: Yes, they were _way_ ahead of him!
: Nice place? Errr, you seen what it's like in there? They
: built it as a prison for Connacht, and though they'd
: doubtless know how to get in & out at will, I
: couldn't see why they'd choose a place that (a)
: Connacht had control of and (b) would soon be overrun
: with krids.
It had already been overrun with Krids, I believe. Connacht's period of ready use of the Smiths' artifacts probably came considerably before he was forced to actually go and attack them. The Krids had been and probably gone, thanks to the Tain's accelerated timefield.
And the Lightning Towers and gateway to the Spider Gods' world are pretty good evidence that the Tain was intended for use outside the Krids. The Tain's an incredibly powerful artifact; would the Smiths really have tossed it off for Connacht's use alone? I think it's more likely that they created it for their own use, then lent it to Connacht and gave him some very basic hints on how to use it. I'm sure he had no idea about most of its functions.
: They put nice handiwork in there, sure. But they also put
: nice carvings & gadgets inside the catacombs. With
: their skill, they could easily have built another
: artifact or three that more than rival the Tain, which
: after all was just a trivial piece of nonsense that
: was commissioned by an Emperor they didn't really
: like, hence the utter lack of comfortable furnishings,
: cable tv & jack daniels inside. The stuff they did
: for themselves would have been much better.
Well, yeah, they put stuff in the catacombs. And they operated out of there for centuries. So if they put stuff in the Tain...complete this sentence for me, wouldja? :-)
Recall that by the time we saw inside the Tain, centuries had passed outside, and probably millions of years inside. Only the best-constructed artifacts would have survived that time; that is, if the Smiths didn't just take them with them again when they moved on. They certainly wouldn't leave behind the Jack Daniels.
And, again, the Tain was far from trivial. It was, according to GURPS, the most powerful Gate artifact ever designed. They put a lot of work into it.
: *cheers*
Hamish! I knew it was you!
--SiliconDream
