Can we beatt he Horrors?, It needed its own thread. Options

[darthmord]

Well, regardless of who wins the fight against the Horrors, there's going to be a bunch of losers who weren't in the fight.

[nezumi]

I'm not particularly which part of this you don't get. Maybe it's the fact that 1/100th of infinity is still infinity, so even of gnashers only make up 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000th of all horrors, there has to be an actual number of horrors. Thus, horrors are not limitless. Thus it is entirely possible to kill all of them.

The argument you're making is based on flawed math. Specifically, you're trying to apply percentages to infinity, which doesn't work (for obvious reasons). 1% of infinity is infinity, and unless you're playing with rules of cardinality (which you're not), infinity is the same as infinity /10. Your entire argument falls about, presumably because you never took upper level theoretical math courses.

What we can say is a number of Horrors got to Earth, and a percentage of that number were gnashers.

We can NOT say that that's a representative of the entire Horror population. We can NOT say how many Horrors did not come over, for one reason or another.

Right now there seem to be two major flawed arguments floating around...



1) Background count defeats Horrors - there is no evidence for this and, if anything, there is evidence to the contrary (as Kage pointed out). I'd consider this as a 'we're all going to die anyway' torched earth method, but not as a plan I'm expecting to work.

2) The Horror population is representative of either the entire Horror population on their home plane, or the Horror population we will encounter in the future. We don't know if what we saw was 100% of Horrors or 1% or a drop of infinity, why some made it over and some didn't, or whether they've been evolving in the interim. We don't know if we'll even see gnashers this go-round. We don't know if we'll see Horrors that live on the matrix, or in books or whatever. And this is an assumption both sides have made. It is theoretically possible we'll be swamped by all low-level, physical monsters. In fact, it's possible the number of Horrors is capped by the available mana, so 1,000 gnashers 'costs' the same as one bonecrown. If that's the case, NOT fighting the gnashers but rounding them up and holding them would burn up that excess mana and we'd never see anything worse (then we could nuke them at our convenience). It's possible that the MORE successful they were in the 4th World, the more trouble they invited on themselves (by freeing up more energy for worse enemies). We just don't know, and everyone is talking out of their collective asses by trying to guess.


The comments about the kaerns are interesting. I have to ask, did any of the kaerns fall do to reasons other than human failure? I.e. - the actual, properly made mechanism failed, as opposed to it being made wrong or a horror-marked being invited in, etc?

Relating to kaern-technology surviving before and now being more easily spread... it occurs to me that kaern technology may have spread not due to a failure of the Horrors, but intentionally. They knew other Horrors would eat every name-giver anywhere ever, unless some breeding pairs were preserved. It seems quite sensible to me that some high-level Horrors would have a vested interest in making sure kaern-technology did spread and some kaerns did survive, otherwise there'd be nothing to eat on the next go-round. If that's the case, they may decide that saving ten times as many metahumans isn't necessary, so where before they used their powers to get Kaerns built and the technology spread, now they'll be working the other way. In other words, don't assume humanity's success was the Horror's failure, and therefore can be easily repeated.

[3278]

We've got the ED fans on one side, allied with the IE fans and Dragon-worshippers, who cannot assume that anything that could threaten their idols would not wipe the floor with the entire metahumanity.

And we have those on the other side who do not think ED is all that and a bag of chips.

A fascinatingly unbalanced comparison...but that is what I'd say, isn't it? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/talker.gif)

[Fuchs]

I do not hide the fact that I consider ED trash, and think IEs and Dragons are way overrated by some fans and devs. I just don't think anyone who actually likes to have such stuff in Shadowrun will ever change their views, and vice versa.

If the horrors can be beat by metahumanity, then IEs and GDs can be beaten by humanity as well - and that is a big game breaker for some fans.

If the horrors cannot be beaten by metahumanity, then that is a big game breaker for others such as me.

[DWC]

The comments about the kaerns are interesting. I have to ask, did any of the kaerns fall do to reasons other than human failure? I.e. - the actual, properly made mechanism failed, as opposed to it being made wrong or a horror-marked being invited in, etc?

Relating to kaern-technology surviving before and now being more easily spread... it occurs to me that kaern technology may have spread not due to a failure of the Horrors, but intentionally. They knew other Horrors would eat every name-giver anywhere ever, unless some breeding pairs were preserved. It seems quite sensible to me that some high-level Horrors would have a vested interest in making sure kaern-technology did spread and some kaerns did survive, otherwise there'd be nothing to eat on the next go-round. If that's the case, they may decide that saving ten times as many metahumans isn't necessary, so where before they used their powers to get Kaerns built and the technology spread, now they'll be working the other way. In other words, don't assume humanity's success was the Horror's failure, and therefore can be easily repeated.

I have to chime in and say that I really like the idea that the Horrors are cultivating humans to feed on and making sure that they always sew the seeds for the next crop. It's a lot more insidious than just showing up, ravaging everything they can reach, and then vanishing when they've eaten everything they can get to. That level of foresight adds so much malevolence to what is so often seen as a mindless force of destruction.

[Sixgun_Sage]

Took the weekend off to go to a party on saturday and run my game on sunday. Looking at this board I've got to say it, using events in SR to describe what dragons in SR can do as a way of expressing what the horrors are capable of is flawed because the writers for those events ignore common sense and the mechanics of their fictional world in equal measure. Rarely I've been allowed to just aplly way (only know one other guy in my area who EVER runs SR) but in the past I've killed a GD with a noth that elite heavy weapons specialist/ sammy. If you look at the mechanics of both worlds, do the conversions and apply logic the Horrors are minced, the only way they don't is if the devs or a gm running a scenario apply their own preconceptions to skew the numbers. As I believe this to be the case, and the evidence for said case to be more than adequate, I'll abstain from further argument.

[3278]

I do not hide the fact that I consider ED trash...

Well, that's a bias I think is probably worth keeping in mind. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

If you look at the mechanics of both worlds, do the conversions and apply logic the Horrors are minced, the only way they don't is if the devs or a gm running a scenario apply their own preconceptions to skew the numbers. As I believe this to be the case, and the evidence for said case to be more than adequate, I'll abstain from further argument.

If I felt you'd presented any evidence to support that opinion, I might have more respect for it.

[Kagetenshi]

The comments about the kaerns are interesting. I have to ask, did any of the kaerns fall do to reasons other than human failure? I.e. - the actual, properly made mechanism failed, as opposed to it being made wrong or a horror-marked being invited in, etc?

The kaers are not presented as airtight in the least. In Horrors Taint is said to have destroyed a kaer by, from the outside, corrupting an Adept inside and spreading from there; it apparently takes twenty years, but no mention is given of any flaw in the kaer. The section on Slipshades suggests that they could penetrate kaers with ease; "Fortunately, these entities are quite rare, not particularly aggressive (for Horrors), and generally do not cooperate with greater Horrors. Otherwise, few kaers would have been able to withstand the slipshades' powers of infiltration." The "How the Horrors Manifest" section explicitly refers to "penetrating the magical defenses of kaers and citadels across Barsaive."

Actually, looking at Taint's section again, there's also an implication that a Kaer's defensive power, like any ordinary defense, relies to some extent on knowledge of the attacker; the narrator of the section says "The denizens of this kaer had created their defenses carefully enough to have weathered the Scourge well, but they knew nothlng of Taint and could not guard against its subtle guile."

So yeah, Kaers don't really seem to be the impenetrable fortresses they're made out to be in this thread—just strong enough that they need either a Horror that's particularly well-adapted to slipping through the defenses or a greater Horror willing to exert time and effort towards breaching it.

~J

[3278]

The kaers are not presented as airtight in the least.

Agreed. In addition to the basic fact that nothing is impregnable, so many kaers were built with insufficient time or resources, or a lack of complete understanding of the necessary defenses. The prototypical kaer was probably the best design for most Name-givers [most non-Dragon ones, at any rate], as citadels and other solutions [like the original Wyrm Wood solution] failed at a much higher rate. Add in the number of kaers which mistakenly allowed Horrors in before the gates were closed, and a huge number of kaers fell during the Scourge.

So yeah, Kaers don't really seem to be the impenetrable fortresses they're made out to be in this thread—just strong enough that they need either a Horror that's particularly well-adapted to slipping through the defenses or a greater Horror willing to exert time and effort towards breaching it.

In my own post-Scourge 6th world setting, warning, education, and technology allow metahumanity to build refuges that are, indeed, 100 percent impenetrable, although very few perfect refuges were able to be built in time, and most are just really, really good. But these are plainly and simply a complete invention of mine, and have no canon support at all. Absolutely no refuge in Earthdawn - even those of Great Dragons - appears to be completely immune to any type of attack, although to my knowledge none of the really, really powerful pre-Earthdawn Great Dragon lairs were penetrated; that by no means indicates they couldn't have been.

[Fuchs]

Well, that's a bias I think is probably worth keeping in mind. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

I played ED1 for years, long enough to consider any argument based upon the broken rules of that edition invalid.

[Ravor]

Really? Seriously? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) Thanks for the laugh kiddo, I think I'm out on this thread. Like Fuchs said there are some people in this thread unwilling to see any point of view but their own. That's a recipe for crappy discussion.

What can I say, it pisses me off when someone who clearly doesn't like the thread just wants to come in and piss on everything. Either make an actual point or don't bother reading.


Fuchs although I do think you have an interesting view, remember that using your logic I should fall into the "anti-Horror" crowd so your theory needs allitle more refinement. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[cndblank]

As for the the rest, even if humanity had 100 years to prepare (And there is no way that they have more than that considering that the Bugs are already here.) it isn't going to do much good, hell, I'm assuming that humanity has advance notice as well, if not then we don't stand a chance even in the begining, where exactly are you going to be stockpiling all of your supplies? The Horrors are fragging everywhere and I don't remember the Dragons and whatever Second World IEs that were running around exactly doing anything all that useful the last time around.

Using P-Fixes isn't a half bad idea, at least to help prevent being marked in the first place from stray emotions (Sadly that isn't the only way to get Marked.) but once a Horror got to you I don't think they'd do a damned thing. And really, requiring dual chains of command? Do you have any idea how much damange the ineffectincy alone would cause?

How resistant are powerful Mages to horror marking? I expect they would be the only onces to face Horrors directly and likely they would use summoned spirits to boot.

Except for those that managed to infiltrate the Kaer, the rest of humanity would be using drones. Nothing to mark there.

And I think with modern science, the horrors would find it a very different experience even if their destructive options had increased.

If nothing else Kaers would be able to warm each other.


Also are we working under the assumption that the mana spikes have been removed or are they still there?

if they have been removed, then we only have to face what Horrors made it over before they were removed. Dangerous yes, but there are those that know how to deal with them if they become too dangerous.

My understanding of Earthdawn was that it was a couple thousand years after the magic returned before the Horrors were able to cross over in any force at all (not to say that a few can not do it much earlier).

I guess the big question is what will the Elves and Greater Dragons do when the time comes to prepare?

I expect the last cycle the IE and GD felt any thing they could do would do more harm then good and they made sure that the Kaer knowledge was spread (cause Dragons like to have servants and game pieces and immortal elves know that the more Kaers out there the better their chance to survive).

Certainly a mere 50 years after the return of magic, I expect that they still evaluating their options, saying nothing out of habit to prevent a panic, and continuing to adjusted to the 6th world. And not to mention that the mana level still are really not that high yet.

And as they say follow the money, if Sader Krup started building vast city sized bomb shelters that were self-sustaining for centuries, you can bet everyone else would be wondering why and would likely start building their own. It would be a Kaer race!




Just to be clear, I don't see humanity able to kick the Horrors off the planet. They will have to wait them out. I do see them winning the war with a complete civilization surviving in outer space and in vast Kaers until the Horrors can no longer remain. And if such a civilization did survive then it would likely retain its knowledge of both Magic and the Horrors. I expect the 8th World would be a very different and difficult place for the Horrors.

[Fuchs]

What can I say, it pisses me off when someone who clearly doesn't like the thread just wants to come in and piss on everything. Either make an actual point or don't bother reading.


Fuchs although I do think you have an interesting view, remember that using your logic I should fall into the "anti-Horror" crowd so your theory needs allitle more refinement. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

Why? There could be a superb logical argument that states that the horrors are unbeatable, or the devs could come right out and state it in a special sourcebook, and I'd ignore it anyway (and call them names for it) since following it would wreck the game for me.

It's just that - personal preference. Those who like uber horrors, IEs and GDs like it, and those who do not do not.

[Cthulhudreams]

2) The Horror population is representative of either the entire Horror population on their home plane, or the Horror population we will encounter in the future. We don't know if what we saw was 100% of Horrors or 1% or a drop of infinity, why some made it over and some didn't, or whether they've been evolving in the interim. We don't know if we'll even see gnashers this go-round. We don't know if we'll see Horrors that live on the matrix, or in books or whatever.

At the point where you deny the applicability of the only available evidence, why even discuss? Maybe the next round of horrors will be happy flower children that will just give metahumans presents, and hugs, and sweeties, and they'll have a dance, more hugs, and teach us the secret of gummy juice.

See, humanity doesn't even need to beat horrors, they are all actually nice guys. Discussion complete!

PS: I know that percentages don't apply to infinity you dope, that was the point. If there are unlimited horrors, there would be no earth at all left, thus there are not unlimited horrors. Q.E.D Infact, as gnashers are described as being one of the more common types, there really cannot be many horrors at all.

[Grinder]

I do not hide the fact that I consider ED trash, and think IEs and Dragons are way overrated by some fans and devs. I just don't think anyone who actually likes to have such stuff in Shadowrun will ever change their views, and vice versa.

If the horrors can be beat by metahumanity, then IEs and GDs can be beaten by humanity as well - and that is a big game breaker for some fans.

If the horrors cannot be beaten by metahumanity, then that is a big game breaker for others such as me.

Dude, we know that you don't like IEs and GDs. No need to post that in every single fucking thread again.

[Ravor]

cndblank hmm, good question, depends on how you translate someone's "Spell Defense", personally I would treat it as an opposed test between the Horror's "marking power" and the human's Willpower. However something to consider is that everytime a Mage actually does something with "raw Magic" it makes him easier to Mark. And all magic in the Sixth World is what the Fourth World considered to be "raw Magic". Once marked, the Horror can do basically whatever it wants to the character as long as they are within 100 miles of each other and communicate within 5000 miles for a the next 366 days.

Spirits aren't really going to be effective, if nothing else because of the massive background counts and as the example of Artificer shows us spirits are also corruptable by the Horrors. Drones would work against the physical Horrors but everytime you lose one its a big deal since you've got to find the raw matrials to replace it. Also I'm not sure that it would be safe to face a Horror while "jumped in", after all if a Horror can mark people who simply touch an item that it has "corrupted" it seems to me that rigging a drone isn't going to be all that safe.

Remember that in the best case scenerio, all of the existing Mana Spikes have been leveled out and Dunkie the friendly Dragon is working hard to prevent future spikes from creating bridges "too soon". However, remember that not even Great Dragons are immune to the effects of the Horrors so even IF Big D started out as one of the good guys it is doubtful that he'd last long. Also remember that at the current Mana Levels sans Spikes the Bug Spirits are still active and mysterious semi-warding runes (Kaer rituals?) are starting to become active once again so I get the impression that the damage to the Mana Cycle is far greater than we realize.

As for the immortals, meh, people put far too much faith in them, we've already seen what they did during the last scrouge and Big D and possibly H himself were the only memebers in the "fight them" club.


Fuchs merely pointing out that I'm not one of your Dragon/Elf Fanboys and that I would have been much happier had Earthdawn never become the "offically unoffical" Fourth World. But yet I'm in the "pro-Horror" camp because sadly enough in any conversation of the fluff that is the way things go down and although the "anti-Horror" camp makes some decent points and have proposed some decent tactics I have yet to see any actual war winners.


Cthulhudreams I believe that I've already answered your "Barren Earth Theory".

[nezumi]

How resistant are powerful Mages to horror marking? I expect they would be the only onces to face Horrors directly and likely they would use summoned spirits to boot.

Probably depends on the horror. But given some of the comments here, I seriously doubt they'll be the only ones actively seeking out Horrors to blow away.

If nothing else Kaers would be able to warm each other.

I really think heating isn't going to be a huge problem in this war, although it's good for you to bring it up.

Did you mean warn? If so, I wouldn't bet on that. We don't know if Horrors can contaminate the Matrix. We've never seen those two together before. If I were building a Kaer, I would not gamble on my matrix connection being safe.

Also are we working under the assumption that the mana spikes have been removed or are they still there?

We're working on the assumption they're still there. Mana spikes were theorized in Earthdawn, and a certain sequence of events were hypothesized to precede them. Since we've seen that sequence of events (albeit, not with the projected time frame), it seems reasonable to assume the theory still holds. It's possible it won't reach the necessary levels, but we're already pretty close and all signs indicate it's still rising, so...

My understanding of Earthdawn was that it was a couple thousand years after the magic returned before the Horrors were able to cross over in any force at all (not to say that a few can not do it much earlier).

Correct, but the build-up of magic was much slower as well. For whatever reason, we're hitting all the milestones, but far, far ahead of schedule.

And as they say follow the money, if Sader Krup started building vast city sized bomb shelters that were self-sustaining for centuries, you can bet everyone else would be wondering why and would likely start building their own. It would be a Kaer race!

Strong point. Seems reasonable to assume S-K may have already built one. This sort of long-term planning may also explain some of Lofwyr's stranger acquisitions and business decisions.

[nezumi]

At the point where you deny the applicability of the only available evidence, why even discuss? Maybe the next round of horrors will be happy flower children that will just give metahumans presents, and hugs, and sweeties, and they'll have a dance, more hugs, and teach us the secret of gummy juice.

You're revealing your extreme lack of math background.

We have a high degree of certainty that an event will happen. However, while we have a baseline expectation, the variability is also high. Therefore, when planning contingencies, (i.e. the traditional Risk * Impact matrices), we need to increase the Risk factor for a number of unanticipated events, and not many people were doing it. Everyone has assumed the Matrix is safe (well, except for one person). But that's just an assumption, it's ungrounded, and it's not being addressed. There IS a risk chance that the Matrix is in fact a viable vector for Horror attack. What is the Impact if Horrors attack through the Matrix? How do we address it?

PS: I know that percentages don't apply to infinity you dope, that was the point. If there are unlimited horrors, there would be no earth at all left, thus there are not unlimited horrors. Q.E.D Infact, as gnashers are described as being one of the more common types, there really cannot be many horrors at all.

Ouch, your poor logic is making my stomach queasy!! By your logic, the fact that your house doesn't flood when you turn on and off the kitchen faucet means there's maybe 400 gallons of water in the whole world.

[cndblank]

cndblank

Spirits aren't really going to be effective, if nothing else because of the massive background counts and as the example of Artificer shows us spirits are also corruptable by the Horrors. Drones would work against the physical Horrors but everytime you lose one its a big deal since you've got to find the raw matrials to replace it.

Also I'm not sure that it would be safe to face a Horror while "jumped in", after all if a Horror can mark people who simply touch an item that it has "corrupted" it seems to me that rigging a drone isn't going to be all that safe.



As for the immortals, meh, people put far too much faith in them, we've already seen what they did during the last scrouge and Big D and possibly H himself were the only memebers in the "fight them" club.

High technology is the most magic resistant thing we have.

I don't see a Horror that can only exist on Earth when the Magic has returned being able to have it's way with advance Technology.

For raw resources you just recycle. Parts is Parts.


On the IE and GD, I don't see either one as saviors but they are survivors.

And just because winning the the last scourge was impossible, doesn't mean they might not act differently this time with everything that has changed.

Also even the IE (who did not sleep through the last cycle) still don't have a full understanding of how fast the technology is advancing.

[Kagetenshi]

High technology is the most magic resistant thing we have.

As we've already noted, background count also interferes with metahuman magic pretty well. "Interferes with metahuman magic" and "is resistant to Horrors" are very much not the same thing, despite repeated attempts to conflate them.

~J

[Ravor]

Kay don't have alot of time since I'm getting ready to go visit a certain pretty young lady, but cndblank you do realize that it's impossible to recycle anything with 100% effectincy? So where are you getting all of these parts or the raw matrial for said parts? Surely you aren't even trying to salvage battefield scrap and risk letting the Horrors in your front door?

[toturi]

As we've already noted, background count also interferes with metahuman magic pretty well. "Interferes with metahuman magic" and "is resistant to Horrors" are very much not the same thing, despite repeated attempts to conflate them.

~J

Background Count interferes with all magic pretty well. Until the devs or writers state explicitly that Horror magic is an exception to the rule, "interferes with magic" could very well be "resistant to Horrors", despite repeated attempts to seperate them.

[Cthulhudreams]

Kay don't have alot of time since I'm getting ready to go visit a certain pretty young lady, but cndblank you do realize that it's impossible to recycle anything with 100% effectincy? So where are you getting all of these parts or the raw matrial for said parts? Surely you aren't even trying to salvage battefield scrap and risk letting the Horrors in your front door?

It is apparently possible with the level of magic required for the horrors to come back, because the Kaer's did it with food, which isn't even possible today. It's fairly clear from the description that adepts can create energy and transform it into physical materials for the purposes of growing food, because otherwise their just isn't enough energy in a closed cave system to support a kaer.

If you can make it into one sort of carbon chain, you can probably make petrol. With that you can make all sorts of things.

doing without the sun is actually pretty hard - it provides most of the energy that makes our corps, so the adepts can create serious energy as if from nothing to do so.

You're revealing your extreme lack of math background.

We have a high degree of certainty that an event will happen. However, while we have a baseline expectation, the variability is also high. Therefore, when planning contingencies, (i.e. the traditional Risk * Impact matrices), we need to increase the Risk factor for a number of unanticipated events, and not many people were doing it. Everyone has assumed the Matrix is safe (well, except for one person). But that's just an assumption, it's ungrounded, and it's not being addressed. There IS a risk chance that the Matrix is in fact a viable vector for Horror attack. What is the Impact if Horrors attack through the Matrix? How do we address it?

Sigh. There is exactly as much indication that the horrors can use technology, than the horrors are secretly gummy bears. Infact there is LESS indication as materalised spirits and other dual natured beings (which the horrors are) are explicitly prohibited from interacting with the matrix. The only hack around that is inhabitation (not possession!) spirits that can inhabit someone who already has a DNI, and use his knowledge to do stuff.

there is no indication that horrors do inhabitation - only possession and materialization, so my case that that there are gummy bears in the horror dimension that might be the next ones through is actually more likely that your sample of a risk factor that you should plan for, because there is only speculation about the true nature of the horrors and/or their home plane in the earthdawn material I have read. So mine is pure speculation, yours is contraindicated.

We have three sources of information to drawn on

1) The rules - these have to override all other sources because we are talking about altenative scenarios, and mechanics give us a way to test scenarios.

2) The source material - this is functionally the equivalent of primary sources in history. There are two types of source material - the 'god' descriptions provided that are absolutes and typically bookend mechanics information & 'in character' descriptions that can mostly be discarded in earthdawn as those are specifically speculating from limited information.

Given the evidence against horrors being able to use the matrix in our main source (1), and no supporting evidence in any other source material, how can we discuss it rationally?

There is no source material to reference, so we're just talking about how it might work, which is fun, but not renlighting to why I think the horrors will lose and you don't (hint: different assumptions)

@Ravor: No you haven't, because you're not looking at how much gnashers eat. The book is far more damning that my back of the envelop caculation.

Gnashers are quite large, and eat several times their own body weight in a 'matter of minutes'. A conservative estimate calls for each gnasher to eat 30 million tons each, per year. We only have ~125 billion tones of biomass on earth, and a big chunk of that (~33%) lives in the sea. of the remaining 66%, 50% lives in rainforests, leaving 16% outside of the rainforests and under the ocean.

That means four thousand gnashers could (it's not clear if they eat that much all the time, but they are described as ravenous eating machines, so I'm comfortable with that assumption) eat the entire biomass of earth on land in a year, all the ants, termites, trees, plants, bacteria, the lot. But they have 800 years! Even if they eat each other almost all the time, they'll still completely eradicate life on earth. Plus, in the god description given in the GM's guide, they don't eat each other, they instead roam in legions eating everything else.

It also means an gnasher can eat like 4 other gnashers in a couple of minutes, which is impressive.

[nezumi]

It is apparently possible with the level of magic required for the horrors to come back, because the Kaer's did it with food, which isn't even possible today. It's fairly clear from the description that adepts can create energy and transform it into physical materials for the purposes of growing food, because otherwise their just isn't enough energy in a closed cave system to support a kaer.

Definitely true. It seems pretty clear that higher magic will somehow close the gap in the energy cycle. Still, if you're sending drones out to die, it may be problematic since those parts won't be available to you any more, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume we can get recycling up to a pretty efficient level.

Sigh. There is exactly as much indication that the horrors can use technology, than the horrors are secretly gummy bears.

That is true, however in our risk matrix, the impact of the Horrors being gummi bears is pretty low (unless you happen to be an evil duke or hoarding gummy berries), whereas the impact of the horrors using the matrix is pretty high. So which contingency do you think we should focus on?

Infact there is LESS indication as materalised spirits and other dual natured beings (which the horrors are) are explicitly prohibited from interacting with the matrix.

I may not be recalling correctly, but were there any spirits which laid eggs in your chest and transformed your physical form prior to the bug spirits? Are there spirits which are fully physical-only and unable to project into the astral, like gnashers? Are there spirits that require being consumed by a human to reproduce, like dread iota?

Yes, there is some weak support that Horrors will not be able to use the Matrix. But is it something you'd really want to bet your life on?

Given the evidence against horrors being able to use the matrix in our main source (1), and no supporting evidence in any other source material, how can we discuss it rationally?

I never suggested we come to an answer on this matter. Just pointing out, it's an assumption. I'm not going to argue that Horrors CAN use the Matrix. That would be silly. I'm just pointing out, we don't have any conclusive evidence that they CAN'T (and therefore, any suggestion resting on that assumption is only as secure as the assumption itself).

There is no source material to reference, so we're just talking about how it might work, which is fun, but not renlighting to why I think the horrors will lose and you don't (hint: different assumptions)

I never said the Horrors won't lose. In fact, I was reflecting last month on how interesting it is I've been following this discussion for... what, two years? And I still haven't voted. I don't think there's enough information to make a meaningful statement.

I think the Horrors will SURVIVE and humans will SURVIVE. I can't really speculate on who will 'win' (but it's interesting to see why people support one side or the other).

Gnashers are quite large, and eat several times their own body weight in a 'matter of minutes'. A conservative estimate calls for each gnasher to eat 30 million tons each, per year. We only have ~125 billion tones of biomass on earth, and a big chunk of that (~33%) lives in the sea. of the remaining 66%, 50% lives in rainforests, leaving 16% outside of the rainforests and under the ocean.

Do gnashers defecate?

[estradling]

I am going to have to go with Horrors as well. I don't think the Intelligent Horrors are given enough credit. The closest I've seen it that even the smart ones will have to adapt to what we can do. While I agree with that, the hidden assumption is that they will have to wait until they come through personally to start learning what we can do... Pardon me but I find that to be a 'stupid' thing for a 'smart' Horror to do.

A few assumptions... One: the nature of the Horrors vary. But the smart ones are at least as smart as Great Dragons. Two: the Horrors are very long lived. At least as long as dragons.

Now it has been said that the Horrors will be too prideful to expect opposition given that they curb stomped us the last time. I disagree... Depending on if the Horror getting kicked out in the first place is true, then the Horror have been unexpectedly curb stomped in the past. Smart Horrors would not forget that.

Of course that might not be a valid point to build on, so let go to the ending of the Horror's time in the 4th age. The smart Horrors have things mostly under control. There is some resistance they can't crack. Mostly from Great Dragons and Elves. As a smart Horror you know that they will have a long time to prepare for your return. These preparers are the one that have been smart enough and clever enough, to thwart your power, if only in limited ways, in the here an now, so what might they come up with by the time you get back?

I am not as smart as these Horrors are suppose to be, but even someone as dim as me can think of a few things they might do... First before I leave place sleepers... Many, many, sleepers in the hopes that a few will survive long enough for the return. Next once the barrier drops, attack it. They might not have much else to do so why not? Try to break through, weaken, or speed up the cycle barrier. After all if you can get through before they expect you you have the element of surprise. Next once the Barrier starts to weaken send through lesser creatures and start learning what changed. Corrupt people and have them start working to break the Barrier from the other side. Corrupt people and get them in to places of power and authority. Watch how they handle lesser threats (insects shaddim etc) In fact you might even have 'your' people lead the fight against them to get them into power. For a truly Smart Horror victory is going to be pretty much a given before they cross over... Otherwise why risk it?