White Court, Venatori and Kemmler

[Rasins]

Fascinating idea. Could be. That theory would mean that everything in there right now, all 12 (or 13) hallways worth of beasties are still known on Earth. In that case, either the previous wardens were very busy adding inmates, or it takes geologic levels of time for these things to be "sufficiently forgotten."

I can't remember, but I thought the Archive hangs onto the memory for a century, or 1000 years to be sure it doesn't pop up again, then "forgets" the entity, and they are then considered consigned to oblivion.

[jonas]

I can't remember, but I thought the Archive hangs onto the memory for a century, or 1000 years to be sure it doesn't pop up again, then "forgets" the entity, and they are then considered consigned to oblivion.

yea, hopefully anyway. I mean what if someones been secreting it down for generations via oblivion war and then suddenly revives it as an idea with nobody realizing how old and dangerous it actually is?

[kazimmoinuddin]

For some reason I think Spring Heeled Jack would be part of the wild hunt or in the court of the goblin king.

[Rasins]

yea, hopefully anyway. I mean what if someones been secreting it down for generations via oblivion war and then suddenly revives it as an idea with nobody realizing how old and dangerous it actually is?

Wouldn't the Archive know that that 'book' or whatever still exists?  And if it's passed on verbally, she'd know that too.

[jonas]

Wouldn't the Archive know that that 'book' or whatever still exists?  And if it's passed on verbally, she'd know that too.

Perhaps, but it seems she knows what was written, not necessarily if it continues to exist after it's written. Otherwise i'd see little point to keeping a look out for so long, overkill? She's looking for renewed references.
The mechanism needs more explaining, but her holding onto and letting go of an idea on her own implies She get's the actively written/spoken lore and keeps a database of it. But not that the data magically reconforms itself based on if that knowledge still exists, otherwise said mechanism is extraneous. I could hide away a scrap of paper with a name on it for millennia and though she'd know it had been written, she wouldn't be able to say when/if it stopped existing or where, yes? That's how I interpreted it anyway.

[Con]

Personally I think the Archive is flawed at best. Oral History works, sometimes even better than written history. Written history languages change, translations get changed people argue over minute nuance of meaning of a single word that can change the entire text. Think of your favourite song as a kid and think about how everytime that song comes on you find yourself singing to the words even though you had no conscious knowledge of having memorised it. It's muscle memory in your brain.

 Oral History is exactly like that it's the reason we know Homer's works so well. The reason why in my own country aboriginal dreamtime stories remember a time when the world was covered in ICE. They live in Australia people this is from tribes who haven't seen ice for centuries in the middle of the desert or rainforest. The description matches. Admittedly a lot of that knowledge of history and culture died out particularly in the last two centuries or so. But how the hell would the Archive know which Old Dark Gods of Aboriginal legends are still around. They haven't been written down ever to begin with and arguably this makes them more powerful as they are harder to forget well unless humanity forgets the tribe that remembers them of course.

[Kindler]

Arguments over text are only possible because there is a record of it in the first place. We know the works of Homer because someone thought to write them down, not because they're still being performed and repeated (some date the first written records of the Iliad, for instance, to around 800 BC). Languages change, sure, but nuance and interpretation doesn't change that the text remains the text.

The real problems with oral tradition are that it's possible to alter or erase parts of the recitation over the course of a single generation, and that it's very, very, regional. The only way for oral histories to remain intact is to prevent interference, and as cultures interact with each other, that is less and less possible. The only practical way to store knowledge and spread it is by recording it somehow. If you're not really interested in spreading it beyond your community, that's fine, but its scope and impact will always remain limited to it.

I think you're arguing that it's possible for the names and stories of the Old Ones (or Elder Things, or whatever it is that's being prevented from coming down to Earth) to be passed down orally rather than writing them down to escape the Archive's notice. I'd say it's possible, but that the vast, vast amounts of time would have rendered generational recollections almost useless for it to matter in the Oblivion war. For instance, names need to be pronounced correctly, and regional dialects and accents would play merry hell with that. Even simple, monosyllabic names like "Bob" have difference pronunciations depending on where you go. I knew a guy from Kentucky who pronounced it with two syllables ("Bow-ahb").

It's perfectly possible within the Dresden Files universe, of course; someone like Bob the Skull would be perfect for recording this kind of thing, and I'm sure he'd be able to play it back as it was said to him like a recording.

The problem with the digital age, I think, is that I'm not sure whether the Archive knows about video and audio. Imagine some low-level warlock recording a summoning, posting it to YouTube, and the whole thing going viral. Warlocks going open-source would be... interesting. I know Harry says the White Council does that kind of thing intentionally, but I'd imagine the Old Ones don't care. You can't, you know, delete the Internet.

Anyway, would the Archive know about that when it was uploaded? Or would she only know about it when someone wrote about it on their Facebook page? Because there's a distinct difference, I think. I suppose, worst case, she'd know the machine code basis for the video file as it was created, and could compile it mentally, but that would be... taxing. And borderline impossible, considering that there is, like, several hundred hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute or something.

Anyway, if I seem like a jerk, I'm sorry; I have strong opinions about writing in general. I've heard way too many people tell me that they have a great idea for a novel, and I have to keep telling them it doesn't matter if you don't write it.

[LordDresden2]

Personally I think the Archive is flawed at best. Oral History works, sometimes even better than written history. Written history languages change, translations get changed people argue over minute nuance of meaning of a single word that can change the entire text. Think of your favourite song as a kid and think about how everytime that song comes on you find yourself singing to the words even though you had no conscious knowledge of having memorised it. It's muscle memory in your brain.

 Oral History is exactly like that it's the reason we know Homer's works so well. The reason why in my own country aboriginal dreamtime stories remember a time when the world was covered in ICE. They live in Australia people this is from tribes who haven't seen ice for centuries in the middle of the desert or rainforest. The description matches. Admittedly a lot of that knowledge of history and culture died out particularly in the last two centuries or so. But how the hell would the Archive know which Old Dark Gods of Aboriginal legends are still around. They haven't been written down ever to begin with and arguably this makes them more powerful as they are harder to forget well unless humanity forgets the tribe that remembers them of course.

The last few posts in this thread are superb examples of why the Oblivion War, as a concept, really doesn't make sense.

[Kindler]

The last few posts in this thread are superb examples of why the Oblivion War, as a concept, really doesn't make sense.

I think it did when literacy was as rare as private bathrooms, but the last forty years have made it totally unwinnable. You used to be able to do things like burn down the Library of Alexandria, but you can't do that anymore, because everyone has access to limitless knowledge on their wristwatch now. The information age does NOT like information deletion.

If Oblivion makes it into the main books rather than just being a sideshow, I think it'll be in the context that it's over, and humanity lost.

[kazimmoinuddin]

Just as Ivy has all that magical lore in her head, she also has everything about hacking. So she could potentially search and wipe out any tainted knowledge on the net. She would know the instant some one made a digital copy, so ready to attack when posted.

[wardenferry419]

But does Ivy have the ability, within the limits of her mantle, to personally remove tainted knowledge from the internet or is she required to merely suggest and guide these actions through others?

[Froklsnt]

Ivy is mortal, as evidenced by the death of so many in the lineage. As long as she isn't put in harm's way, there's no reason Ivy couldn't take direct action.

[Kindler]

Just as Ivy has all that magical lore in her head, she also has everything about hacking. So she could potentially search and wipe out any tainted knowledge on the net. She would know the instant some one made a digital copy, so ready to attack when posted.

She doesn't need to hack. She knows their passwords. The problem would then be preventing someone from doing it again. With extreme decentralization, it'd be perfectly possible to design things with biometric authentication that would automatically upload new stuff. Do it from airgapped computers, and the information becomes impossible to track and destroy without physically doing it on every terminal. Hacking doesn't really work that way; the best case scenario she'd have would be to encrypt the information, but that doesn't destroy it, just locks it up, and even then it can be impossible if the security is good enough.

Unless she knows the location of everything that's written as well as its content, finding and destroying hundreds of properly deployed, un-networked servers behind the right kind of authentication isn't possible without the information leaking to somebody. Then multiply the problem by even just three nerds, and the Oblivion War is over within a generation.

It's possible that knowledge of hacking could allow her to temporarily eliminate distribution platforms—if she was astronomically talented, which I think she qualifies for, it's possible she could take down YouTube, for example. But that wouldn't last long—a few hours, max. There's no way Google wouldn't get its money-printer working again in relatively short order.

It's possible, at the high level, to cut off internet access itself. It was done in more than one country recently in response to civil unrest (AVOIDING SPECIFICS AND TOUCHY TOPICS). It would require more than someone from the outside could accomplish—it's the equivalent of shutting down the water supply to a city rather than someone's tap. But, again, you'd have the might of entire governments looking to fix it, and it couldn't stay down long. You're talking billions of dollars lost per minute if all ISPs and mobile providers were cut off. Riots within hours.

Unless she has Venatori in the Oval Office, and among the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and DHS, ICANN, and the Telecommunications Commission, it'd be impossible to do in the first place, and less possible to do long-term.

The good news is that the people interested in the Oblivion War aren't the type to think about this. But imagine what someone like Butters could do if he had the time and inclination. He might not live through it, but the amount of damage would be incalculable.