The Outlands

Tess: Okay, I know we just talked about this earlier, but the curiosity is killing me and I can't focus. How did the Administrator War…work? Like, how do you mobilize an entire plane as an army? Did everyone know about Amy and just listened to her unconditionally or…?

Life: Before I begin, let me say that none of the gods in this chat were alive during the Administrator War. I have read many books on the war, and have discussed it with veterans at length, but this is not firsthand knowledge, so please do not take it as gospel.

Death: This is technically a divine revelation, isn't it literally gospel?

Life: It is a turn of phrase. You know what I mean.

Death: Yeah, I do, I'm just messing with you. Carry on

Life: Now, before I get into specifics, allow me to indulge in a brief history lesson. In the early days, there were not that many Administrators, thirty at most. This is because conflict was rife; Administrators were constantly attacking each other and absorbing the planes of the losers. After Amy had defended our planes enough times, she tired of the fighting, and reached out to three friends, most notably Jerry.

Death: You'll meet Jerry at some point, he's the guy who invented systems. But he's the notable one of the group because he's the only one aside from Amy who's still alive. He's not the only Administrator from that era still alive, of course, and there are even a couple in our faction, but of that group, he and Amy are the only survivors

Life: Thank you, I had forgotten that they are yet to meet Jerry.

Ellie: Yes, thanks for explaining

Tess: Amy mentioned him to me, I think. He helped her look at Monster Breeder back when we were worried about the changes, right?

Fortune: Yes, that's him. He's a nice guy, just…don't bring up the war around him lightly. Not that he'll be rude to you or think less of you or anything, but he's still got a lot of trauma from it and he gets…intense about it.

Life: Many of the books I mentioned were authored by him. They paint a grim picture of the time. But, as I was saying, once that alliance was formed, they became nigh-unstoppable. They were not warmongers, they only attacked in retaliation whenever one of their group was attacked, but they were able to quickly absorb and distribute the territory of the attackers amongst themselves.

Life: Please do not think less of Amy and Jerry for their conquests during the war; they made sure the people were given fair treatment, and those planes all enjoy prosperity that I am sure dwarfs what they would have had in their former owners' hands. As Amy told me, the people were sinless, they were simply defending themselves and attempting to survive. But the aggressive Administrators? If they did not kill them, then those Administrators would kill others. Unfortunately, there is no way to non-lethally permanently subdue an opposing Administrator, they simply pose too great a risk, and over time would gather enough power to escape or fight back, even if their planes were stripped from them.

Death: Theoretically you could drain them of Worship and prevent them from doing anything by keeping them in a loop of death and rebirth, killing them whenever they get enough Worship to revive. But honestly, that seems crueler than just killing them once and being done with it, and is vulnerable to failure if you're not hyper-vigilant about it. Point is, there's no "prison" that could be used against them

Life: That is correct, thank you for the clarification. Back to the history, once people took note of this alliance and its efficacy, more began to crop up and they eventually resolved into the three Administrator factions of today. The war escalated from there, and while battles and Administrator death became rarer, the toll on mortals became far greater.

Life: That was the status quo for a long time, until Jerry invented systems and tipped the balance in favor of our faction, the most peaceful of the three. While people who solely rely on systems tend to be less powerful than people who don't when both are at the level of someone like Evan, the amount of work needed to get there without a system is several orders of magnitude greater. This meant that our side was suddenly able to field far more troops, and we forced the other factions into peace.

Life: We can discuss more about that and how it led into the current political climate another time, but for now it is finally time to answer your original questions. The answer is that how these attacks played out depended entirely on who was doing the attacking. Some of the more unscrupulous Administrators did use horrid tactics to mobilize large parts of their planes to fight, but that was, fortunately, not the norm.

Life: The strategy favored by our faction and most factions of the era was to essentially make an artificial monster surge, pouring a bunch of grouped up monsters onto the planes. This was a far greater threat back in the day, and often required the presence of Higher Beings to satisfactorily resolve. And, since without the people, the Administrators and Higher Beings would have their Worship income plummet, they were often forced to respond.

Life: Then, while the Higher Beings were busy dealing with the monsters, a strike team composed of a universe's Higher Beings and other best combatants would come and assault the Administrator directly. This was risky, because both sides would usually deplete large amounts of their Worship in the fight, leaving the victor vulnerable, but the alliances helped make up for that.

Life: After systems were developed, we were able to change tactics. We could field enough combatants to actually occupy opposing territory for extended periods of time, greatly reducing the need to have the Higher Beings take the field directly. Instead, we would turn our opponents' own people against them; in many cases, they were treated as little more than glorified livestock, and a liberating army backed by kinder gods would quickly garner support among the populace.

Life: Then, all we would have to do was hold territory. At that time, even the Higher Beings were less powerful than they are now, so decently strong and experience system-backed warriors could actually hold their own if they were shielded from the more unfair Worship abilities, such as instant-kill attacks. And, actually, empowerments made to people during this time would eventually become the foundation for Descent; it was the first time serious research was put in to having mortals wield bits of Worship.

Life: Anyway, while our faction held territory, we would effectively siphon Worship from our foes. They would lose significant parts of their Worship bases, and even if they did "liberate" cities from our rule, their Worship income would be affected for decades afterwards. If they could even defeat us; it was much easier to defend against their attacks with our superior technology, and often they would spend a significant amount of Worship only to be rebuffed with little to no casualties and far less Worship expenditure on our side. That would leave them seriously weakened for the eventual confrontation.

Life: Once it became clear what the end result of the war would be, we delivered an ultimatum, striving to form an "Administrator society" of sorts. If we had conquered everyone, there would be significant casualties on all sides, there was the possibility for rebellions later, and by that point everyone was weary of war. We made some concessions, letting some truly heinous Administrators go unpunished, but we stopped the war and codified much more civilized rules for determining who gets new planes.

Life: This peace has held for hundreds of thousands of years, but the other factions have somewhat caught up technologically. Currently, if either other faction makes a large technological breakthrough, war will likely break out again, but it would have to be large enough that it would allow them to effectively handle both other factions, which is a daunting task.

Dungeons: It's why the battles for planes are so important. Not only does winning allow us to starve other factions for resources to an extent, it shows that we haven't gotten soft enough to be easy targets. Unfortunately, while we won most of the early planes, as technology progressed the format allowed other factions to catch up to an extent. We're still the largest faction in terms of the raw number of planes, even if we're not the largest in number of Administrators, but that gap has narrowed somewhat over time.

Life: That is exactly right, and is also why you don't need to do much to prepare other than what you are doing; your strength will serve as both a deterrent and as actual combat power in case of another war.

Ellie: You know, I've kinda been wondering, but…are the gods all using the system too? Do you have levels and stats and stuff?

Fortune: Yes and no. Most of what we do with Worship isn't technically integrated with the system, but we do have levels and stats. The numbers are just…a lot bigger than any mortal's, since we run off Worship and that's a lot more potent than normal Mana. Like, I'm level 253 and my stats are on average like twice as high as Ellie's would be if she was level 253. And, like Tess, I have effectively infinite Luck. It doesn't mean a lot, though; if Evan and I were to go all-out, and we assume I couldn't do anything unfair with Worship, he'd probably still beat me. He's way more skilled than I am and has way more practical combat experience. It'd be close, but only because my stats are so much higher than his

Maven: Is that assuming he's in Descent?

Fortune: Sorta? That was assuming he has the Worship resistance of Descent but not any of the other stuff. If he was in Descent and I had no limitations he would win, full-stop. And…actually, I think I might be stronger overall while Tess is in Descent? I have few limitations aside from the lower base stats, but she has Monster Breeder and her pool of abilities is actually way better than what I have. I've, uh, been slacking a little and haven't picked up new stuff in a long time. Plus, she's weird in that we've got effectively no time limit and can exercise way more Worship than other gods can in their Descents so…yeah

Ellie: Wait I just sort of assumed you had Monster Breeder if you had other stuff. That's your Class, right?

Fortune: It's a bit more complicated to have it than other Classes, since Monster Breeder was an exercise in cramming Worship into Classes. We mostly tested via specialized tools that we use to simulate a person, and I only used it "myself" while piloting those. It wasn't actually "on me". And nowadays it's probably literally impossible for me to have it, now that it's been folded into Tess's Domain. That's hers and hers only now

Tess: I thought that was just because we replaced that Rewards Crystal?

Fortune: Well, theoretically speaking, mortals might be able to have it? It would probably be really bad, though, since you've started optimizing it around your soul specifically instead of the general optimization most Classes use. For Higher Beings it's probably a no-go, though, it'd be infringing on your Domain and that's going to run into the same "it'd be bad" problem as with mortals as well as messing with our Domains and…okay, maybe it's not literally impossible but it's extremely risky at best and would do massive permanent damage or permanently kill you or whoever tried it at worst

Tess: Doesn't there need to be a lot of theater to permanently kill Higher Beings?

Death: And this is showbiz, baby. Domains are like part of you, and taking someone else's would be like taking part of them into you. Domains can sometimes be shared between multiple people, but that requires a lot of setup and if those people already have Domains then they should ideally be connected to the shared Domain conceptually. This is very much not that sort of situation. And, yes, if you're wondering, part of the killing ritual involves dealing with the Domain somehow

Fortune: Oh, yeah, total change of topic but I've been meaning to offer: do you want me to just get you any cores you need for upgrading your attendants? We could future-proof them pretty easily so we wouldn't run into this issue again for decades or centuries

Tess: Hmm…no, not now. I think I'd prefer to wait until we're actually raiding like, level 90-100 dungeons. At that point, having them have the stats of stuff from dungeons 20-30 levels higher isn't that big a deal. Right now I feel like we're still learning, to an extent, and don't want them to be a crutch. I'm still totally open to suggestions and ideas for them as long as the cores aren't above…let's say level 80, though.

Dungeons: We can still get you the cores so it's not a hassle. You've got money to spare at this point so unless you want the experience of shopping around and buying those cores yourself I don't see a reason not to just grab them via us. Plus, we can get you cores from savage dungeons.

Maven: They have a point.

Tess: I…hadn't considered that. Yeah, let's do that, then.

Fortune: Do you want to come up here and we can shop around together? Our archives are going to be way better for your purposes than trying to guess based on what the internet tells you about monsters

Tess: Sounds like fun. I'll be up there in a minute

Maven: Would you mind if I come too, or would you rather this is a mother/daughter thing?

Dungeons: I'd like to ask the same. I know my way around the monster archives than most, for obvious reasons, and can probably speed things up.

Tess: I'm fine with it. Mom?

Fortune: The more the merrier, I say!

Tess: Alright, let me get ready and I'll be up there in a minute

Ellie: Death, do you want to hang out while they work?

Death: Yes, please! I've been practicing and today's the day I'm going to beat you in Tetris!

Fortune: This is the fifth time you've said that

Death: Yeah but I mean it this time

Ellie: This is the third time you've said that

Death: Yeah but I mean that I mean it this time

Maven: This is the first time she's said that. I'm making a note for next time.

Death: One of these days I'm going to win and show all of you

Tess: Second time she's said that, I think?

Death: Yeah sounds about right

Life: Was that in-person? I do not recall that.

Ellie: I think so.

Life: I will update my spreadsheet, then.

Death: Hold up, how long have you had a spreadsheet?!

Life: Since you tried to spin words so that Ellie was considered a god. I have been waiting for the right time to deploy it. Forget that I mentioned it.

Death: Nonononono we're not glossing over that. Are you actually getting involved in our antics?

Life: I figured I should try, as you would say, "living a little".

Tess: On my way now, see you soon!