Comic for Monday, October 14th, 2024
Bet ya’ll reckoned I’d forgotten about you, but there is, in fact, a comic!
We’ve actually seen the presenter quite a few times, usually following Director Biana Beyer around. Biana Beyer, for those not keeping track of characters we haven’t seen for awhile, is the Director of the IDS Corporate Affairs office, and the person that kicked off a solid chunk of the things that have happened in the comic. She may also be one of the more unlikeable people in the comic, but that’s just my opinion.
Special Agent Lucy Harper I don’t believe we’ve seen before. She might be have been mentioned before. There’s a good number of Special Agents out there, even if they are quite a bit more rare than analysts or run of the mill agents, as its a broad category. But it typically refers to people that field operatives with broader than usual permissions and powers, though it, by itself, does not necessarily denote being a powerful combat mage. Peter was previously an IDS Special Agent.
Since this is the… abbreviated… version of the this page, I’ll elaborate slightly more on two things Blake mentioned that were originally more elaborated on:
- Palindran wars tending to be more limited. This is just a result of having wars that are heavily influenced by magic. While that might seem like it would escalate the war, in practice what it means is the wars are less about the means of production. There’s not really any point to bombing their factories and infrastructure, since the threat comes from mages. There are run of the mill soldiers, but run of the mill soldiers tend to be unwilling to fight powerful mages for long, leading the general forces collapsing once there’s no elite units left.
- Malsan democracy being potentially short lived. General voting democracy is fairly new in Malsa, and as Blake points out, the Consul has far more executive power than a typical head of state in a democracy, which means it may or may not live beyond her. The namesake of the title consul is Rome, where many Consuls gave up their dictatorial power… until one didn’t and the Republic ended (…slightly simplified…). From the point of view of Central, its a risky model. Of course, that Central is the near opposite (a byzantine paralyzed bureaucracy) is not entirely a coincidence; they are coming out of a period centralized rule, and their current dysfunction is partially a response to that.
Now, onto the important part! Halloween Costume Voting!
If you have ideas for a costume for Peter, Kally, Naomi, or Ila, leave it in the comments below. As you can probably guess end of the comic, there’s a good chance the costume will be canon (to some extent), so reign in the most ridiculous ideas. I didn’t reckon I’d draw a separate Halloween image this year, despite having done a lot of them in the past, so I figured I’d just incorporate it into the events of the comic if possible.
It’s worth noting that Palindra probably doesn’t specifically have Halloween, but similar idea.
Here are the past Halloween/Costume Dress Up images I could find on a quick look (just for fun); I thin these are in reverse chronological order, but not entirely sure.
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There will be a comic this week (tomorrow, Tuesday, 10/29); running a little late and won’t finish tonight, but as the comic was already delayed a week don’t want to skip it.
Halloween costume ideas…
Kally as Mona from Genshin Impact.
Ila as Fischl from Genshin Impact.
Naomi as Dehya from Genshin Impact.
Peter as Zhongli from Genshin Impact.
Bit of a theme to those suggestions.
Also why are Kally and Naomi not listed as characters for the page?
My guess is they didn’t show up until after the character attendance was taken. I remember once in high school, I needed to go to the bathroom shortly before class started. I asked the teacher for the bathroom pass, because I knew I’d not be back before the bell rang. They gave me the bathroom pass. I returned about 3 minutes after the bell rang. There was a lively class discussion that day, and as one of the more academically social students, I participated a significant extent.
I was marked absent for the day, because I did not think I needed to stay after to talk to the teacher to make sure I was marked as tardy.
I want Peter to go as himself and Kally and/or Naomi to go as a wolf.
Ila can be little red riding hood,
Elle can be DrX.
Mium should go as Neo. It was easy to show dodging bullets in the matrix, but dis-assembling them in flight would have been better but harder to show.
5 can be
Mium and
Peter as a ghost (since frank Marsh called him a ghost). Kally as a witch (since she’s the Red Dragon Witch).
Maybe Naomi as Vi from League of Legends? Since punching. Ila could be Caitlyn to match that costume (since sniper).
You know what would be funny? If Peter dressed up like a stereotypical, shadowy spy master.
Ila as a rabbit, or the Palindra analog of that animal.
Naomi as a grape ape. (Anthony said this first. )
I’m backing Josh S up on “Kally and Fluffy as Lessa of Pern and hrt dragon Ramoth.”
As drawing from Earth’s character set seems to be allowed:
Peter as The Wizard of Speed and Time
Kally and Fluffy as Lessa of Pern and hrt dragon Ramoth.
Two should go as Kor’s World soldiers, not knowing the other is doing so.
Tyler as Mr. Freeze or the X-men’s Iceman.
The hilarious part to me us Pact has had access to a downed SkyCarrier for quite a while. So this will backfire massively.
First, Pact isn’t going to do anything to Malsa. Biana thinks she’s waving golden goose, but when Avon was in Pact we saw explicitly that the scientists consider IDS tech to be derivative of Kors world.
Second, Pact is going to be extremely upset if someone pulls an uno reverse card and reveals that it’s Pact who actually has the super advanced illegal tech. It paints a target on their back from both all the neutral nations and the IDS. Further alienating her from her nominal allies.
Third, that reveal would make Central actively take even more interest. Especially if a bit of evidence can be found showing Biana’s allies have been using tech derived from Kors world. Which it appears they have!
I still don’t see how this changes the calculus regarding said resettlement either. Biana straight up said Malsa had stolen tech in a massive multi-country meeting, and everyone knew it was true. This feels like flailing. Especially since her best bet would have been to take a small L and then capitalize on the resettlement efforts.
The only way it makes sense is if she has some goal not related to political power. One we aren’t aware of yet.
It’s been a while since I’ve reread the archives, but I don’t think she’s considered what all those other countries took away from that multi-country meeting.
After exposing the enormous number of open portals at that moment, Biana didn’t counter the accusation at all. She simply said that whatever method was being used to gather this information was stolen and in violation of the treaty. That pretty much confirmed that the projection was accurate to everyone and said important things about the IDS.
1. They are either comically incapable of their stated purpose in regulating unauthorized portals, or they know about the majority of these portals and are likely controlling or using them for purposes that would likely be in violation of whatever treaties are in place. The huge number of IDS troops that suddenly appeared in the capital of Malsa certainly points towards that as well.
2. If they are so blatantly violating this part of their treaties, why would anyone believe that any agreement with Biana is worth the paper it’s printed on? Especially if not adhering to a treaty they won’t follow themselves might get their government overthrown by Central. If Central needs equipment set up before opening a gate, other countries are going to want Malsa’s tech to help prevent Central from sending in an invasion force.
Unfortunately, it was shown that even Malsa can’t block portals. However, I agree that Malsa is currently the only one any country can trust to report smuggling.
Thinking about it, that can’t have made its way up to Central. Modeling Central’s foreign policy like a cold war superpower, that’s a larger issue. Overthrow a 3rd world democracy for corporate profits with flimsy deniability. Not a good look, but ehh. Risk everyone knowing they treat their treaties as toilet paper. Problem! This is the kind of thing that if it got out would do massive damage to Central’s reputation.
I have a feeling that Biana leaving things to her “allies” and not being in the room when that bombshell drops with the Councilors will not work out for her. I’m excited to see it!
Didn’t Malsa stop the portals not long after that meeting? I seem to recall that being a plot point, which left Arron and Biana stranded on Palindra for a while. To be clear, that portal block was implemented by giving Mium permission to do so. However, the means by which they stopped the portals isn’t something anyone outside of Team Peter and a very few people in Malsa’s government are familiar with. It’s also not clear to me if it was a total portal block, or just a block between Central and Malsa.
MIUM stopped the portals but it is unclear if the other nations know it was not Malsa’s doing or even if they know that the portals were shut down rather than something else happening that kept Central’s people from leaving. We don’t even know if it was all portals or just the ones that led to Central. What we do know is that Malsa may negotiate with the ability to detect portals, pointing them out, but they absolutely will not and cannot negotiate with the ability to remotely shut down portals. MIUM is working with them as a courtesy and NOT due to any sort of leverage or authority they have over him.
Biana has already attempted to bomb Malsa with Skyhammer, an HVW, in violation of whatever treaties exist regarding Palindra, and quite publicly at that.
Peter’s coalition blocked said HVW with Kylie (at least that’s the public perception, it was actually MIUM magicing away the shell), another WMD.
IDS’s reputation is completely shot as a result.
As Arron Kepler stated “either we rule by fear, or not at all.”
Biana isn’t thinking “politics” or “power and control.”
She’s thinking “those fools dared to defy me! They must be made to answer for their insolence!”
She’s an ego-maniac and sore loser, who is corrupt as hell, and needs to be removed, preferably, in a permanent capacity, as she’s tried to (and is trying again) to the Consul…
I like the idea of Peter dressing up as Biana, which is obviously going to be a very insulting caricature of her. Since it looks like Kally will be at the same party, second place would be Peter dressing up as Nathan.
Even if not Biana or Nathan, I like the idea of Peter dressing up as one of the other characters to be a troll.
I vote for one of these.
Hm. Naomi could dress up as a giant purple ape to troll Miko.
The key facet of Rome’s Consulship that made it safe to concentrate that much power without risking the democracy was that at any given time there were two consuls who could veto each other. That’s where the word “veto” comes from, it’s the word one consul would shout at the other to cancel his decree.
And this worked so well the Roman Consuls never went to war with each other.
Oh wait.
Admittedly, it did work most of the time, as far as recorded history indicates.
first of all, I’m still glad you and the comic explained most of the plot so far. and 2nd, I’d go with Naomi and Kally dressed up as Supergirl and Raven.. (though Naomi would look better as Starfire, but that’s just me.)