A Perfect Defense!

[brian 333]

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

First, the so-called 'gates' are not gates at all. A gate can be opened and closed by the user, whereas these seem to be more like boards nailed over a door to prevent it opening. Perhaps a better analogy would be duct tape because the 'gate' is supposed to prevent further fraying of reality, while destroying them appears to do additional damage to the hole they closed.

Defending them is difficult because a dungeon invites adventurers the way stink attracts flies. No matter how well executed your defense, eventually someone will come along to mess with it.

But I do have a plan for the perfect defense:

Build an actual gate. One which can be opened by whoever comes along, perhaps by touching a big red button. The gate would remain open for one minute, then close again. Put it out in the middle of Nowhere, and put no defenses of any kind whatsoever on it.

Instead, place a permanent Magic Mouth that speaks in Tongues on a stele that is inscribed with magically comprehendable writing. People approaching the button can read the tablet and understand what the Magic Mouth says, even if they are blind and deaf. (Braille, or whatever silent language the observer uses.)

The message describes exactly what the gate is, why it was put there, and what it contains. The message also informs the visitor that he will be the first victim of The Snarl should he press the button. Finally, it suggests that if the visitor must press the button, the gate will close, locking him in the Snarl's prison forever. "Good luck, friend. The world will soon forget that you ever existed."

Now, the contingency: instead of building dungeons and whatnot, build a dozen gates so that if one is moved or destroyed, the next in line automatically deploys from an Etheral warehouse and plugs itself in. Have an assembly line ready to replace the ones used up by boneheads and idiots, and then just stay away from the rift forever.

Find the faults and propose corrections, please. (Or do the whole thing better yourself so we can pick on you!

[JNAProductions]

How would this stop someone like Redcloak with his ritual?

This plan really seems to rely on two things:

1) People being good
2) People not being stupid

[Unoriginal]

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

First, the so-called 'gates' are not gates at all. A gate can be opened and closed by the user, whereas these seem to be more like boards nailed over a door to prevent it opening. Perhaps a better analogy would be duct tape because the 'gate' is supposed to prevent further fraying of reality, while destroying them appears to do additional damage to the hole they closed.

Defending them is difficult because a dungeon invites adventurers the way stink attracts flies. No matter how well executed your defense, eventually someone will come along to mess with it.

But I do have a plan for the perfect defense:

Build an actual gate. One which can be opened by whoever comes along, perhaps by touching a big red button. The gate would remain open for one minute, then close again. Put it out in the middle of Nowhere, and put no defenses of any kind whatsoever on it.

Instead, place a permanent Magic Mouth that speaks in Tongues on a stele that is inscribed with magically comprehendable writing. People approaching the button can read the tablet and understand what the Magic Mouth says, even if they are blind and deaf. (Braille, or whatever silent language the observer uses.)

The message describes exactly what the gate is, why it was put there, and what it contains. The message also informs the visitor that he will be the first victim of The Snarl should he press the button. Finally, it suggests that if the visitor must press the button, the gate will close, locking him in the Snarl's prison forever. "Good luck, friend. The world will soon forget that you ever existed."

Now, the contingency: instead of building dungeons and whatnot, build a dozen gates so that if one is moved or destroyed, the next in line automatically deploys from an Etheral warehouse and plugs itself in. Have an assembly line ready to replace the ones used up by boneheads and idiots, and then just stay away from the rift forever.

Find the faults and propose corrections, please. (Or do the whole thing better yourself so we can pick on you!

1) The Gates are built to keep the Rifts closed on a permanent basis, and placed on top of Lirian's and Dorukan's Rift-closing patchjob. There is no indicator that "temporarily opening the Rift" is an option on the table.

2) Unwitting adventurers are not the problem and never were. None of the Gates had any problem with those, as long as their defenses were up. Remember that Xykon had to deliberaly let the Order get close to the Gate for the emergency self-destruct to become an issue.

The problem comes from actively malevolent people who think they can use the Snarl for power. Xykon and Redcloak in particular needs a working, accessible Gate for their plan(s), so your Perfect Defense is literally giving them everything they need

3) There is no indicator it is *possible* to craft a Gate in advance and have it appears when the first one is destroyed. Dorukan spent his whole life working on the Rift issue, if creating replacement Gates and storing them just in case was an option you'd think the Epic Wizard whose defenses held even months after his death would have created some. Not to mention used one on Lirian's destroyed Gate.

4) There is no indicator that the gods would have tolerated a "solution" that involved "a path to the Snarl is easily openable". Remember that the Order of the Scribble didn't save the world just from the Snarl and mortals who wanted to use the Snarl, they also saved it from the gods.

[Metastachydium]

And making sure this defense is striving to have literally any person with potential nepharious intentions acquire a detailed understanding of what superweapon, exactly, they could try to hijack there by simply virtue of accidentally walking by doesn't help either.

[Grendelkin]

My own plan for a Gate defense runs something like this:

Step 1: Very publically "go mad". Pretend I've gone Halaster Blackcloak when I, in fact, retain as much of my sanity as I've ever had.

Step 1-A: Acquire spells, powers and gizmos as needed to be able to completely cloak myself from attempts to scan or locate me using magic, psionics, incarnum or whatever's going.

Step 2: Unleash a series of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in a wide area around the location of the Gate. These must be precisely calibrated to rearrange the landscape while not impacting the Gate.

Step 2-A: While the earthquakes etc. are still ongoing, construct layers of earth and stone over the gate, effectively burying it. Before burying it, coat the thing in lead and cast permanent abjurations on it to make sure it can't be magically detected.

Step 3: Use the Origin of Species epic spell to create a species of mind-numbingly dull humanoids. They're not good, they're not evil, they're just blah. They're content to lead dull lives, doing repetitive jobs in a dull place. Have them set up villages and farms on the land over the Gate.

Step 4: Very publically construct a dungeon in one of the new mountain ranges raised during step 2, at perhaps a week's travel from the dull people's homes. Fill dungeon with vicious traps, more vicious beasts, and set up spells to summon, burn, freeze, slice and dice to taste. Appoint the cruelest creatures that will work for coin to serve as dungeon commanders, and tell them that they need to guard the innermost chamber.

Step 5: Ward innermost chamber with every abjuration spell available, then place mirrors of opposition on every available surface. Lock and bolt innermost room and set the most powerful creature you can hire or summon to guard it.

Step 6: Create a private demiplane using the Genesis epic spell, then set up shop as a scholar / healer in the dull people's town. Sit back, relax and watch creatures interested in the Gate pass through, pay the dull people for supplies, then march off to hurl themselves into the hideous meatgrinder you've set up for them. See also step 1-A.

Step 7: Perform maintenance as necessary. If some whackjob lich starts murdering the dull people before going into the dungeon, retreat into previously-prepared demiplane and wait. When he leaves, come back out and restock dull people and meatgrinder for the next chump to come along.

[Tubercular Ox]

Weird philosophical tangent: If a dummy dungeon is trusted to repel all intruders, why is it a dummy dungeon?

If I were going to have dummy dungeons, they would look just like the real dungeon, except the real dungeon has a Microcosm that gives the experience of finding out it's one of the dummy dungeons, then gently deposits the intruders outside and wakes them up so they can cross it off their list and keep looking. And maybe leave clues for the next crowd that this one's been checked. Eventually someone will figure it out, but then the real dungeon will have actual defenses.

[Grendelkin]

Personally, I'd want my main line of defense to be that as few people as possible know where the Gate actually is. I'd want them to completely overlook its location even when they're standing on top of it.
My dungeon isn't there as a line of defense, but as a trap for anyone who wants to get at the Gate -- a trap set at a healthy distance away from the actual thing. Hopefully, it'll kill off whoever's looking for the Gate. If it doesn't, at least it'll make them suffer for their temerity.
And if the intruders are strong enough to survive and beat this meatgrinder I've set up, I'll at least be forewarned. I'll have a little time to ready myself to hit them at their lowest ebb; once they've cleared the dungeon and are limping outside. Opening with Hellball and/or Nailed to the Sky sounds like a good start.

[Errorname]

Your defensive options are constrained by their locations somewhat, the gates cannot be moved. So any defensive option in Azure City would need to account for the existence of the city, and most of the ones in the wilderness have to deal with logistical challenges of actually building the damn things.

[brian 333]

How would this stop someone like Redcloak with his ritual?

This plan really seems to rely on two things:

1) People being good
2) People not being stupid

And making sure this defense is striving to have literally any person with potential nepharious intentions acquire a detailed understanding of what superweapon, exactly, they could try to hijack there by simply virtue of accidentally walking by doesn't help either.

That's the part of the defense where any attempt to destroy or move the gate invokes a replacement gate. Instead of investing in dungeons, invest in a gate factory that slaps a new gate on the rift as soon as the old one is damaged or moved. Teleport the gate Somewhere, and a new one patches the rift in the middle of Nowhere. Now the gate that is Somewhere is just a stack of junk, and the rift is safely patched.

[Unoriginal]

That's the part of the defense where any attempt to destroy or move the gate invokes a replacement gate. Instead of investing in dungeons, invest in a gate factory that slaps a new gate on the rift as soon as the old one is damaged or moved. Teleport the gate Somewhere, and a new one patches the rift in the middle of Nowhere. Now the gate that is Somewhere is just a stack of junk, and the rift is safely patched.

Again, even assuming that a "Gate factory" or "slap[ing] a new gate on the rift", the danger is bad guys having access to an *intact* Gate.

If the Gate is moved, the rift is moved as well, and the gods would destroy the world before that.

[Errorname]

If it gets to the point where all the gate's defenders are dead and there's only static defenses keeping the gate secure, a lot of stuff has already gone wrong. Having final line last resort defenses like Dorukan's encryption or Girard's double bluff are important in case the worst comes to pass, but your job as a gate guardian is partially to make sure it never gets that far.

[brian 333]

Again, even assuming that a "Gate factory" or "slap[ing] a new gate on the rift", the danger is bad guys having access to an *intact* Gate.

If the Gate is moved, the rift is moved as well, and the gods would destroy the world before that.

Dorukon never imagined a gate could be moved, so he never developed a defense against it. With 20/20 hindsight I am aware of that, and I build my gate so that moving it does not move the rift. It just moves the physical gate mechanism. Sixty seconds later a new one forms around the rift, and the bad guys need to come up with a plan B.

[woweedd]

Dorukon never imagined a gate could be moved, so he never developed a defense against it. With 20/20 hindsight I am aware of that, and I build my gate so that moving it does not move the rift. It just moves the physical gate mechanism. Sixty seconds later a new one forms around the rift, and the bad guys need to come up with a plan B.

I'm pretty sure the reason Dorukan didn't think a gate could be moved is because it can't be. Moving the gate means the rift now has nothing containing it and is gonna burst open.

[Errorname]

Dorukon never imagined a gate could be moved, so he never developed a defense against it. With 20/20 hindsight I am aware of that, and I build my gate so that moving it does not move the rift. It just moves the physical gate mechanism. Sixty seconds later a new one forms around the rift, and the bad guys need to come up with a plan B.

Great, so the Dark One has a slightly different logistical problem to work out before putting the plan into place. This might be a slightly more complicated solve, but if you're putting all your effort into the last line of defenses you are going to end up needing the last line of defenses.

[Unoriginal]

Dorukon never imagined a gate could be moved, so he never developed a defense against it. With 20/20 hindsight I am aware of that, and I build my gate so that moving it does not move the rift. It just moves the physical gate mechanism. Sixty seconds later a new one forms around the rift, and the bad guys need to come up with a plan B.

1) How are you buiding the Gate to mobe without the rift?

2) Assuming that everything else is even possible and you have the means to do so: how are you making so that the bad guys don't simply disrupt the "move the Gate" part of your plan?

Remember that you're giving them as many tries as they want, given a new Gate gets plugged in place of the old one each time.

[hroþila]

The gate is not the seal is not the rift. Opening your hypothetical gate 2.0 would not open the rift, unless removing that gate also rips the rift open (which is what happens when a gate explodes)

[Provengreil]

My plan is to use the built in rules of the setting: that heroes and villains exist and the world itself conforms to the resulting storylines.


It would be a bog standard deathtrap location, notable only for its excessive length and fatality levels: Serini's Final Dungeon, basically. However, the first trap sprung is not something the intruders will notice, but in fact a call to adventure sent to the nearest tavern to recruit some adventurers.

[Tubercular Ox]

My plan is to use the built in rules of the setting: that heroes and villains exist and the world itself conforms to the resulting storylines.


It would be a bog standard deathtrap location, notable only for its excessive length and fatality levels: Serini's Final Dungeon, basically. However, the first trap sprung is not something the intruders will notice, but in fact a call to adventure sent to the nearest tavern to recruit some adventurers.

Jebus, yes, now we're getting somewhere. 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? Then make it clear that this safety is contingent on the safety and integrity of the Gate, whether you tell them what the Gate is for or not.

[brian 333]

The gate is not the seal is not the rift. Opening your hypothetical gate 2.0 would not open the rift, unless removing that gate also ING rips the rift open (which is what happens when a gate explodes)

Obviously I am not using the same seal that The Scribble used. Instead of duct tape which does more damage when ripped off, my seal is a zipper that can be reused.

Soon's sapphire was moved around with no harm to the seal, and the rift itself did no go anywhere, so moving the gate is not necessarily harmful to the rift. When my gate is moved, it simply deactivates and is replaced by a new one.

[brian 333]

The gate is not the seal is not the rift. Opening your hypothetical gate 2.0 would not open the rift, unless removing that gate also ING rips the rift open (which is what happens when a gate explodes)

Obviously I am not using the same seal that The Scribble used. Instead of duct tape which does more damage when ripped off, my seal is a zipper that can be reused.

Soon's sapphire was moved around with no harm to the seal, and the rift itself did no go anywhere, so moving the gate is not necessarily harmful to the rift. When my gate is moved, it simply deactivates and is replaced by a new one.

[Unoriginal]

Obviously I am not using the same seal that The Scribble used. Instead of duct tape which does more damage when ripped off, my seal is a zipper that can be reused.

So you're more powerful and knowledgeable than the Epic Druid and Epic Wizard who spent at leas a decade designing those seals and who sunk both of their epic-adventurer-fortune doing it?

AND you also convinced the gods of three pantheons to not destroy the world despite how you put a zipper over the Snarl instead of something that's either closing the rift or destroyed?

[Elanfanforlife]

Obviously I am not using the same seal that The Scribble used. Instead of duct tape which does more damage when ripped off, my seal is a zipper that can be reused.

Soon's sapphire was moved around with no harm to the seal, and the rift itself did no go anywhere, so moving the gate is not necessarily harmful to the rift. When my gate is moved, it simply deactivates and is replaced by a new one.

I think the main problem with your strategy is that we have no proof this is even possible.

[Precure]

Dorukan's gate looks different, it resembles a door opening into purple Snarl Realm. Maybe it can be used as an actual gate.

[Provengreil]

Jebus, yes, now we're getting somewhere. 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? Then make it clear that this safety is contingent on the safety and integrity of the Gate, whether you tell them what the Gate is for or not.

Plausible. Part of the issue with a thought experiment like this is that the gates are centered on the rifts and, as far as the defenders seem to know, cannot be moved. So you gotta play the location you're dealt, which changes a ton of things about what you can or should try to do. Makes it tough to theorycraft without knowing what I can actually safely assume.

[KorvinStarmast]

Makes it tough to theorycraft without knowing what I can actually safely assume.

When has that stopped anyone?

[Errorname]

Soon's sapphire was moved around with no harm to the seal, and the rift itself did no go anywhere, so moving the gate is not necessarily harmful to the rift. When my gate is moved, it simply deactivates and is replaced by a new one.

The Sapphire isn't the gate.

So you're more powerful and knowledgeable than the Epic Druid and Epic Wizard who spent at leas a decade designing those seals and who sunk both of their epic-adventurer-fortune doing it?

Especially since Dorukan built a self-destruct into his own gate defences. The possibility of bad guys gaining access to the gate and using that to do evil things was a known risk, and the epic wizard's solution was to make sure the gate could be destroyed before letting it fall into enemy hands.

Plausible. Part of the issue with a thought experiment like this is that the gates are centered on the rifts and, as far as the defenders seem to know, cannot be moved. So you gotta play the location you're dealt, which changes a ton of things about what you can or should try to do. Makes it tough to theorycraft without knowing what I can actually safely assume.

Well, we know the basic locations of all five gates and have a rough sense of the geography. Most of them are in the wilderness with the exception of the Azure City rift, and the Redmountain and North Pole rifts both seem to be located underground.

[Unoriginal]

Especially since Dorukan built a self-destruct into his own gate defences. The possibility of bad guys gaining access to the gate and using that to do evil things was a known risk, and the epic wizard's solution was to make sure the gate could be destroyed before letting it fall into enemy hands.

TBF that was the last layer of a system the bad guys spent months banging their heads against.

[brian 333]

So you're more powerful and knowledgeable than the Epic Druid and Epic Wizard who spent at leas a decade designing those seals and who sunk both of their epic-adventurer-fortune doing it?

AND you also convinced the gods of three pantheons to not destroy the world despite how you put a zipper over the Snarl instead of something that's either closing the rift or destroyed?

I have the benefit of hindsight, so I don't have to be more powerful or more knowledgeable. Sort of like how you can assemble a computer in your home with basic tools because some time ago a bunch of very smart people assembled a huge amount of vacuum tubes and relays and taught us what not to do if we wanted to build a computer.

When all of the rifts were wide open there was no rush by The Gods to destroy the world. Their concern is idiots trying to kill them, not The Snarl snatching random passersby.

I think the main problem with your strategy is that we have no proof this is even possible.

Did The Scribble have proof that sealing the rifts at all was possible before they tried it?

Dorukan's gate looks different, it resembles a door opening into purple Snarl Realm. Maybe it can be used as an actual gate.

That's what I thought too, until The Giant said "The Gate is not the seal."

The Sapphire isn't the gate.

The Sapphire is the gate, the sapphire is not the seal that holds the gate together, but is the key to that seal.

[Provengreil]

When has that stopped anyone?

Well, just look at all the posts I never made!

[Provengreil]

Well, we know the basic locations of all five gates and have a rough sense of the geography. Most of them are in the wilderness with the exception of the Azure City rift, and the Redmountain and North Pole rifts both seem to be located underground.

....you know, you're right. I might not know exactly how I'd defend a gate in schroedinger's geography, but if I change the question to how to defend a given story gate....hm. I'll give it some thought, this thread is fun!