At some point in history, humanity realized that there were too many threats to their continued survival. In a moment of collective enlightenment, an organization was formed, peopled by talents from each and every corner of the known world, and funded by all the human kingdoms in the realm.
Moved by such noble ideals, I entered The Guild to Save the World when I finally reached the minimum age for joining.
Unfortunately... I quickly learned that the number of humanity threatening crises that the Guild had resolved was... zero.
Surely you'll go, "What! This must be a mistake?", as I exclaimed many years ago when the Grand Custodian mentioned this fact.
With the impenetrably solid logic of a bath sponge, he explained that it was simply too difficult- impossible, in fact- to combat all crises at once. Attempting to do so was folly. Instead, by temporarily reassigning the least urgent threats to be addressed at a later date (and with more resources), all the resources could be focused to achieve greater results. In any case, it was impossible to predict the timing of world-threatening events, and each crises required a different set of measures to address. A demonic invasion could be fought off with an army, but would be useless against a magical plague. Simultaneously planning for all threats was logistically impossible.
The Grand Custodian then brilliantly extended this argument repeatedly, and by a clever process of induction, managed to save the Guild quite a bit of work.
He called it "the principle of maintaining maximum readiness and flexibility (soft mumble)by doing nothing(soft mumble)".
Moved by such noble ideals, I entered The Guild to Save the World when I finally reached the minimum age for joining.
Unfortunately... I quickly learned that the number of humanity threatening crises that the Guild had resolved was... zero.
Surely you'll go, "What! This must be a mistake?", as I exclaimed many years ago when the Grand Custodian mentioned this fact.
With the impenetrably solid logic of a bath sponge, he explained that it was simply too difficult- impossible, in fact- to combat all crises at once. Attempting to do so was folly. Instead, by temporarily reassigning the least urgent threats to be addressed at a later date (and with more resources), all the resources could be focused to achieve greater results. In any case, it was impossible to predict the timing of world-threatening events, and each crises required a different set of measures to address. A demonic invasion could be fought off with an army, but would be useless against a magical plague. Simultaneously planning for all threats was logistically impossible.
The Grand Custodian then brilliantly extended this argument repeatedly, and by a clever process of induction, managed to save the Guild quite a bit of work.
He called it "the principle of maintaining maximum readiness and flexibility (soft mumble)by doing nothing(soft mumble)".
