Comic for Monday, June 25th, 2018
Jun25
…running super late… and inexplicably on my third try to actually publish this… so… will be brief… I am not sick anymore! I have passed my constitution saving throw… but I was sick most of last week, so behind on stuff. Like remembering to publish comics!
Will catch up on comments probably tomorrow, and ramble extensively as I do, because, well, rambling! I am proud of you that have taken up the rambling extensively in the comments, twis the way things were meant to be.
I should probably note… that the gentleman in the purple suit… his grammar is not so good… roughly equal to his taste in fashion… I only say this because my grammar is usually worse than his, but not on purpose… 😉
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Highly belated editing note, but the word you want is “flauting,” not “flaunting.” It’s a common mistake, and an even easier typo, but “flauting protocols/rules/regulations/whatever” means “flagrantly disregarding them,” whereas “flaunting” would mean “showing them off.” And he’s most definitely doing the former, not the latter.
I believe you mean flouting, not flauting. Flauting may be something a flautist would do 🙂
Page will be updated end of day tomorrow. Sorry for the delay. A combination of bad planning and bad luck.
it’s ok pal, take all the time you need.
Yup. Take your time. As much time as you need.
…
Done yet? How about now?
I really wonder what Peter could have done that was so troublesome that multiple people seem to think that Biana’s act was justified by its intended goal. Is he really just that good at annoying people? Do they really care so little of right and wrong? Do they feel that their careers are also in jeopardy if she is taken down? Or are they that frightened of Biana and/or Sophie?
Look at Panel 5. Most of them think he hacked the Bridgepoint data. In other places we learn that he defected from the I.D.S. (went rogue). On another front, he seems to have annoyed Dr. Mir.
He’s made plenty of enemies. 🙂
Mir isn’t IDS. It seems logical to me that the going rogue would have happened about the same time as the imprisonment – if you just check out of a prison, you really can’t expect to stay out if you really and truly leave a forwarding address, at which location you remain. Or you report to your non-telecommute job within the same government every day.
That leaves the hacking of the Bridgeport data. Is that really enough to justify firing an orbital weapon platform you’re not supposed to even have at a civilian population center of a country that is supposedly an ally you have agreed to protect? Seriously? That’s the kind of act that can be the difference between your enemies cowering in fear and not attacking you to even your friends joining in the fight to put down the rabid dog empire because nobody knows who it’s going to turn on next. Probably the only reason the IDS have any diplomatic relations left with anyone on Palindra at all is that the weapon was countered by someone else from IDS. Granted, as I understand it, if the shot hadn’t been blocked, the whole city would’ve been obliterated, thus making the who dun it a big mystery. But the fact their weapon platform was exposed and proven to be something that can possibly be blocked should have the IDS looking towards Biana as a scapegoat to salvage their reputation as much as possible. Instead, they’re… this thing.
So we have a suspect who may have sabotaged a project that had the potential of solving population pressure in a morally dubious manner that would have regime-challenging consequences in a generation or two, versus a known guilty person who ordered a major war crime that will be having regime-challenging consequences as soon as anybody on the assembly finds out about it. One of these things is a lot less than the other.
That said, as I’ve written this response, I realized the answer to my question. Because the orbital weapons platform that wasn’t supposed to exist is a career ending artifact that nobody involved can reasonably escape from, so long as information leak boy is still around. Biana won’t go down alone. In the shit show this director mentioned, only Arron and Kyle end up looking good. But he should realize something… he’s talking to one of the people who would survive and actually benefit from the Assembly finding out about this stuff. Complaining about how bad it would be if they find out is probably not in his best interest. But… barking little dog will bark.
Honestly I get the idea that the hatred Peter gets is often less about what specific enemies he has made but more about the lack of friends and definite allies he has made. Even those people he is friendly with (Kali, Aaron, etc.) know they can’t depend on him and his actual allies (Miko, Naomi) straight out call him a bastard or a bad guy. Lots of people make enemies, every powerful character that we have seen on more than one occasion we have also seen some of their enemies (literally every single one of them, oddly enough). But most people also have a network of loose allies too.
The closest Peter has to an extended network of allies are those who don’t want him outright killed and those who caution others against going after him (because they know it will be a trap).
That isn’t to say he hasn’t made his fair share of actual enemies, some because of what he did to them and others because he made them look bad, just that it isn’t really balanced out. Within a “political” realm you literally cannot have the power to affect things and not be someone’s enemy. They will hate you because you are against something they support, or because you don’t support it strongly enough, or because they want your position in supporting what you both agree on, Or because they are petty and hating you gives them a chance to throw their weight around and try to intimidate others by those actions.
As for Biana, she seems to be treated as someone with enough pull (or push, as is push people off a cliff) that most people just don’t want to deal with her. Peter is a pain but most people treat him as an annoyance and a potential “issue” but lack the fear that makes them “back off” or help him forward toward a goal that doesn’t involve themselves.
So when Biana fires her kill sat and Peter makes sure that everyone knows it, most people try to drop the blame on the one who isn’t crazy enough to try to take out one enemy with the kill-sat that will level a city. Was she justified is firing the weapon, no matter how annoying Peter was? No. Was he justified in revealing the weapon, a military secret, to a foreign government? Even though it definitely prevents her from trying again and ingratiates himself and many other IDS members to Malsa (when they otherwise were against them because of Biana’s other actions), the answer is still no according to every rule of law there is. But if SOMEONE has to shoulder the blame is it easier to go afrer both, the one with political allies who has proven herself dangerous, or the loan ranger rogue cowboy who has made enemies?
And that is before we get into the question of the allies that Biana DOES have. So yeah, people are going to go after Peter a Lot.
For referance the comic on January 5, 2018 is where they directly state that the reason Biana hasn’t been recalled for her actions is that she is “far more dangerous in Central than in Malsa”, even going so far as to state “if we are lucky she dies out there”. Obviously there is no love towards her by those in charge, but they still support her. But why?
The next page goes into it when they talk about recalling the Monster Hunters. Specifically they think the battle between Sophie and Aaron was mostly even and so they picked the side of the one they thought would win. Back when it was just Aaron and Kali, vs Biana, Sophie, and Atter the eventual winner seemed clear and allowing Sophie lattitude as the agressor meant that the overall military losses would be limited.
Had Sophie succeeded at kidnapping Kali the total losses would be 1 major general (Aaron himself) and everything else could be salvaged. Short of recalling Biana, there probably wasn’t another way to stop Sophie from starting something, so they just backed who they thought would win.
PS: We are missing character profiles for Biana (director Biana Beyar), Sophie, Elizibeth, Karov, Collonel Ricci, the Consoul, and others (Acalia the teleporter, Amy from the MSB, yeah) . Some are more important than others, though. I wonder if there are enough people to support a fan-wiki at this point? If so that would mean that the readers could keep up with the information, reducing or at least spreading out the workload of keeping up with it. That might be worth a poll at least.
As another note to what’s going on, since Kyle got his implants hacked by Mym in the old Query terminal, I think he started to have an appreciation for just how deeply Peter has his tendrils into everything.
I think Kyle is betting that goading these people to threaten to kill Peter will ensure Peter hears the whole conversation and offers Kyle the recording and some other handy material for future blackmail fodder.
I think Kyle’s willing to go along with Peter in the moment but is building his own power play for after (likely trying to position himself to either claim support or claim no connection, whichever helps more after all is said and done).
The thing that amazes me is that they are having this conversation without a moment’s consideration that Peter (okay, Mium) might be able to listen to it or even record it and play it back for the Council.
I think they suspect that the Biana recorded moment was only recorded because of her speaking with Peter at the time. They probably aren’t realizing all the things that are currently falling on Arron.
Oops, replied to wrong thread above.
As said above, I think Kyle’s counting on this being recorded and being supplied with several handy recordings for use as leverage later.
Atter vs Nathan, Arron vs Biana (&maybe Sophie), Peter vs the next person to jump in line on the chopping block (and after that…anyone seen as a detriment in the short-term plans, then the long-term plans…)
Maybe the Consul should probably happy the country’s as intact as it is…
Still, hearing about Peter’s past nonsense is about as fun as the current nonsense. (Especially with such a description – “checked out like it was a hotel”….hehehe~)
Also wow Nick in that second to last panel looks kinda pathetic. Beat-up face, worried look…(hmm, maybe not worried, but doesn’t look as certain he has in the past…)
…from a guy who in an early chapter was all “Okay, I’m here, I run the show now, folks.”
Almost feel bad for him…..
And yet irony is not the word for his situation, because it’s the attitude that he could run this show that got him to this point when he clearly couldn’t.
Unfortunately, that’s really all I have to say here. I’d like to do Past Utopia proud, but… I suppose I could point out that it’s never Peter vs. That’s not the game he plays. He picks champions and then puts them between him and whomever was sent after him. And Biana played very nicely into his game by handing Kally back to him, even after he disappeared on her. It will be interesting to see if Peter can bring Kally fully on board his new team, but it’ll take more than dinner with her to do that. Specifically, for him to even make an attempt, it’ll take having enough time with her unobserved from others. And knowing the sort of person he’s expected to be, I think it would also require that he be pretty confident of success.
I don’t think that’s what Peter does. He plays chess master, and everyone knows it. Kally isn’t helping him because she’s his champion. She’s helping him because it gets her what she wants.
It’s fun watching his dad though. You can tell that’s where Peter got his carefree attitude from. It’s also fairly obvious that’s where he got at least some of his chess master skills too.
What exactly is a chess master, except someone who moves pieces on the board so that the right conflicts happen so they resolve in the manner desired?
You seem to think we’re describing different behavior. But your first paragraph merely restated what I said in other words. I would contest, however, that describing Kally as Peter’s champion when she’s directly saving his butt is appropriate, even if she’s not on his side.
tell me had –> tell me he had.
tell me had –> tell me he had
Fixed, thanks 🙂
Now that you are up, interlude 4 is inserted in the wrong place in the archives. And while you are fixing the archive the link for [Nov 21, 2016 Comic for Monday November 2016] is missing.
Panel 5: …and tell me HE had
Panel 6: baitING you. pullING your chain. makING you bark like a dog. (unless his english is that bad, and he doesn’t know present perfect tense)
Panel 6: you only boost Kepler‘S ego
For me, tense in a foreign language is challenging. For a diplomat caught without their interpreter, they may be more accustomed to using future tense.
And I think of Kepler ego as a special kind of ego. If you really want the apostrophe S, then it would likely be Keplers’ ego, plural. An ego owned by the family.
“I am a Civil Servant, Director, I don’t have a price.”
Only in this comic universe could that be said with a straight face, and not be met with gales of laughter. I know I still snicker every time I think about it. 🙂
Not true. I recall a tale of a drug overlord taken down by the KGB. After the trail, before he was sent off to Siberia, the former drug overlord admitted openly to bribing the KGB director who took out his organization.
The KGB directors words were something along the lines of, “You mistook accepting a bribe for corruption. Yes, I took the bribe. I then used that money to fund the investigation into your misdeeds, because I did not have the budget to do so. Thank you for helping me take you down.”
Disclaimer: I’ve no evidence to indicate that the story was true. I’m relating the story as a story, nothing more. The particular story does not have to be true for other such people to exist.
Priceless civil servants are rare. But they are the true civil servants. Unfortunately, paying civil servants what they’re actually worth wouldn’t fix the problem. It would just raise the prices of most of the pretenders. That said, doing that would also be worthwhile.
Edit: added the disclaimer paragraph.
I will admit that there are honest, hardworking civil servants out there. I’ve also heard that some hens do have teeth….
(From the old phrase “Rare as hen’s teeth.”)
I will admit I have only ever seen a single hen’s tooth. I will not admit to the total number of hens I have seen with zero teeth, nor will I admit to the circumstances of me seeing that tooth.
It’s my gut feeling that honest civil servants are more common than hen’s teeth. That said, I also recognize that I’m removing a qualifier from the term, which may be why I feel they’re more common.
P6 Bait you -> Baiting you. Like little dog -> Like a little dog. Although I get the impression this speaker is deliberately ungrammatical.
Think stereotypical comic Russian accent, with few articles, adverbs, or adjectives.
Do you get the sense that the Keplers come from a long line of spymasters and generals? ‘Cause I do, and I can’t figure whether there are more spymasters or generals in their heritage…
Spymasters yes, generals not so much. It seems like Keplers are the kind of people who at the end of the day have always been standing in the right place and people only just now noticed.
I’d agree with you if it wasn’t for Aaron Kepler. He doesn’t seem like a spy as much as a military commander…
Aaron Kepler is in charge of a military police/intelligence agency (then again every department we’ve seen for ‘Central’ has been part military part intel agency. So he is currently a SPY MASTER.
And how well has trying to “put a bullet in his head” worked, Director? And just because she had reason doesn’t mean she’s RIGHT! Bianna is an arrogant, murderous bitch, who not only used an HVW on a civilian population, but intentionally set loose an unrepentant, psychotic serial killer on said population, and was shocked when it went out and murdered people with abandon, including IDS agents! Need I also point out that it was her idea to assault, kidnap, and attempt to murder our best living strategic weapon, “The Red Dragon” in the attempt to prevent her from interfering in the attempted kidnapping and murder of a Malsian official… and was shocked when said “Red Dragon” turned on her for it?!
She’s THE PROBLEM, sir, not just for her criminal misconduct, but for her INCOMPETENCE, and if you keep trying to defend her, all you’ll succeed at doing is going down with her. Keep that in mind before you BARK any more threats at me.
Good recap of the current situation. ^^
I get the idea that the people in power are “supporting” her in her little Malsian “indiscressions” because they can’t get rid of her completely and because they are afraid of her. They desperately don’t want her back on central because she is too much trouble but even there she can be a problem.
It many ways they are also scared of Aaron, but because he is very much a straight shooter, he also is easy to predict and work around. Biana, on the other hand, is enough of a wild-card that they don’t know what to expect. Even her defeat is likely to result in her just coming back to Central where she can be more trouble than she is now (yes, more trouble than firing a satalite nuke on a civilian population center, if that can be believed).
In fact her releasing Atter may be nothing more or less than a ploy to get sent back to Central. Either she gets rid of Aaron and takes over a chunk of Malsa and returns to Central in a couple years as a hero, or she gets recalled due to the problems she has caused and gets recalled immediately as someone who is dangerous and unpredictable enough that she shouldn’t be messed with. For her it is a pure win-win.
Sadly, this is politics at its finest. Everyone ends up stategizing to get the most out of every situation or to loose the least, even if this means supporting someone like Biana.
Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree does it?
hey, I understand. some words are hard to pronounce, when one is from another country. with that in mind, I see no errors in any of the panels needing to be fixed.