" - but it's not just Keltham, right. If you build CIvilization, if you build a society of people who think about whatever they want to think about, a lot of them will notice that serving Asmodeus is not in their interests, that Evil is not in their interests, that they don't like the Asmodean direction of resolving the muddles inside them, that if the strong do as they please and the weak suffer then they should be trying to be strong - even Abrogail can't think to herself that she should overthrow Asmodeus, I don't think, I bet her compact has a clause in it like mine, about remaining in His favor -
- if it were just Keltham then maybe I'd end up agreeing that it was better for Otolmens to squish him than for him to risk the whole world on whatever stupid idea he's had. But it won't be just him. In a world without prophecy, where the gods can't destroy them preemptively like they always have, it'll happen again and again and again for as long as Hell is run by Asmodeus or anything like him. You'd be crushing the best among humankind over and over and over -
- and if we ever make contact with a Civilization like dath ilan's, they'll annihilate us without a second thought, we'll have traded everything away for safety and not even be safe -
- I don't know if that's what Nethys sees. But it might be why he's pouring everything into steering this, instead of just getting it to stop."