So we’ll be back to Naomi & Kally in time, but I did want to take a detour here to check in with Central, as there’s quite a lot of moving pieces there that are a collision course with the main story (as one may expect). I didn’t even up showing Arron speaking the commission, because largely that was a summary of events we’ve seen in the comic. In a time where I had more time, a summary of the events so far via Arron would actually be an interesting idea to show, but I don’t know if I think it’s worth a few weeks of pages at our current rate.
Undersecretary Minerva Saywood is a character we’ve seen a few times, and someone that works with Arron somewhat, but is not part of the IDS. She’s a relatively important person, but as part of the Executive Bureaucracy theoretically neutral in the power struggles, though they have their own divisions, though despite that she tends to show fairly clear favoritism toward Arron. She is also the person that would largely be involved in the relocation efforts; for those that need a refresher, Central was trying to relocate people from a failing habitat to Malsa, and Malsa (with the influence of Peter) has suddenly offered to take in 40,000 citizens. Arron views this as sort of hostage situation, as it would make using something like the Skyhammer (or any overwhelming military force) vastly less palatable to Central if there were tens of thousands of their own people that’d be caught in the crossfire (and, of course, that is probably something not lost on Malsa, let alone Peter). The details of Malsa’s offer isn’t clear, but the IDS is largely against it (one of the few things Arron and Biana would both agree on… though for different reasons). But the political machinations around this are complicated, as they’d be hard pressed to block it publicly, and there may other pieces now moving on that board (such as the Civil Service… which has strangle become involved in this, getting their foot in the door of interdimensional matters, something they theoretically have little jurisdiction over, as they are stepping up to assist with the relocation… after all, they are the ones trying to mitigate the failing habitat many of the people would come with).
…basically everyone is suspicious of the motivations of everyone else, but as with most of Peter’s Malsa’s plan, the plan largely only involves in parties acting in their own self interest – the Civil Service wants a hook into Interdimensional Affairs, the Executive Bureaucracy wants meet their quotas relieve public pressure (exacerbated by the overdue and suddenly in doubt Bridgepoint project having trouble) which seemed all but lost before this golden ticket showed up, and the IDS cannot easily unify against it because if one side did public come out against it, the other side would throw them under the bus by supporting it and taking the public opinion high ground.
We’ll see more of Arron’s views and opinions in the next page.
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Hm. If he retires from IDS, does he maintain his military title? And might this change what he is or is not constrained to doing? I wonder if this is part of some larger plan. (It doesn’t seem to be on the surface, but knowing this comic, that doesn’t necessarily mean much.)
Look Aaron, there is one thing you did that influenced current events: mentoring Peter. Now has that made a positive difference? I think that is for historians to say. Though I wonder which of the two of you will go down in history as more legendary.
Given that Peter does to avoid the spotlight, history privacy favors Arron. I doubt Arron finds that comforting right now.
I’d guess that Peter will be writing history books, and the only reference they’ll make to Peter Kepler will be that Kyle Kepler had two children, Peter and Marigold. To find out that Arron had a nephew, you’ll need to look up his brother’s entry.
Lots of things have to happen here in fairly close succession. I am assuming the repaired Query drone is meant to be a vector for a big chunk of those…
I feel bad for Arron. His meeting with Miko was pretty unpleasant and that seems like it was pretty painful for him (something to do with promises he made to his sister, presumably Miko’s mother), and his meetings with Peter were not much better.
The closest things he had to a second in command is dead (Emmi), his own department largely just assumes Peter can still be trusted making it essentially a sieve of information (and even Kally has joined back up with Peter).
He is trying to get the IDS to do things “the right way” and at every turn he is being stonewalled or delayed, which just sort of proving Peter’s “outside the law” approach right.
He tried to do the right thing in saving the Consul, but essentially just ended up feeding into Peter’s plan.
I think he is actually sort of in the same place as Kally where he does not even know what the “right” side is with the IDS being such a fuck up. Kally decided to just blindly trust Peter, but I don’t think Arron has that option, and with Peter there is only the option of blindly trusting him or being manipulated into doing what he wants, as he refuses to show his cards (beside the card that would manipulate you into doing what he wanted anyway).
Betting pool time: Anyone want to give me odds on Mium showing up to talk to him soonish? Maybe his brother (Peter’s father)? Maybe both? Mium is on this world, Kyle knows Aaron is back on Central, friends and family bias might be a little stretched for it to cover this but it certainly should favor this action. If for no other reason Kyle would probably love to talk to Arron again about recent events.
Side note: Is using the phrase ‘Net Result’ when speaking of Mium’s/ Query’s actions an unforgivable pun? There was another comment I wanted to make but realized the pun and had to stop.
I’ll not give actual odds, because I try to not gamble much, not even with Internet points.
That said, I feel like Kyle meeting with Arron is a lot more likely than Mium meeting with Arron. Mium and Arron have met, and while they didn’t fight, it was clear they both found the other to be an obstacle. Mium feels he’s Miko’s protector, and Arron doesn’t like the fact that Miko doesn’t feel safe around him.
Mium may not want the brothers to talk until after he’s returned to Malsa, but for all we know, Query’s been repaired and Mium has gone home already. Once he *has* returned to Malsa, however, he probably does want Kyle to let Arron know the deal’s been leaked already.
Whether that happens directly or through channels is anybody’s guess… but I’d think things would go more smoothly if it happened directly.. At least, someone in a position of authority in the IDS needs to know the civil service knows about the Malsan deal, and the brothers have the friendliest connection of which we’re aware between those two organizations.
I don’t know if there are any people above Kyle in the civil service, or how many are if there are any, but it seems like it’d at least be a single digit number. I’d expect any of them acting on knowing about the Malsan relocation deal, other than directing Kyle to relate the message about the information leak, would probably result in a conflict escalation. Having the most desperate of families to relocate simply showing up to the nearest gate facility to relocate would not go over well.
I think Aaron’s ability to reflect this way is the strongest evidence that he should not be retiring, even if he perhaps needs to find a different mode in which to work.
p.s. embarrassed.
Amen, Josh.
Let’s try this,
Panel 5, bubble 2, embarrassed. 2nd e becomes an a.
Fixed, thanks.
It’s sort of like a corollary to the first rule of Alcoholics Anonymous: The first step to controlling a problem is to realize that you don’t have control. After all, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. He is in the middle of Charlie Foxtrot (Cluster FUBAR), and doesn’t see any way it can end well. However, he will probably not retire as long as he thinks that he might be able to make it end better.