Calamities explained

[YianKutku]

One of the weirder aspects of the cosmology is that apparently the Ascians need to unbalance a shard in a specific manner, while also causing the same (type of) unbalance on the Source, or at least a close attempt thereof, in order to create a Calamity.

The Source unbalance doesn't have to be huge or dramatic, since it will feed on the effects from the unbalanced shard anyway, but it does seem like it has to actually exist, and be close enough to the same aether-state as the unbalanced shard.

Which means the Ascians have some means of quite impressive project management, to line these up well enough to cause seven Calamities and almost an eighth.

I can just about imagine Elidibus trying hard to get everyone on the same page with SMART and Gantt charts, and the ominous meetings they have are basically their versions of daily scrums, and there's a Kanban board languishing somewhere on the moon.

[SnowVix]

Which means the Ascians have some means of quite impressive project management, to line these up well enough to cause seven Calamities and almost an eighth.

I can just about imagine Elidibus trying hard to get everyone on the same page with SMART and Gantt charts, and the ominous meetings they have are basically their versions of daily scrums, and there's a Kanban board languishing somewhere on the moon.

Having done a small amount of project management myself, this is the most unbelievable part of the universe of XIV. That a project could be so well organized that the only failures were brought about by incomplete information on the first attempt, and direct intervention on the most recent, and the other 7 all happened perfectly.

[Morningstar1337]

Having done a small amount of project management myself, this is the most unbelievable part of the universe of XIV. That a project could be so well organized that the only failures were brought about by incomplete information on the first attempt, and direct intervention on the most recent, and the other 7 all happened perfectly.

It kinda reminds me ofthe whole "Batman prep time" meme TBH,and the Ascians had a a LOT of prep time.

[thegreatonemal]

Having done a small amount of project management myself, this is the most unbelievable part of the universe of XIV. That a project could be so well organized that the only failures were brought about by incomplete information on the first attempt, and direct intervention on the most recent, and the other 7 all happened perfectly.

Its not too unbelievable when you tell none of your potential enemies why and how you are doing anything. Our ignorance was their greatest strength. Then Emet spilled all the tea.

[Jandor]

Having done a small amount of project management myself, this is the most unbelievable part of the universe of XIV. That a project could be so well organized that the only failures were brought about by incomplete information on the first attempt, and direct intervention on the most recent, and the other 7 all happened perfectly.

I'm just guessing here, but I suspect the amount of time they have available to line these things up and get them right is fairly generous.

It all feels very fast from our perspective, but it has been something like a hundred years on the First IIRC, and the First didn't seem to show any real signs of fixing itself when we got there, even given that large passage of time.

Presumably if we had come up with some way of stopping the Empire that didn't involve traveling to other dimensions, then the Ascians could have just kept the First in that state till they came up with some other plan on the Source to trigger the calamity.