"Also you will make billions of people not exist anymore."

"I don't know why Iomedae and Aroden think it's a good idea but probably because they think Asmodeus having a power base indefinitely is even worse than that. I'm not a god, I can't exactly tell."

"Worse by their values. Not by - I guess it makes sense for you to have adopted theirs."

"Yeah. But you haven't?"

"I don't think I care very much about god balance of power things. And if their values say they should kill three billion people then I don't really want those values."

"I mean. It depends, right. If they wanted to kill three billion people to save four billion people that wouldn't be very complicated."

"Don't know how to -"

"Okay. It's fine."

"What? No, it isn't!"

" - obviously we're going to try really hard to not kill billions of people and not fuck up intervening in the multiverse in some way that - cripples a bunch of mostly-unaligned actors who were holding back worse-unaligned actors, like how killing Asmodeus might release Rovagug, obviously it's not fine if we mess up and instead lose everything forever, but I think it's fine if you personally need to cry about how the cards fell in your world without explaining your values system which is frankly probably stitched together from table scraps?"

"And you, what, just took Iomedae's?"

"Yeah. It has a serious - durability edge over table scraps and She gives me magic powers about it."

"And all She asks in exchange is that you turn some cities to glass for Her, from the air where you can barely see them."

"So before Aroden invaded Cheliax, Abadar told Asmodeus - that He'd get involved to the degree Asmodeus did, basically. And so Asmodeus didn't get involved at all and it was over in a couple of days, very cleanly. But if Asmodeus - had gotten involved, then Abadar would have, right, even if they'd ended ripping up the world between them, because - because if He wasn't the kind of shape that'd do that then Asmodeus would get involved -"

"Sure."

"And if it had happened like that, then that'd be really terrible, and a sign we - miscalculated - not definitely proof we miscalculated but a sign, right, because the point of being willing to pursue a war to unconditional surrender is usually that there not be a war, the point of committing to match someone's interventions is to keep them out of it entirely, and if they're in it a little to discourage them from getting into it more - there is a point, to being a shape that will melt Hell, and the point is almost definitely not melting Hell, but - but if I'm a shape that absolutely won't melt Hell then I don't know, maybe I get even less of what I want, right."

"Well, you definitely get 'not having melted Hell', which is nice."

"Hell is stupid and wasteful and should be like Axis but with more taxation, and I would kill some devils to make it like that, though not three billion of them."

"Why. Why is it any of your business what Hell is like, why kill even one devil who isn't bothering you to make it different for people who aren't you and don't want whatever you want -"

"Asmodeus says He means to conquer all the afterlives someday. I think He's  - mostly lying? Abadar's not worried about it. But lots of people are choosing Hell on that assumption, right, and with that assumption it'd be obviously fair to conquer Hell first. Secondly I think it'd be reasonable to conquer Nidal if we could get away with it just because teaching everyone to brand themselves and poke out their eyes and cut off their fingers one by one is a stupid thing to do with people and it'd be better if they were Chelish, and some of my objections to Hell are in the same spirit. Thirdly lots of people in Hell'd prefer to be in Axis and if Hell would let just those ones go I think I'd basically be done? That is a satisfactory negotiated alternative to a war with Hell, in my mind, and it would surprise me a bit if it wasn't satisfactory to Iomedae. Which isn't to say it was necessarily offered, in your world, I am not sure Axis wants them, but - that is the scale of the concessions that I want to win. If people in Hell want to go to Axis instead - or Nirvana, or whatever - they should get to do that."

"People make stupid decisions because they are very focused on the short term and have free will and don't know what they really want."

"And that's why you should let them bounce around afterlives, right, instead of being stuck on the decision they made half by accident with incomplete information when they were alive."

"...I think bouncing around afterlives gets you afterlives that are.....

...the equivalent of guys who are a really bad idea to hook up with but everyone does it anyway. Very intense and very charming and lying through their teeth but in a way that makes you feel like you're clever for understanding what they're really saying."

"What is the afterlife equivalent of that."

"Well, no one is optimizing their afterlife for that right now, but if you let people bounce around they would."