A Pancake in a Sphere of Jell-O
Introduction We are geeks. And we often wonder ‘who can beat who?’ Jim is a geek, and he sometimes answers. We now know some gods are stronger than others, and some gods are much, much stronger than others. We know that if Mab fought the Erlking, the entire wild hunt, and all the Denarians it would be a game of whack a mole. But being geeks, we wonder why? What is it that makes Mab so much stronger then Odin, and makes Uriel so much stronger then Mab?
A while back I compiled a rough list, of the approximate magical powers of these beings, based on real world equivalents (in Joules):
Harry: 10^7th (can throw lightning, blast some houses to pieces)
Eb: 10^11 (create minor earthquakes, level whole buildings)
Lea: 10^17 (power enough to level cities) (lesser god)
Mab: 10^18-10^20 (power of a major hurricane, can change climate on a large scale)(major god)
solar energy, one day 5*10^22
asteroid that killed dinosaurs: 5*10^23
solar output, per second: 3.8*10^26
power of the death star: 2*10^32 (destroy small planets)(greater god?)
doomsday machine: 5*10^41 (destroy big planets)
Galactus approx.: 6.9*10^41 (cosmic god?)
observable galaxy: 10^59
what harry thinks Uriel is, minimum: 10^62
the big G god: over 10^68 (aka, the observable universe)
Now one thing this list does show is that everyone Lea level and over is a ‘nuclear armed power’ as Jim refers to things. You don’t start wars with nuclear states, because there can’t be a winner. What you do is use agents, proxy wars, small conflicts, and negotiations to solve your conflicts.
On the Origins of Magic
In the DF, magic is a natural force. It originates form living things, emotions of living things, and by Word of Mother Winter, it is conserved like any other source of power. Therefore, as it comes from life, its total amount on earth must be less than the total amount of energy available on earth, about 274 million Giga watts per year. This sounds like an absurd amount, but realize it’s just a tiny fraction of the power some of these ‘god’ appear to have. How then does one explain this? Either Magic is not conserved, or beings are able to draw on more than one world.
The NN is vast
We know from Jim the NN expands outwards, from the Earth, to the edge of the moon. We know it is a sphere, and can conclude this is the limit of magical energy radiated from the life on earth. We know from Bob that it exists in far more than the four dimensions humans can normally perceive, and from discussions about precognition we can speculate that higher beings in it can perceive alternate pasts, presents, and futures. First, how big is it?
Even in conventional dimensions its huge: 237 *10^5th cubic Km… that’s enough for over 23,460 earths even if we just assume normal reality. In 11 dimensions, the number becomes insane.. 9,188,2801,591,004,303,761,991,879,201,232,836,019,976,271,010,838,154,206,141 possible alternate earths. Well, there is your power source.
Conclusion
Imagine a circle, or a pancake if you will; this is the radius of the NN in our reality. then imagine a cylinder, a giant stack of pancakes; this is the multiverse.
Some entities, such as the Red Court, feed off only small bites. Others, worldwide beings such as Mab, feed off of a harvest drawn from entire worlds. Still others feed off of collections of worlds, or possibly empires in the thousands or millions of worlds. Scaling upwards, there are beings that eat entire grand slams worth of pancakes on a regular basis. What can we draw from such things?
First, such beings don’t compete over individual worlds with all their power, it simply not worth it to risk upsetting the table over a single pancake. Instead they send agents, who hire local talent, and have a negotiated game- the influence you can exert over each world is equivalent to the number of worshipers you have. That’s why the classical gods left and the Abrahamic god took over; he won a round of the great game.
Second the outsiders are very likely just that- from outside. Imagine another world, much like our own, but in another part of the galaxy. Imagine one god there won. It owns all the pancakes. But now its still hungry, and wants more. It’s sending expeditions out to find new pancakes to eat.
This would imply either it’s only attacking our pancake now, or on each pancake, there is a Mab or Mab equivalent who is in charge of the local defense. I’m heading to the latter.. as it would explain why Mab has more power than any other local god, and why she gets power from her purpose. The ‘UN’ of Cosmic Gods is feeding Mab power to help with her ‘local defense’ much like how a superpower would send aid to a local power in the real world.
The UN isn’t going to get involved at this stage, because they don’t want to start an all-out war between worlds. This is why none of the cosmic powers were involved in Cold Days. At the same time, the outsiders are going to be trying to get them involved, because they think the superpowers are liable to start fighting amongst themselves, and thus cause chaos and
let them in.