The Open Door (megacrossover)

[Garlak]

It could be "simply" that Skuld was drawn to a world that most closely matched her portfolios: Mad Science.

[Academia Nut]

1) When Mystra killed Cyric, did she absorb his portfolio? If yes, then that’d mean you got an insane goddess of magic and knowledge now in charge of murder, lies, intrigue, deception, and illusions. If she wasn’t insane before, she is now.

No, when Cyric got blasted he basically took the brunt of all of Mystra's might. Ao basically had to psychically tackle her before she started wiping out other evil gods.

2) Being insane doesn’t always mean having a bad memory or unaware of your surroundings, so it’s possible that Mystra will recall Lars refusing to kill her and look favorably upon him if she ever escapes from her confinement (you know she will eventually). Unfortunately, being insane means that her definition of “favorably” is far off from the accepted norm.

The insanity is somewhat subtle in that she doesn't go around babbling or drooling to herself. No, she just sort of sits around and smiles and talks about the Weave and how it should be used and oh, she could reduce the Abyss to a desolate lifeless wasteland, eliminating the demons from the universe, at the cost of south-west Faerun sinking into the ocean as the planes are rocked by the cataclysmic release of energy. The survivors should be in a better world though once the dust settled in a century or two and global temperatures went back up, so don't you think it would be a good thing to let her have a teensy bit more control over the Weave?

That sort of bat shit insane.

3) Have the Whispered taken over the Shadovar enclaves? If not, have they fled to Noctis? Even if the Shadow Weave is unattended, their scientific knowledge should allow them to compensate for erratic magical activity.

Later chapter.

4) If Noctis has a stable, functioning gate/portal, could they could send diplomatic scouts to distant lands or other planes of reality? They could establish trade negotiations with people who haven’t been alienated yet by rumors of Noctis' threat to the status quo of medieval lifestyle.

The gate/portal is built over the crack in reality Skuld sealed. Its a weak point between the Material Plane. Only Rask and other alienists are allowed access to it, its heavily guarded by elite troops, and Lars is the only one who goes through the portal because the the Far Realm is close enough to his native environment that he can function just fine in there and navigate about the various gribbly horrors, some of which run from him in terror. Thus this portal isn't used much.

5) As the daughter of Skuld, is Gunnhild the de facto caretaker of the Shadow Weave?

The Shadow Weave is still running so Lars and everyone else in the know takes this as evidence that Skuld is still alive and maintaining it, she just can't get back. Lars was actually following strands of the Shadow Weave pulled to the outer reaches of Far Realm by Skuld's presence.

6) How are the Chosen of Mystra handling the imprisonment of their patron goddess? Where is Alustriel of Silverymoon during all of this?

In general the Chosen have been tasked with a lot of additional responsibilities as Mystra isn't all there anymore. When I saw stripped of most of her portfolio, I mean it. Her portfolio reads: maintenace of the Weave. She has no administration over spellcasting or anything else, she just has to keep the world running and she is given no power or responsibility beyond that, and Ao basically waved the whole 'needs worshippers' thing for determining power simply because someone needs to do the job and needs a certain amount of power to do it and whoever it is will go insane, so its better not to have that bit of the portfolio ever be up for grabs. The rest of her portfolio was divided up amongst the other gods in the magical pantheon, many of whom were quite upset as they were loyal to their mistress... or because their rivals gained more power than them but they don't want to admit to that. Either way, the whole situation is a mess.

As for Alustriel in particular, that's for the future.

Kelemvor publicly revealed that a divine patron is needed to ensure a proper afterlife. Some (like myself) would consider an absentee deity* like Skuld to be an ideal compromise: you get into heaven paying lip service to goddess that isn’t there to dictate dogma or boss you around. All you have to do is stay on Gunnhild’s good side and its live-n’-let-live.

It's for a later chapter for the most part, but Lars already set up an interim solution by leasing a bit of planar land, and yeah, the argument Lars got into with Kelemvor means that if a god wants to vouch for a member of the Faithless or False they can claim the soul so long as their isn't a prior claim. While he prefers not to visit the Fugue Plane, Lars does occasionally show up to give arguments that those he's hired to act as his secondaries in sorting out the afterlife troubles can't do on their own.

Is Lars still in Faerun? It looks like he made a crack in reality to go fishing in, but that doesn't exactly seem safe, and Ao (who presumably is the most qualified being to stand guard) doesn't seem the type to use a Gatling

As said before, that's the portal built around the original weak point leading to the Far Realm next to Nesme.

So wait, the Weave has been irrevocably tainted by the stench of Chaos? Ouch.

It's been tainted with Far Realm energies. Somewhat alike, but not. Basically here's how things work:

1) The Void. The space between spaces, the emptiness between universes. It's kind of similar to the Warp, but emptier.
2) The Warp. A coexistant universe in the 40k and branch universes, created to simulate the environment of the Void in a laboratory universe so that the Lords of Time could study how the Void Born, their enemies, came to be. This was abandoned billions of years ago and allowed to grow rotten by the time of canon 40k.
3) The Far Realm is basically the congealed mass of quasi-stable stuff outside the Forgotten Realms, caused by the survivors of the last Void Born attack on Ao's little escape pod. It has no real laws of physics, but its vastly more crowded than the Void and its composed of many planes stacked on top of each other like the layers of an onion. This was why there were two separate elaborate descriptions in the initial part, the environments were different. This is where Skuld got sucked into and what poisoned the Weave and drove Mystra nuts.

His name is Johan Smith? How generic...and yet ironically appropriate at the same time

Many of the survivors of Menzoberranzan chose new last names for themselves, and Johan picked smith as a bit of a joke after talking with Lars.

It could be "simply" that Skuld was drawn to a world that most closely matched her portfolios: Mad Science

No, the mad science was caused by Skuld. She basically built a shell reality around herself for protection against the Far Realm. That doesn't mean that Girl Genius verse is in any way minor. Skuld builds sturdy stuff... its just that she often overclocks it and adds a self destruct mechanism afterwards. Which is already probably causing Sparks to drool at the thought of it. Somewhere out there a button exists labelled 'Do Not Press unless you really mean it' which will end the universe in a suitably epic fashion.

[Gulping Again]

Welp, there goes the neighborhood.

So, are we clear to once again start up rampant baseless speculation on what happens next and/or good potential universes for NeoChaos to plunder and headhunt in, or are you still mad at us about it? Belay that, reading back through the recent pages, you almost certainly still are. Instead, I'll ask a question you probably already answered or will mock me for my ignorance of: What the hell did the Stiletto run into back in chapter 55? I don't recognize anything regarding that.

[Darth Yoshi]

The insanity is somewhat subtle in that she doesn't go around babbling or drooling to herself. No, she just sort of sits around and smiles and talks about the Weave and how it should be used and oh, she could reduce the Abyss to a desolate lifeless wasteland, eliminating the demons from the universe, at the cost of south-west Faerun sinking into the ocean as the planes are rocked by the cataclysmic release of energy. The survivors should be in a better world though once the dust settled in a century or two and global temperatures went back up, so don't you think it would be a good thing to let her have a teensy bit more control over the Weave?

That sort of bat shit insane.

Wow, that's utilitarianism taken to the extreme.

The gate/portal is built over the crack in reality Skuld sealed. Its a weak point between the Material Plane. Only Rask and other alienists are allowed access to it, its heavily guarded by elite troops, and Lars is the only one who goes through the portal because the the Far Realm is close enough to his native environment that he can function just fine in there and navigate about the various gribbly horrors, some of which run from him in terror. Thus this portal isn't used much.

Ah. I thought Skuld had closed the rift, but she just stabilized it. Gotcha.

Many of the survivors of Menzoberranzan chose new last names for themselves, and Johan picked smith as a bit of a joke after talking with Lars.

Heh, amusing.

[bobnik]

What the hell did the Stiletto run into back in chapter 55? I don't recognize anything regarding that.

Harry Turtledove's books of the "Tosev Timeline". They ran into one of the ships in the initial invasion wave of the Race. The Race invaded Earth during WW2 with basically the same tech we have today, or a little better. They certainly didn't have the info that Stilletto forwarded to Earth, and would not have had their nuke stockpile to EMP the planet. Hence the "worst apology evar".

[Finbar]

I gotta say, I Like the idea of Sparks in the FR verse.

Cause once Skuld if 'found' by Lars, I can imagine that she will do everything in her power to return to him. It would have been Centuries for her, given that time works ....oddly..in the outer realms. Of course, she wouldnt be so cruel as to abandon the people of the world she created to shield herself. So, we have a very large number of pulp era people, including Sparks and the like, who may be travelling by Gate or another means to the Forgotten Realms, where they will be safe, because when Skuld leaves, I'd imagine the world will collapse too.

Picture Nesme with Sparks backing them up. What it would mean for the technology of the Realms. What it would do to the Gods of Invention.....

*shudder*

Cheers

Finbar

[barricade]

rampant baseless speculation

I think we're allowed rampant, if not quite baseless, speculation, only upon the universes/dimensions previously visited or at least mentioned.

I do have a question about the TSAB though - are they traveling through the Void, or through the Warp? Considering that it appears there are 'pockets' (Precia's base in the Garden) where people can go to the surface of an object, without needing a pressure suit (or a Gellar Field), I'm betting on the Void. Although since its not a 'nothingness/blank' area, but actually has all kinds of colors and such, I'm also wondering if its not something more like the boundary between Void/Warp, or Warp/Far Realms. Some attributes of both, and yet missing some attributes.

[Jaeger]

Drizzt Do’Urden: Pop Idol of Nesme.

Drow: “Drizzt! Can I have your autograph?”
Girl: “Sign my bra!”
Drizzt: “Ummm, what is a bra?”
Girl: (insert explanation of supportive undergarments while Cattibrie listens in eagerly)

[WillowBee]

What kind of magical quirks linger around after the Siege of Nesme? There was enough power and bloodshed in that battle to create a dozen sites of magical power.

How many among Noctis’ current population are the “Star Promised”? There’s that half-drow girl, who should physically look around 5 years old by now. Skuld’s dream showed countless unborn children, but their births were spread out over several thousand years yet to come.

Obviously the general public isn’t aware of Gunnhild or the Erinyes, otherwise Nesme would be under siege instead of boycotted with a trade embargo. The lost of a parent can be very traumatic for a young child, so Gunnhild needs all the emotional support she can get, otherwise the darker aspects of her daemon nature might take over.

You didn’t mention how Lars has coped with ingesting three gods, or what he did with the two remaining divinity pearls (Asmodeus got Loviatar’s pearl). Even if Lars was successful in subsuming their individuality, he still absorbed a dozen millennia worth of memories and experience that could influence his outlook on life and other subtle nuances of his behavior.

I’m rather curious in how the Erinyes are “evolving.” After only two months in their servitude to Lars, their hair and wings took on a buoyant, slow-moving quality and their clothing look like its been fatigued by saltwater immersion. After a solid decade, the Erinyes should be a rather impressive team of psuedo-demon femme fatales.

[Valorie]

I gotta say, I Like the idea of Sparks in the FR verse.

Cause once Skuld if 'found' by Lars, I can imagine that she will do everything in her power to return to him. It would have been Centuries for her, given that time works ....oddly..in the outer realms. Of course, she wouldnt be so cruel as to abandon the people of the world she created to shield herself. So, we have a very large number of pulp era people, including Sparks and the like, who may be travelling by Gate or another means to the Forgotten Realms, where they will be safe, because when Skuld leaves, I'd imagine the world will collapse too.

Even if they could safely transport humans across the Far Realms, Sparks in their current state of evolution are too unstable to bring into another reality.

On the other hand, once Skuld gets straightened out by Lars, she could split off a piece of her essence to send back to Faerun while her main self is left behind to nurture the Sparks into a more sane and stable subrace, which could take centuries or millenia to achieve.

In canon, Skuld proved capable to splitting herself into dozens of clone-like subentities, as seen in "the Adventures of Chibi-Goddesses." Unfortunately, these duplicates are the size of mice, look like small children, and contain a small fracture of the original's true power.

[Jaeger]

On the other hand, once Skuld gets straightened out by Lars, she could split off a piece of her essence to send back to Faerun while her main self is left behind to nurture the Sparks into a more sane and stable subrace, which could take centuries or millenia to achieve.

In canon, Skuld proved capable to splitting herself into dozens of clone-like subentities, as seen in "the Adventures of Chibi-Goddesses." Unfortunately, these duplicates are the size of mice, look like small children, and contain a small fracture of the original's true power.

Great, now I got the mental image of mini-Skuld riding around on the back of mimmith, the miniature woolly mammoth native to the GirlGenius world.

I find the concept of turning into rodent during a full moon to be silly, but weremimmith I could take seriously. A lycanthropic pachyderm would have tusks and prehensile trunk, which would make them more challenging than a mere wererat.
Lars: "Weremimmith? How the hell did that happen?"
Rask: "Trust me, you don't want to know."

[consequences]

I have to ask, was Airman Higgs an inspiration for Lars?

[Darth Yoshi]

You didn’t mention how Lars has coped with ingesting three gods, or what he did with the two remaining divinity pearls (Asmodeus got Loviatar’s pearl). Even if Lars was successful in subsuming their individuality, he still absorbed a dozen millennia worth of memories and experience that could influence his outlook on life and other subtle nuances of his behavior.

I’m rather curious in how the Erinyes are “evolving.” After only two months in their servitude to Lars, their hair and wings took on a buoyant, slow-moving quality and their clothing look like its been fatigued by saltwater immersion. After a solid decade, the Erinyes should be a rather impressive team of psuedo-demon femme fatales.

Presumably Lars compacted the personality shards and memories like he did in A!MG Hell. That plus his focus on getting Skuld back would probably minimize any adverse effects from absorbing the gods. As long as he doesn't get struck by MAD SCIENCE! while in Girl Genius, he should be fine.

Oh yes, how...interesting that the spider-riders worship the Other. Taking in consideration Think's alliance with Nesme, are they proof that Skuld is the Other, or merely coincidence? The public must know!

EDIT: I don't feel that this warrants a new post, but:

The fact that, after ten years, one of the major dwarf clans in the region was finally willing to send an emissary to talk to them about anything other than where the borders should be drawn.

is a sentence fragment. Or at least, it's an incomplete idea. Something like this would work better:

So the fact that, after ten years, one of the major dwarf clans in the region was finally willing to send an emissary to talk to them about anything other than where the borders should be drawn was a big deal.

[SAMAS]

Seems to be that NewChaos should try maybe a little Daemonic Possession/Daemonhosting on some of the Vong's ships or weapons. Great Spined Chaos Beast taken to the next level.

[D1398342003]

Seems to be that NewChaos should try maybe a little Daemonic Possession/Daemonhosting on some of the Vong's ships or weapons. Great Spined Chaos Beast taken to the next level.

Two problems with that idea. One is that Vong ships and weapons are incredibly weak. Their gravity well tech is the only thing that makes their ships a threat at all. Secondly, Vong ships are mostly dead rock, not living flesh. The parts that are alive are seperate organisms.

[SAMAS]

That's what the Daemon is for.

[bobnik]

Tzintchi already has the Imperial biotech right up to primarch-grade, plus Angel, Eldar, Chaotic and whatever the Orks had. From what I've seen, Vong simply isn't worth it. Maybe if you had a particular infiltration mission in mind, but otherwise, no.

[Jaeger]

Seems to be that NewChaos should try maybe a little Daemonic Possession/Daemonhosting on some of the Vong's ships or weapons. Great Spined Chaos Beast taken to the next level.

While we’re talking about the potential uses of biotechnology, cannon Orks reproduce asexually via spores but phenotypically look male. However, for future neoOrks, maybe they should look phenotypically FEMALE instead of male, and perhaps have blue skin instead of green.

1) Visually distinguishes themselves from old-school Orks
2) Makes it easier for neoOrks to respect and relate to female authority figures, particularly the three neoChaos goddesses (Reigle, Askulon, and Mislaato).
3) A self-sustaining population of Amazonian savages make everything better.
4) Being henotypically feminine could neoOrks the desire to nurture small children left behind by their fleeing enemies.
5) Cannot get pregnant (spores, but no womb)

[SAMAS]

Or better yet, combine them with a little Kroot. So they can get pregnant, modifying their DNA through childbirth rather than (just)... er, "humanitarianism".

(Alternately, have them be able to mix the genetic material with their spores, rather than having babies)

[WillowBee]

Or better yet, combine them with a little Kroot. So they can get pregnant, modifying their DNA through childbirth rather than (just)... er, "humanitarianism".

(Alternately, have them be able to mix the genetic material with their spores, rather than having babies)

Academia Nut specifically made a ban on the natural conception human/anything hybrids to keep GeneSeed tech viable and avoid new species from gaining access to Psyker abilities. Even if a race was compatible with humanity, Tzintchi and Mislaato would create artificial barriers to avoid such a situation, like psychic birthcontrol or nanites that destroy "unapproved" embryoes. Furthermore, I think AN also mentioned that members of the same race from different dimensions can't interbreed, but if, for example, the Battlestar Colonials remained in Australia for 2-3 generations, they should acclimated enough to have children with the human members of neoChaos.

While we’re talking about the potential uses of biotechnology, cannon Orks reproduce asexually via spores but phenotypically look male. However, for future neoOrks, maybe they should look phenotypically FEMALE instead of male, and perhaps have blue skin instead of green.

1) Visually distinguishes themselves from old-school Orks
2) Makes it easier for neoOrks to respect and relate to female authority figures, particularly the three neoChaos goddesses (Reigle, Askulon, and Mislaato).
3) A self-sustaining population of Amazonian savages make everything better.
4) Being henotypically feminine could neoOrks the desire to nurture small children left behind by their fleeing enemies.

Hot girls do make everything better. Orks get bigger, stronger, and green the older they get, so the leaders of the neoOrks would look like a cross between Barbarella and those kaiju girls from "Twisted Kaiju Theater." The oldest warbosses stand 20-30 feet tall.

http://www.neomonsterisland.com/
http://www.neomonsterisland.com/pages/kgirls.htm
**

[Crayz9000]

ZE GOGGLES, ZE DO NOTHINK!

[D1398342003]

2) Makes it easier for neoOrks to respect and relate to female authority figures, particularly the three neoChaos goddesses (Reigle, Askulon, and Mislaato).

This is a moot point, as Orks of any kind respect (read, follow the orders of) the biggest Ork around. Gender wouldn't enter into it. I'd argue that standard Orks aren't actually male at all anyways, they are asexual androgyns.

[Academia Nut]

Let me wade in now before occular haemorraghing results:

Orkz what with squiggly bitz iz muckin' about!

[Gulping Again]

Academia Nut, can we go back to what we were doing before? "LETS MAKE ORKS INTO SEXY SPACE GIANTESSES" is at least an order of magnitude worse than "I say they should go pull some of the old snatch and grab and get Guts, Frank Castle, and Travis Touchdown on Team NeoChaos. It'd be the easiest fucking thing in the world. Promise Guts a fixed Casca and enough power to single-handedly obliterate the God Hand, give Frank all the dakka he wants, and just have one of Mislaato's lesser daemons say hi to Travis. They'd all leap gleefully into the force and then you got three new primarchs/daemon princes/superassassins/whateverthefucks."

Yes, they're both wanky as hell, but the former is so in the most literal way imaginable, while the latter is the same kind of thought process that birthed Super Robot Wars and a lot of the better issues of Marvel's "What If."

[Valorie]

OT: What are the negative consequences of a daemon taking on the portfolio of a Faerunian deity? Would a daemon’s divinity corrupt or transform the Tablets of Fate?

Possible solutions to the Weave’s corruption:

A= Build Weave-purifying machinery a la GirlGenius. For small-scale application, tower filters constructed throughout Noctis’ inner-most territory would cover the land with overlapping spheres of stable magic, which would give its spellcasting citizens like Rask a huge advantage over wizards in other nations. Upstart magelings might sneak into Nesme to establish their own base of power there.

B= Ao could give Gunnhild partial control of Weave maintenance, allowing her to act as an intermediary between Mystra and the rest of the world.
All second-generation daemon have “functional insanity,” but it’ll be another century or two before Gunnhild is mature enough to handle something of such magnitude.

C= Lars engulfs Mystra, and then condenses both her soul and divinity to reincarnate Mystra as the new daemon goddess of magic, effectively turning her into Gunnhild’s little sister. However, option C might have unintended consequences, such as if Mystra is born as part of a set of quintuplets thanks to the other three gods Lars ate escaping from his 'stomach', or Mystra absorbed the souls of Loviatar, Ghaunadar, and Luthic, taking on their personality attributes.