Comic for Thursday, December 15th
I heard people note that the last comic where I had multiple locations simultaneous it was clear what was going on, so I figured I would fix that. God damn have I fixed that thoroughly this time… g’luck! 😛
Kally get’s the short end of the stick when it comes to cutting away from her. I promise we’ll get back to her – and this time I think we even will, cause I already have the page where we do half drawn… 😛
As some commentators have pointed out, Miko was a cliffhanger before Kally was a cliffhanger, so technically this comic is cliff-hanger negative. Sort of? 😛
Speaking of buffers, it’s been noted the buffer count is not always accurate, so I will add a date of when it was true; ie, as of 12/15/2016, the buffer is 1, meaning Monday’s comic is already done and Thursdays is half done. The first page Minus Years should go up this weekend as well on Patreon.
I noted a long time ago that most of Miko’s background was cut. Which is fair, as I tend to cut the background for pretty much all the characters to some extent or another. It is a little unfortunate as we were supposed to know more about Miko by this point in the story, but updates march on. Keeping the story moving is sort of like being drug along by a train for a detail obsessive author, “BUT WAIT, I HAVEN’T EXPLAINED WHERE HE GOT THAT PEN YET!! I SWEAR IT COULD MAYBE MATTER LATER!!” I say as the next scene ruthlessly starts.
It’s been awhile since we’ve seen the A.A. system. I think “what does A.A. system stand for” is the longest running unanswered question I have.
PS: In case you missed it, there is a super important poll at the bottom of the page. 😛
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Its odd that the system calculates the delay to 9 digits based on a 2 digit distance. Or maybe the distance happened to be rounded because it is within 10 nanometers of 1.8 meters, which is also odd.
It’s not really that odd. MYM’s just implemented with chips that have floating point numbers with 24 bit mantissas.
I am back and I love technology! Also go magic!
Long time, no see. Welcome back!
Seems like you picked a good time, because we are right in the deep of magic technology. Technology magic? Eh, probably both… 😛
Hey, MYM? Destroy the gun while you’re at it.
He did label it as “problem”. It’s probably next. And maybe the mage holding it, if he is a big a believer in solving the root of the problem (though I doubt he can erase a person given the Eidos Key).
Y’know, I’ve been thinking and I’m not sure if Miko is tiny-young or just tiny-tiny.
Also, this page provides some great info on how Eidos (Is that supposed to be capitalized?) works, makes a lot of sense now.
I can’t find where, but I am pretty sure the author said she is supposed to look older than Ila, but, yeah, I’m just going to say it, they look very similar.
The author always capitalizes “Eidos”, “Form”, “Eidos Key”, so most of the commentators do. If you haven’t seen it, there is a some more information on it under Setting->Magic on the top bar. Though as usual for pastutopia’s stuff, reading that will probably just raise more questions.
psh! Ila 10x cuter than Miko. i mean, Miko is second cutest, but in a “aww look at me i am grumpy cat” sort of way. Ila has full range of cute installed + the hair swivelly piece which is like 3x cute on it’s own.
<– not biased at all. pls ignore avatar.
Of course not. Not biased at all. Wait… is that an Ila fan-club badge? 😐
Now I really want an Ila fan-club badge…
Haha, I think it has something to do with MayW’s avatar 😛 If you want a site specific avatar just let me know.
This page really show how much of an analyst Peter still is. To an outside observer it looks like he’s trying to do a Xantos Roulette, but really it’s just learning all the best moves and playing speed chess.
He really has an edge in the information gathering department that allows him to look like his plans are more foolproof then they are. Realistically he just has more time to rebuild them when things change than most people.
Of course, step one of his plan was likely “get better information gathering” so… 😛
Okay, then. Stealing liberally from my more-intelligent-than-I commenting comrades, I have the following observations:
@Byzantine: needs to comment more often, because that was pure genius deduction. I can hear PastUtopia’s teeth grinding from here. ^^
If Miko has chip #3, who has chip #1 and who has chip #2? Any guesses? 🙂
The chip seems to have an onboard Eidos simulator. O.o
I love the line in the computer simulation of the computation of the pistol firing at Miko: “Brain. Important. Humans need this undamaged. Consider backup?” Pure machine thinking *snicker* ^^
I didn’t see ANY of this coming. O.o
I got a snicker from that too, but are we certain Miko could NOT have their brain backed up? It might be a bit of a stretch for the technology they have but still…
It depends on who ask… 😉
Depends on who you ask if it possible… or depends on who you ask if the backup would still be the same person? Because that’s sort of a problem with the technology…
I suspect chips 1 and 2 might be in Peter and Naomi, since MYM activating this falls under the friends and family exception, which Im certain they do. And if they fall under it then it being there only makes sense to enable him to use the exception. Otherwise it would be an odd thing to add.
Though perhaps chip 1 is in the dr who made the earlier prototypes.
I think Peter is a good bet, but Naomi actually got hit by a bullet. That being said, A) the bullet wasn’t going to hit anything vital, and B) her chip may have a different purpose, since she has quite a few abilities that Miko seems to lack.
Another thought: Is chip #1 the master chip controlling #2 and #3, or is it simply the first one made, and each succeeding chip is a better model with more features?
I do not know if these chips are necessarily related to MYM. While MYM is able to use it, he can hack pretty much anything with a wireless connection (speaking of which, I am not sure I would want a wireless connection in my brain…).
MYM does not seem to be able to keep track of Naomi like he does Miko. She noted that he had “found her” during the chase when the drones started self-destructing. As for Peter, it is more likely, but we know he needs his phone to talk to MYM, and he does not act like Miko does when danger is involved (he runs or hides until Naomi, Mium, or Kally shows up).
It is possible that 1 and 2 are unrelated. It is also possible that Miko is F3. The early prototypes could have been more like Gate (Gate may even be F1 or F2). My current assumption is still that Miko is Taki though.
Yeah, I’m firmly on the Miko = Taki team. Too many things line up for it not to be so.
That’s an interesting concept about Gate having one of these particular chips. We literally have no information one way or the other as to whether Mium can track or hack Gate, so could be, could be…..
Wait, who is “Taki?” I just re-read the whole archive and that name still isn’t ringing a bell.
And where is the notion that Miko isn’t… just Miko… coming from? It’s too common a comment – and the author’s commentary seems to back it up – for it to be just pure speculation, but I’ve totally missed something somewhere.
Conspiracy theory and wild speculation officer reporting in…
Taki is mentioned twice that I can recall (I dug through this recently to find more about Miko considering recent comic events).
Kyle says that Taki is missing, and references that she only ever talked with her cousin much, and wanted to know if Peter had any idea. Many people view this as Taki being Peter’s cousin:
http://pastutopia.com/?comic=comic-for-friday-march-4th
Arron asks Naomi if anyone named Taki is with Peter. His interest seems to be a personal one rather than a professional one:
http://pastutopia.com/?comic=comic-for-monday-october-10th
In the first comic that had a chat log for Miko (I don’t remember where that was, a long time ago) the author references that “Miko” is not her real name, and again, when complaining that Mika sounded too much like Miko, he noted that Mika is short for something else, while “Miko” is not a real name, so the names were not really that similar. PastUtopia also has a weird habit of refusing to use pronouns for Miko in commentaries which a lot of people picked up on, which fueled people’s speculation that we are not actually sure from looks if Miko is a boy or girl, but everyone in comic uses she.
The next page actually (which just went up) also has some good information, but I will save that for comments on the next page since they would be technically spoilers here.
Just to make all the speculation even worse, in programming counts usually start at 0 not 1, so it is not unreasonable to say there are at least 4 chips in play.
Oh. Hey! There is actual words mixed in with the ones and zeros spam. I noticed earlier that there were symbols and letters, but there is also a few words. I can only pick out a few though, not seeing a coherent sentence yet.
God damn I love this comic. I read the page like four times before I saw that. Sigh, back to the analysis and speculation booth.
Alright. Now I am pretty sure you look at the pages at 200% zoom. I’m onto you. 😛
Doesn’t everybody?
I use ‘find edges’ on 1 pixel width
coherent sentance is in the binary
i am genuinely not sure if this is a joke or not. i don’t 100% put it past either pastutopia to do that or the people here to figure it out ^^
(don’t know much about binary though)
It is technically possible, but would not be possible to read here. Each block of 8 numbers would be a single letter, and quite a few of the ones here are garbage (containing letters or symbols). I took a look, and only get a few random letters out. Some of the blocks are malformed (not 8 numbers) which would make them unreadable as letters.
Lots of the binary is in the form of ASCII.
And some of it says OHIO, and MIUM
It can’t be read, because most of what is written is off the page.
And, as a programmer, I am pretty sure that symbol there is a destructor.
Miko: No shits given. Ever. In your favor, at least.
Also, has Peter ever learned that someone trying to kill you is typically a bad thing? (I mean, clearly someone going for Peter instead of Miko would probably work out more in his favor, especially since he’s at Weber’s.)
Also, the last third of this page taking place in about .03 seconds and yet having minutes worth of thought involved, also cool. (I think if you ever get tired of my saying how much I this comic I’ll consider myself properly heard. ^.^)
You have to wonder if Weber will be offended when he connects those dots… you expecting someone to kill you… so you are in my house… wait!
This page is actually the reason I tried to do the effect with raindrops when we saw MYM’s “thoughts”, to establish the timeframe that an AI can think when fully spun up.
I am thinking when the penny drops for Tyler he is just going to pinch the bridge of his nose, sigh and develop the first of his Arron wrinkles.
As usual in answering one mystery, you have made quite a few more. The A.A. System (presumably MYM) seems to be noting the Miko is a human, so maybe a cyborg? Some sort of computer chip that MYM can access, which is both cool and sort of scary, as he is literally hacking into Miko best I can tell.
I do not think Miko is surprised by this ability though, given how utterly apathetic she is about being shot. This does explain why she is so indifferent to danger even Mium is clearly not in immediate saving range from being shot or exploded. I am guessing this is not the first time this has happened.
I have wondered if MYM could be the ultimate AutoCaster.
I think you just made me realize what AA stands for. Autonomous Autocaster.
That is a really good guess. That fits with a lot of things, better than anything I have come up with. That is definitely my leading guess too now.
When the A.A. system switches to human interface mode, it mentions an “implanted assistance drive”. In other words, Miko has a chip in her neck (you can see the chip in panel 6, nestled against the vertebrae V1 through V4). The system performs an “emergency synchronization with [AC.Comp.Asist.Impl. 0003]” which I guess means AutoCaster Computer Assistant Implant #3, or something like that. This means the console log is from an outside agent (presumably MYM) accessing a preexisting implanted chip.
Running the A.A. on this chip causes it to overheat dangerously (“temperature exceeding human specifications”; the chip is probably fine, but Miko is gonna get burns), and it does not work properly in a human host (“biological interference”). The A.A. the modifies itself to cope with this environment (“updating software”).
What follows in an Eidos simulation containing information that Miko does not possibly possess. At this point the A.A. dissolves the bullet. It is unclear if the bullet is reduced to dust, reduced to atoms or smaller particles, or dematerialized completely.
🙂 <- Non-committal smiley face. Totally not covering an 'oh no, they are onto all the secrets' expression. 😛
@Amaranth: I think it’s more likely that Miko is hacking into M.Y.M. (if not something more mutual–possibly the same general idea as the type of computer link that Gate has, only far more sophisticated). 🙂
I am fairly sure that MYM is not the ultimate autocaster. We have seen all kinds of useful programs in lots of autocasters, and we have never seen Mium use them.
It appears that MYM has *REDACTED* ability from Kor’s world, or another visitor. It is a process based on disturbing parts of elements across different dimensions causing massive disassociation of whatever element.
Miko is a multiple person.
Mium cannot cast spells on his own, but neither can an AutoCaster. If an AutoCaster is essentially that a computer that translates Eidos calculations into Math and than spits out the formulas, then Mium could do that even if that is not what he “is”, since he has almost instant communication to his processing power, and likely vast processing power.
It is an interesting idea that he is somehow modifying the dimensional properties of data in Eidos to destroy things. Would solve the problem of high velocity dust that Gurst points out. Still, not sure there is any evidence for it yet beyond that it is a valid theory.
Taking apart the bullet doesn’t solve the problem – Miko’s still about to get a faceful of fast-moving metal. Granted, it’s less likely to penetrate her brainbox if it’s spread over a larger area.
—
Interesting that the relay chip has a speed-of-light delay but the A.A. system’s internal networking doesn’t.
Thats what the remote caster Peter picked up is for.
and the metal if sufficiently broken down would disperse in the air over that distance.
A facefull of lead dust is also unhealthy.
True. We do not know how much he is breaking down though. It is tricky to guess from the art, but it sort of looks like he is interfering with the “data” in Eidos that makes the bullet (note all the overlapping Eidos backgrounds). It is fully possible he can “erase” things like speed and momentum as well “form”.
For example if the “speed” is associated with the “bullet” Eidos form, erasing the “bullet” into “lead, copper, carbon dust” may erase the “speed” as well. By the time physics comes back into, it would just be motionless dust that would harmlessly fall to the floor.
This is mostly just speculation on my part, my guess is that he “jams” or “floods” the Eidos data of a “form” somehow, compared to other people’s magic who is more like “hacking” the Eidos data. Sort of a brute force approach.
I am really going to have to come up with proper reply for ‘I like to reply to threads so people know I read them, but I have nothing to add because readers are too clever and anything I add would be spoilers’ 😛
@PastUtopia: *Ahem* For a non-spoilery reply, I suggest: “That’s an interesting theory/comment. Could you expand on it?” 🙂
A face full of lead dust is only about as dangerous as paint chips. And as long as you wash your hands and face after being exposed to them you should be fine. one of the reasons why a bullet penetrates is because it has concentrated Mass. If you were to remove that mask you would have fast-moving particles that probably would not penetrate
It possible the system has no internal speed of light delay, but it is more likely that the A.A. system is a distributed system. Especially because this is an emergency, as many operations as possible (in this case probably all of them) would be done only from the nearest server of the system, i.e. the relay chip. That “chip” is probably several orders of magnitude more powerful than any real-world computer, and can process everything itself, therefore adding no speed-of-light delay to the other systems it isn’t talking to.
I think that what “material structure break down complete” means in this case is that the bullet has been deleted and no longer exists rather than having been turned into dust or superheated metal. No burns or projectile damage.
Well, we’ve certainly seen magic cheat greater (or maybe equal to) laws than conversation of mass already.