Ghost Story
major snow, in may, in chicago
just the ammount of energy needed to create that much temperature drop alone- not including the pressure containment- is huge. far greater than any nuclear blast ever created by man. and she kept it up for months.
there is simply no way this can be any kind of domino effect. there are several ways she could have accomplished this ( bringing in cold air from the NN, etc..) but i honestly think she just willed it to become colder, much like odin willed harry not to get up. this would explain why the effect was limited only to the chicago region, and not the entire hemisphere as would have been caused by some sort of domino effect.
for example: lets say she used a small ammount of power to trigger volcanoes in the south pacific. that would have vented tons of ash into the atmosphere, thus cooling the waters, thus diverting the water flow. thus, instant mini ice age. its happened before, and could be done with far less energy.
but, just like prior mini ice ages, it would have changed the climate for much of the planet.
to change the climate over a multi state region, but only that region? that requires something containing the effect. Like Harry talking about summoning fire, you have to aim and channel things.
Mab not only was dropping the equivalent of a nuke an hour, she was also stabalizing the area outside the blast zone so that it didnt permantly change the climate for the entire continent.
no matter which way you look at it, its impressive as hell. and far more than any mortal wizard could ever do.
Out of curiosity, it sounds like you're proposing that Mab created the winter-like weather on purpose during the events of Ghost Story. The feeling I got (though I wouldn't be surprised if I got this wrong) was that the weather changed merely as a side-effect of Mab and Lea's presence in the area. It's the equivalent to the temperature change around Maeve during Summer Knight when she tried to bind Lloyd Slate. Do you see anything to point to the weather being a deliberate effect (like the weather in Small Favor) rather than a side effect (like the temperature change in Summer Knight)?
If the weather change is merely a side effect, then using it to gauge Mab's power is like trying to gauge a car's power by figuring out how much energy can be extracted from the exhaust fumes, rather than, you know, how much energy was already extracted by the car's movement.
I believe I've previously mentioned that I don't agree with all of your assumptions with regards to what we already "know". But for the remainder of this topic, I will assume them all to be correct, and just try to extrapolate from your theory (which, to be perfectly honest, I really like a lot).
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.
This is the part I found to be most interesting. Would you mind expanding a bit on what you think the relationship is between Mab and these UN cosmic gods? How subservient do you see Mab being to them? Do they get to interfere in Mab's policy practices? Is Mab treating them the same way Harry treats Mab (namely, tell me how to do my job, and I'll become mediocre at it)?
If Mab is forced to deal with beings who are as high above her as she is above Harry, I could see how the Fae's nature could become a defense mechanism; it would force these cosmic gods to deal fairly with Mab (if they don't they would have to take over the defense themselves).
Another question: if as you say, there are Outer Gates in alternate Earths, and each alternate dimension has its own set of defenders (who may not all be the Winter Court), that opens the possibility of dimensions where the Outer Gates have already fallen and the Outsiders have already done... whaterver it is that they want to do once they get here. What then? Why haven't they tried to jump from that alternate universe to ours?
I see three alternatives:
1. Jumping from one alternate world to another is inherently harder for Outsiders than crossing over from Outside to Inside.
2. Any world where the Outsiders break the Outer Gates becomes a part of the Outside, so we're losing pancakes, but the war remains in a single front
3. The Outer Gates don't only separate Inside from Outside, but also keep alternate realities separate (unlikely, since we know from WoJ that Shagnasty is dimensionally transcendental).
Another option that I've previously offered is the possibility that there is only one set of Outer Gates, and there is only one Mab across all alternate dimensions. If, as you say, Mab doesn't have the power by herself to reach that level, her purpose should still allow her to make that jump. One thing that we're told about the Outsiders in CD is that they all seem to be working toward a single purpose as far as people have been able to determine. Wouldn't it make sense to uplift the leader of the defense of the Gates so that she can also coordinate all defense across all realities, just like the Outsiders are coordinated, instead of risking failure in our defense due to the existence of factions on our side?
