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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 412833" data-attributes="member: 812">Well of course not. But anything they do may be a betrayal. You'll never know who else is competing for this demon's self-interest, so you'll never know when you're going to wake up and find that he's betrayed you. Why would you ally with such a creature? With a human being, we know that concepts like loyalty and love and honour occasionally at least impel their actions, so we have some justification for trusting that they aren't scheming to destroy us.But I KNOW Graz'zt is scheming to destroy me. Of course he is. He will never allow me to become a threat to him -- and as soon as someone convinces him that it's possible my threat ratio has outstripped my usefulness, I'm gone. And I have no control over that. Even if I'm not a threat to him, he's still scheming to destroy me because one day I MIGHT be a threat to him.And if he isn't, he's going to find himself smacked down by someone he didn't think was a threat. Only the most paranoid and the most powerful can survive in this environment, and that means eventually you've only got one, because the MOST paranoid, MOST powerful creature will simply destroy every other sentient creature as a potential threat.Except among demons, because they don't trust each other and they don't tell the truth just because it's the truth. So we can't use that tool. All we have then are lies and betrayal -- both of which require that somebody trust us. Which they don't, so we don't have that option.Try this: Graz'zt gives a command to a lithesome succubus, asking her to go off and see what Orcus is up to. Now the second that succubus is out of Graz'zt's sight, he has no reason to think she's not happily betraying him like mad. Given that she's Chaotic Evil, she probably is. Why would he believe a single thing she said upon her return? Why would he act upon that information unless he could independently confirm it for himself -- and if he could do that, he didn't need her in the first place. Except as tasteful decor, perhaps.It doesn't make sense. That's okay, it doesn't have to to be fun, but it doesn't, and that's a fact.</blockquote>

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