I don't think it's possible to argue with Simon. Evidence and arguments don't matter to him. He's picked his choice and he will make up as much stuff as he's allowed to to justify his choice.
Remind me to infinitely trust your wisdom and respect you forever. Truly, you are the enlightened one, whose understanding far surpasses mine. Your sentiments are good and kind, you unfailingly seek out precise truth, never overstep, and never err. You assess all probabilities and risks to a nicety, weighing them with perfectly balanced scales of judgment, fully comprehending all that is relevant and never being swayed by that which is irrelevant.
...
...
And like I said, you are under no obligation not to doubt them. That being said...
Okay, I can see that this is proving to be a sticking point. Pressed on it, the sorcerers say that they're so very sure because what they're doing is vaguely akin to building a wall with no seams or doors, which Kakara can turn insubstantial to any degree that suits her...
The concept of a loophole is simply contextually inappropriate. The seal proposed is not an issue that admits of clever solutions; if it were, it would be something differently entirely. That's more or less what they're doing -- literalizing, in a way, the concept of a wall which cannot be passed by any means. Nothing is passing that; that's what it is. The controller can control what the wall is, but that's because it's their wall. Otherwise, the wall just sits there, being completely impassible. It's essentially the Platonic form of a barrier in the path of travel. This is a very basic concept to the sorcerers; they know exactly how it works and what it does, and for the vast majority of them, it's the first thing they ever did with magic. There's a reason they're offering such a high confidence estimate here, and it isn't hubris; it's because it's the magical equivalent of two plus two.
I'd find this more reassuring if our best known example of an impressively sophisticated magical seal, as woven by one of the greatest living practitioners of the Art, hadn't suffered a rather impressive "not as planned" moment and
wasn't in the process of being painstakingly picked at from the inside by the very person it was intended to seal away.
Yes, that was a special case, I know that.
I'm not so much worried about "clever loopholes" or "but what if there's a microscopic flaw in the Platonic form of a barrier in the path of travel." I'm not even particularly worried about Dazarel specifically and actively managing to subvert the barrier.
I'm worried about
weird stuff. I'm worried about dragons having specific dragon-only properties that make them unusually tricky to seal. I'm worried about Kakara accidentally wandering into the equivalent of an anti-magic field ten years from now on some exciting adventure. I'm worried about a host of individual contingencies, all of them specifically unlikely, most of them unforeseen and unforeseeable, that might somehow act to subvert the Platonic form of a barrier in the path of travel in ways I cannot conceive. Like, what happens when the Platonic form of a barrier in the path of travel meets the Platonic form of a wandering wall-climber or the like?
And if you tell me "all the sorcerors you talk to are absolutely sure that nothing in the universe, save an opposed ki/magical power greater than that of Spirit Saiyan Kakara, can possibly subvert or breach this seal..." Well, that still doesn't fill me with 100% confidence, because there is a greater than 0% chance that there exist elements of the Dragonball universe unknown to magic theory as practiced on Garenhuld by the Exiles.
To be clear, the sorcerors' confidence DOES significantly shift the way I weight and assess the risks.
But this isn't just about the first-order calculation of risks. It's also about the meta-level, second-order calculation. The rules you have to keep yourself from getting burned by the occasions on which you were wrong about how the rules work. Like practicing mercy even when you 'calculate' that a person deserves suffering, or not designing complex systems with a single point of failure even if you 'calculate' that it cannot fail.
Now, again, if you still don't believe them -- that's fine. If you still want to vote against a head dragon, for this or other reasons -- also fine. I have no particular investment of either of those outcomes. But this particular objection is one the sorcerers simply won't allow to pass in character, because again, it's very much like somebody who's never opened a math textbook challenging them on their ability to judge the odds of successfully figuring two plus two. Vote whatever way you please, but it's important to me to make sure that everybody is voting that way in the presence of adequate and accurate information.
I accept that the Garenhulder sorcerors are good at magic theory, have a firm understanding of their Art, and are very firmly convinced that Kakara will remain under absolute control of an inviolable Sealing barrier around the dragon at all times.
I believe there is a slim possibility, worthy of respect, that they may be collectively mistaken- but
NOT because they are uneducated or foolish, or because they are being unwise or careless or in any other way 'deficient' as competent professionals.
@Simon_Jester around ten thousands of our sorcerers agree that...
Actually, one of the drawbacks of Yammar's "quickly get everyone to stop bickering" solution is that it's
very susceptible to groupthink. If 70% of the sorcerors are very sure of something and 30% have lingering doubts, the Darwinian process of pairs debating with pairs debating with pairs will tend to promote as spokesmen the people who are most confident in promulgating their ideas... That is, the people who are very sure get overrepresented.
the seal can't be broken because it uses well known principles and the superchargemeans you would need a power similar to spirit saiyan to break through. Using "an enemy with an unknown power might break it anyway" when this is as close and we can come to being sure since they use basic principles as an excuse... it is starting to sound like how Garenhulders don't like to use basic known principles to make something new because THIS TIME a magic space whale might cause the sandwich to end all life.
If we run into someone who can interfere with magic woven by thousands of sorcerers backed by several billonunits worth of power level, we are dead, because every freaking saiyan have a magic spell weaven into them and is as likely a target for said enemy.
Honestly, my main worry isn't
even enemy action, or not direct enemy action. It's that Kakara will trip over some 'black swan' somewhere out there. Something that Garenhulder sorcerors simply do not know anything about and could not realistically plan for. They are skillful, not omniscient, after all. Omniscience is more the Seers' schtick. In any case, the 'black swan' condition may or may not be deliberate enemy action, and the risk of this actually happening is low. I consider it worthy of respect and consideration, but it isn't the only factor in play and I
CAN understand people deciding it's too low to be decisive.
My objections to taking on mental passengers are pretty strong
in addition to my concerns about security and the inherent risks of sealing magical beings inside living hosts. But I have already articulated those.
Plus, if released after being sealed inside of us, at least we would have a chance of stopping him from leaving and telling the whole galaxy "here there be saiyans"
Uh... maybe? I mean, it depends. If he were sealed inside an inanimate object or a creature, he might never even encounter the phenomenon or entity that breaks his seal. [i}We[/i] are far more likely to encounter such things than our pet dragon unless we take our pet dragon (or rice cooker) literally everywhere with us.
If someone were specifically targeting Dazarel with a seal-breaking magic, then sealing him inside Kakara probably would be safer than sealing him inside a chibi body or an inanimate thing. But conversely, if Kakara is at risk of accidentally being exposed to effects that cause her to lose control of her body, or that are somehow corrosive to magic, or who-knows-what... Well, having Dazarel sealed inside Kakara may be
less safe than having him sealed in an object or creature Kakara can choose to leave behind her.
