Somewhat related, there's also this WoJ (emphasis mine):...
I don't think Earth can be "relatively conflict free" unless it is a universe where the Outsiders are not trying to get in. One possible reason for that is because in those universes there is no mortal magic on Earth and so nothing can summon Outsiders. So one possible ending for the BAT is that Harry permanently shuts off the world from the Outside at the cost of ending all mortal magic.
Jim's quote is saying that in some universes, the Earth is not the focal point of Cosmic conflict. In the DFverse, the Outer Gates are located in the earth's portion of the NN, and it's Earth's Mortals that are the focus of Cosmic importance, while the aliens that live in the Andromeda galaxy are kicking back with some space lemonade wondering what's for dinner.
In some parallel universe, there's a planet populated by hyper-intelligent creatures that look suspiciously like donkeys, who have been locked in a fierce battle with the Outsiders. Meanwhile the people of Earth in that universe are celebrating an unprecedented 1000 years of peace known as the "Ice Cream" age, which was only briefly broken by a scuffle due to a disagreement over which topping was most appropriate: fudge, or butterscotch? The disagreement was mounting toward war until the last second when a clever Wizard named Gary Cresden discovered people could actually just use both.
Sure, but you'd still have to explain why there are no mortals on that Earth summoning Outsiders.
Because they don't know about them. In some universes the Outsiders never get that far, and when/if they do, the Earth isn't the primary entryway. Maybe sometimes they get that far and the Earth
becomes more important. Maybe sometimes there's no intelligent life on Earth.
Thing is, I don't think we've ever see any angelic forces fighting directly against the Outsiders. I mean (as far as I remember), you've got Michael at the end of PG, Nicodemus' "blinking" when he hears about Hellfire at AT (and some of the stuff he says in SG) and (if you buy into the theory) Rafael-Demonreach.
Now granted the whole Outsider threat was only explicitly stated in the last few books so its not impossible that we haven't seen the whole picture, but given that a whole angel is given the sole job to protect the possibly dying Forthill, you'd think Harry would have run across a few hints of their existence at the continual war at the Gates.
I guess it I just haven't have gotten "that vibe" so far, though of course it might be Harry's misunderstanding of the situation.
The battle at the Outer Gates is only one part of a war that spans infinity. The Outer Gates are one portion that kind of acts like the front door to the Outside. We see the Outsiders attacking the Gates, but, if there are Gates, doesn't that imply that there are "walls" that wrap around everything else? Why not try to burrow through the walls?
We don't know the whole nature of the Outside, the Outsiders, or the War itself. It could very well be that while the Winter Sidhe are fighting things that they can actually beat, the Angels are keeping things at bay that the Sidhe are no match for, or it could be that they guard the walls of infinity themselves from Outside, and the things getting to the Sidhe are only the things that slip by.
Since there
is an Inside, one would assume that whatever deity created it (assuming it was actually created as such), would want to keep it in order. There are supposedly an innumerable amount of angels, so having a handful watch over the dead isn't that strange. Even in the midst of war, aspects of regular life still go on.
Also, regarding the angels and the daily squabbles Inside. In some Gnostic lore, the universe as we know it was made by a demiurge, an imperfect god-like being (usually with another, unreachable-to-us god above this being). The demiurge created the universe out of Chaos, and since the universe is made from imperfect material, it is inherently flawed and prone to darkness and chaos. Assuming the WG is a Gnostic demiurge, the conflict with Lucifer, and all the problems of the universe makes perfect sense. In this scenario, the Dresdenverse isn't just something separate from the Outside, it's *made from* the material of the Outside, the chaos that the Outsiders want to bring *is already here*, part of everything. So while the WG was able to make so many good things, conflict was inevitable, even among his own crew. The goal then would be to manage the chaos Inside as well as Out.
Moreover, Freewill is in essence an element of Chaos inside an ordered system. A
perfectly ordered and predictable system couldn't have Free Will. The creatures that battle Free Will want perfect order (and thus possibly safety from the Outsiders). Free Will both poses a threat to existence, and at the same time there's no point to existence without it.
edit: Forgot to address the base concept of the thread:
Wasn't it said in CD that Victor Sells and the FBI people were infected? I know it came from a suspect source, but it wouldn't
really make sense to throw that into the story without it being true, even as a misdirection to throw Harry off.
I think there's just generally better targets. We don't know what Nemsis' limits are, it's been hypothesized that there might be a limit as to how many people it can control, or some other limiting factor that makes it infeasible to just spread like the flu. If it was easy as catching a cold, there'd be no stopping it, so there must be something more to getting infected by it.
Even if people have Free Will, they still have an inherent nature, it's just that most people never really make many significant choices to go against their nature. I think there's a WoJ about that. A Nemesis infection would turn someone away from who they are, hence Lily's bit about a loving father turning to consume his family, and people sworn to the uphold the law turning to vigilantism and murder. Sounds pretty Nemesissy to me, and the sludge that was all over that guy's Soulgaze seems to me like perhaps the earliest foreshadowing of Nemesis.
