…aaaannd we’re back. If you’re confused, I do recommend nipping back over to here to check out the last page before the “break” as this was not necessarily a clean a cut (this page continues directly after the other one, as we are still mid chapter).
I appreciate ya’ll for putting up with things so patiently, and hope everyone enjoyed the Minus Years subcomic. I know that it, well, hasn’t answered many questions yet, but it’s getting there – I promise eventually we will get the promised point of seeing both Peter and Kally in happier times, but you can’t have a prequel comic without starting from the beginning… ah… well, a beginning… you know what, forget it, this is a lost cause… if we try to go back to the beginning, Arron would be a young man again…… š
I get the feeling that Mium’s priority of “be normal” is not so high right now. Of course, I think that cat is debagged long sense, but who in this comic is normal anyway?
As for the “high energy conflict”… this is not an particularly rare occurrence for more powerful mages fighting. Some mages have more elegant techniques that tend to have less bleed over to destroying things that are not their target (or, you know, opt to punch things), but due to the nature of trying to dismantle another mage, typically the amount of energy required does a great deal more dismantling on the surroundings first.
This would be a different story if magic worked better directly on a human (especially a mages) form, but it does not, so the common method is to convince physics to destroy them physically, as that carries over back to the Eidos form, though not as well as it should in the case of boosted mage. Due to the way explosions work though, there is limitations on how much things can be concentrated. Even if you start with the energy very concentrated, as soon as you turn it over to physics, things get out of hand pretty quickly.
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Okay, so none of the comments have it but… panel 9 last text box “you are very least.” I know what you are trying to say, but I’m not certain how best to fix it.
Oh, the are should be ‘at’. I’m very familiar with this phrase. This is the phrase people use when they come to ask me why a problem hasn’t been fixed, or “at very least” diagnosed yet, even though I diagnosed it an hour ago, and I’m walking one of the new guys through the diagnosis process so that maybe one day I’m not the only person on the team who can diagnose these things. Because reading docs does not automatically mean one understands how to apply them, and manufacturing issues in the test environment doesn’t seem to motivate people as much.
The phone tuned to CNN would be a diversion to how he really is getting the information.
That last panel has the perfect “I’m confused, and am angry you are confusing me” expression.
Poor Amy. She thought she had a grasp of Peter.
And then this page happened.
Well, maybe now she has a better idea of why Tyler asked him to take the position…..
If Peter’s underlings should know one thing about him it’s that he’s scary smart. Just sitting there in the chair, scheming up more schemes and planning moves several steps ahead makes him far more dangerous to his enemies than anything else he cold do. š
Hmm. If Peter played chess, would he measure things in moves ahead, or games ahead?
And Mium pulls out a smart phone tuned to CNN… :-p
You’re assuming that their world’s equivalent to CNN still holds some semblance of respectability and reporter integrity. If there was such an equivalent, it would focus most of their resources and attention on inventing stories to defame and/or incriminate certain political figures and/or celebrities, perhaps even resorting to memes, social network posts and incorrectly-dated emails as “evidence”. š
Without veering into the politics of it, I can’t see either Mium or Peter having a high opinion of mainstream news in general. Peter probably just watches some data feed Mium curates for him, and Mium probably just scrapes the actual sources of information long before any news station could report them.
The only use I could see either of them having for media would be to manipulate it, which, if remember the conversation between Tyler and Kally about Peter’s methods, it sounds like he already does (one of his expense report items was time on a TV slot).
Oh yes, I put no stock in ACNNBCPBS news at all.
CNN has been caught making up news whole cloth too often.
But, I thought it would be funny, as an explanation ^_^
We did see the news used to good effect. With that episode of horrible abomination eating the fleshy bits of a college student earlier.
CNN is certainly not the first I think of when I hear about making a business of invented smear stories …
For me it’s a tie between CNN and MSNBC. and hufpo and nyt. and ign.
…they all suck…
You forgot FOX news, though. I mean, I’m not sure they come up with their own stories, but still…
In other words, if you need to kill a mage, use a giant hammer?
I’m going to guess that’s Naomi’s theory. Though usually she improvises a little or just punches them (which is about the same as a giant hammer).
Let’s see:
Naomi – Hit with fist hard enough count as giant hammer, check.
Ila – Accelerate rock to have the impact of a giant hammer, check.
Kally – Use dragon as giant hammer, check.
Yes, I think Giant Hammer approach is confirmed.
Adding to that list, Tyler actually created a giant hammer to crush that construct back in the Avon battle.
And there were two times the ceiling was collapsed on mages, which is sort of like making use of an environmental giant hammer.
The other approach that seems to work is to stick a construct inside of them. See also, Fluffy bites.
An interesting callback of sorts to the very first time we saw Peter, and he complained the Naomi woke him up, because if it was important, Mium would have done it.
This poses the interesting question of when and why Mium consults Peter. Clearly Peter is mostly calling the shots, but why? Does Mium have to go back to Peter when it’s a question of ethics or tactics? Peter does not seem more qualified than Mium for either of them.
Amy seems to have fit into a proto-Kally role. There are some similarities in personality, as they are both diligent and rule-oriented, but I suspect like Kally she will mostly just find Peter frustrating and obtuse. Kally seemed to get along with Query though, so maybe Amy will get along with Mium, though the amount of snark is likely higher in the new model.
Honestly, this question of “what does Peter vs Mium do” has not really been answered yet. We know that Peter was The Chess-master LONG before Querry or MIUM was around, so there is that. We also know that MIUM has a good deal of predictive ability of his own.
What we don’t know is which of them comes up with which predictions, since they both seem to perpetually agree. Perhaps they both come to the same conclusions? Peter sets goals and puts a LOT of things in motion, but there are times when MIUM acts independently with his own brand of clever. From what I have seen MIUM’s brand is much more straightforward that Peter’s. MIUM’s trick with getting Illa out, for instance, was quick, clean, and extremely straightforward (if a bit noisy). Set up a battle where the pseudo EMP signal could shut down the frames, use that excuse to reload on the AVON mainfraimes, and then delete what he wanted. Peter’s solution to clean up that mess involved setting his proxy up as a hacker, by predicting that they would need one and what they would be looking for and, even if it isn’t clear who set things up beyond that, that much at least is clearly Peter’s doing. It wasn’t as straightforward as MIUM’s solution, but it was one without any obvious ties proving his involvement and allowing him arguably as much access as MIUM had during his solution.
Seeing the Minus years, especally the one where Kallie, Querry, and Peter met, has got me thinking that Peter’s deffency isn’t in understanding or predicting people but rather in interaction. Simply put he comes off as SUCH an egotistical jerk, well deserved by the way he refuses to take others seriously, that his flying digital assistant is necessary to allow him to not drive both sides into murderous rampages against each other. It would be interesting to see how much the integration of AI that created MIUM changed both. It seems to be subtle, but I think the F5 even acts differently than the F8 does (even despite complete integration). Not sure if this is a difference between the frames, a change in the whole of MIUM after the integration, or just all in my head; it would be interesting to find out.
I assume they agree a lot because they compare notes a lot.