The opportunity of Durkon’s vampirization dropped in her lap, and she used it to her fullest potential.
Yes, it’s a great plan. But, again, this has all happened, max, within 2 weeks. Great improvisation. Terrible long-term planning.Last edited by Watcher; 2019-05-24 at 08:01 AM.
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2019-05-24, 08:00 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2019-05-24, 08:04 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Last edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2019-05-24 at 08:05 AM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
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Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2019-05-24, 08:09 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2015
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Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Worth noting that in this scenario their families would be executed even though they'd be following orders and actually doing their duty. Hard to call it discipline when it doesn't respond to any breach of military code or internal rules.
ungelic is us
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2019-05-24, 08:10 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Gender
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
The only thing we ever saw that punishment invoked for was for killing someone Tarquin didn't want killed. It was a means to mercy.
In any event, soldiers can be subjected to more brutal punishments than ordinary people, from decimation for failure to flogging for disobedience to battlefield execution for desertion. This is a natural consequence of needing to keep rough, armed men in line, and its disappearance is a very modern development.
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2019-05-24, 08:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Which in no way, shape or form denies that obedience is enforced via oppression and hostage taking
And when instead of punishing the soldier, their families are held hostage and may be subject to unjust punishment to ensure the good behaviour of the soldier, we call that oppression.
Grey WolfLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2019-05-24 at 08:16 AM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
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2019-05-24, 08:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
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- France
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Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2019-05-24, 08:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
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- Lake Wobegon
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Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
They get a benefit out of the arrangement: the authority to brutalize everyone else on behalf of the state. Being gleeful agents of an oppressive regime negates my sympathy for their personal hardships.
It's the same calculus that denies my sympathy and support to the slavedrivers in their defense of their narrow guild concerns, even though I'm sure they feel very deprived of what is their due.
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2019-05-24, 08:24 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Their families are not the soldiers. Stop conflating them. And I don't give a damn who you have sympathy for. If someone holds a gun to your family's heads and tells you to go kill people for them, that is a clear cut form of oppression. Oppression is not defined as "people who have Zim's sympathy".
Grey WolfLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2019-05-24 at 08:25 AM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
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2019-05-24, 08:28 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
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- Lake Wobegon
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Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
The soldiers get a benefit, in exchange for putting their families at risk. No dispute that the families are oppressed, being treated like property, and disposable property at that, by their family members in the army.
And I don't give a damn who you have sympathy for. If someone holds a gun to your family's heads and tells you to go kill people for them, that is a clear cut form of oppression.Last edited by zimmerwald1915; 2019-05-24 at 08:29 AM.
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2019-05-24, 08:31 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Gender
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Not to get sucked into another argument, but they do NOT have the authority to brutalize everyone else. They are told by the regime who to brutalize. If they brutalize the wrong person, their families are killed.
Also, are they gleeful? Most of the soldiers are textbook punch-clock villains who take no special joy from it. It’s just a job to them.
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2019-05-24, 08:36 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Conscripts are paid too. And an army requires much money beyond soldier wages. Food, equipment, weapon, maintenance, etc. Besides I doubt Tarquin accepts resignations.
Edit: further than that, soldier can be neither conscripts nor mercenaries but ordinary citizens looking for a stable at-least-two-meal-a-day job. Slaver society are not typically booming with work opportunities. The roughly equal proportion of humans and lizardmen in both the army and the Empire’s civilian population suggest that they aren’t foreign.Last edited by Fyraltari; 2019-05-24 at 08:47 AM.
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2019-05-24, 08:41 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
They are not putting their families at risk. Their families are being held hostage to ensure their obedience and behaviour.
Even a conscripted army takes money to raise and maintain. More, in fact, than if it was true volunteers. And an army that relies on hostage taking to ensure obedience is not an army that pays their soldiers well enough to ensure obedience.
Grey WolfLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2019-05-24 at 08:42 AM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2019-05-24, 10:09 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
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2019-05-24, 10:59 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2016
- Location
- Elemental Plane of Water
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2019-05-24, 11:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
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2019-05-24, 11:05 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
It didn't. Nothing in the bet either implicitly or explicitly forbid Thor from informing the dwarves about the conditionals surrounding their after life admission process. And since it is a god's prerogative - if not mandate - to inform their followers how best to act to reach their afterlife, it would have had to be really explicitly forbidden in the bet that the dwarves couldn't be informed for it to be "cheating" to let them know.
Grey WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2019-05-24, 11:09 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Let's say you and I make a bet that Fyraltari will skin his knee. I then run over and push him down, causing a skinned knee. Nothing implicitly or explicitly forbade me from doing that, but it still went against the spirit of the bet.
Given the nature of Hel's bet, yay Thor, but it's still a thumb on the scales.Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2019-05-24, 11:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Lets say that both you and I are in the business of shoving people. That would make me a fool for proposing such bet, but you would have done nothing wrong (especially if I proposed it to you when you were drunk). Gods are in the business of getting people into their respective afterlives. To do so, they employ priests whose primary function is to tell congregations how great their god is, what they will get if they stay on their good side, and how to do so. The bet only changes the last of the three - in no way does it stop Thor from still employing the first two.
Grey WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2019-05-24, 11:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
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- Birmingham, AL
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Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2019-05-24, 11:25 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
But the bet wasn't "Thor is not allowed to collect dwarf souls" - the equivalent of "you can't shove people". The bet was "you get all non-heroic dwarves, and you don't get priests". The equivalent of "you don't get to shove people anymore, but any that fall on grass count towards your quota", and then complaining that the guy that is now doing all the shoving isn't aiming the people at the grass.
The bet essentially means Hel gets adayworld off her job, and now she complains that the guy who is still doing his job is not doing it to her advantage. That's not thumbing the scales, that is literally Thor doing his job to the best of his ability.
Grey "at some point this shoving metaphor is going to be insufficient" WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
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And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2019-05-24, 11:30 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: OOTS #1164 - The Discussion Thread
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2