I said I’d get the page today and here I got it done… parts are bit rushed, it’s a bit late… but hey, it’s here.
I was planning on telling you guys that next interlude would feature a character that we had seen before, and see anyone could guess who it’d be, because I’d have been willing to bet no one would have guessed it…
Well, here we are.
I’m going to hit post now instead of ranting, those that are curious can go read my comments on the last page.
I have low confidence in monday right now as I’m busy most of the weekend, but I will do my best. I know the schedule is annoying right now, but trust me I find my schedule more annoying still 😐
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Any chance we’ll see this elitist bigot siting in a cage with the words “pet monkey” on the bars and everybody shouting “Ook Ook! Eek! Eek!” while throwing bananas at him?
Or better yet, have him panhandling on the street with a sign-board written in a native language that says “stray monkey, do not feed! OOK! OOK! EEK! EEK!” but he doesn’t understand it because he’s too arrogant to have learned the local language?
For what it’s worth, if you’d asked us who we thought might be the “you’ll never guess who,” I’d like to think I’d have listed the one hit wonders, which would include Antar, Dendrin, Nydia, Regin, Rona, Miss Vinstin, and Volkov.
As it’s intermission, Volkov and Vicksberg were much more likely than the others. On that note, the intermission only list should would also be in order, which also includes: Atsu, Kaori, Mari, and Ryan. I’d say Ryan wasn’t very likely, as Kyle was at the end of chapter 14. Of course, it would be possible to see him outside of his bodyguard of Kyle Kepler duties.
Completely unrelated to todays comic, but. . . .
Reading PastUtopia on copmuter is way better then on my phone, but I just got a 43 inch 4k tv as a monitor (oddly, cheaper then a computer monitor) and I am kind of blown away by the little details I was missing in the background – especially when I zoom in a bit.
I’m going to go back to the beginning
Panel 1 I thought this was Peter at first. Then I read the rest of it then realized it was the “did he really write baby talk for all of his answers” entitled kid.
Not sure what direction this could be going in, but I imagine it won’t be boring. (Then again, we never get boring stuff here, do we?)
I think it is more of a “monkey talk” than “baby talk” thing but yeah. That dude.
Given the witnessed goons in IDS so far (lack of local language skills, social skills, or indeed anything but a “point and shoot” mentality) he could well be right he will fit right in…
Although it is true that this was a student that we saw just before people started shooting at Kyle, it would be nice to show a link so that people can find it. http://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-thursday-april-13th/
Yep thats the same entitled elitist idiot. With no future.
He didn’t just witness the shooting, he actually saved Kyle’s life:
http://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-thursday-april-20th/
Team Peter saved Kyle. Through the agent of the modified terminal.
Vicksberg didn’t get off a spell before it was over.
His spell amounted to a poor and clumsy punch to the head. In fact just throwing a punch probably would have been faster and more effective.
I see what you mean, Jindra. I misread that. Instead of the “I got him” indicating that his spell hit, I interpreted that as him stating his intentions, but not having time to follow through.
That being the case, I now see Revan’s point. Vicksburg got the hit in that knocked the assassin down.
Team Peter would not have successfully saved Kyle without an assist. VIcksberg provided said assist.
I am not going to claim that he demonstrated a lot of capability in doing it, though I will point out that it’s quite possible, given his attitude and his magic-focused upbringing, that he has no understanding of how to throw a punch properly, and if he had attempted that, he’d have broken his thumb and provided less of a distraction to the would-be assassin.
I’m not so sure. It depends how much Query’s mobile unit was responsible for him being able to stop the bullets.
Mium was easily able to defend Miko just by tapping into her implant, and Query did tap into Kyle’s implant (or at least it is strongly implied that he did). My theory has always been that Query only intercepted the bullets with his mobile unit to cover for the fact that he was dematerializing them, something Kyle Kepler is probably not supposed to be able to do. Personally I suspect that Query was fully capable of dematerializing more bullets, it would have just become more obvious what he was doing.
I also think that shooter was out of ammo by the time Vicksberg did anything, or else he wouldn’t have stopped shooting.
if the remote had a proper drive card, then maybe – but I suspect that the bullets *did* actually hit the remote, and it would have “mysteriously” remained airborne to intercept more bullets if there had been any more bullets to intercept.
Query would presumably find it easier to repair or replace some otherwise normal hardware than to explain away erasing True Forms at ballistic speeds…
Hmm. Apparently the Edios equation for radiation removal isn’t known yet. Or perhaps it’s too power intensive for puny humans to run effectively.
Also: those habitats must have been thrown together VERY badly if they’re deteriorating even with easy access to resources.
Um… I’m guess yes they can remove radioactive isotopes, but magic, like all things, has to obey some kind of real world rules… otherwise… well it would be… uh… divine magic (i.e. miraculous).
Radiation would be tricky: you have two choices: allow the radiation to hit you & just repair the damage (that would be Naomi or Rovak right?) or block the radiation: that is EITHER going to require a shield (all the way around: including UNDER your feet: because the ground itself is probably emitting radiation, so you can’t stand on it (otherwise not enough distance to block radiation (Google “how to block gamma rays”))), OR some way of “negating” the radiation: I don’t think that is possbile for gamma radiation (it is electromagnetic radiation: so I suppose if you were to hit a single gamma ray with a perfectly out of phase gamma ray, then it would cancel… but you would need to do this to EVERY gamma ray, which are all randomly oriented… so aside from the fact you can’t detect the orientation of an incoming ray before it hits (thus can’t calculate how to cancel it before it hits), it’s a computational nightmare. Let’s just go with “impossible” to cancel, OK?
As for “radiation removal”… so if everything is contaminated with radioactive isotopes that are emitting radiation, then you must mean removal of the radioactive isotopes? I’m guessing, yes they can: but it’s a painstakingly slow process: but it is how they have been able to create low radiation habitats.
The catch-22 with creating a low radiation habitats in an would full of radioactive isotopes & radiation is keeping the habitats in this state. You might have easy access to resources… but if all the resources are contaminated by radioactive isotopes… where there’s the problem right there!
For one thing, isn’t magic use still relatively rare on Central?
Somehow, I imagine that, while healing cuts, bruises, even broken bones or internal bleeding is possible with magic, healing the damage done to one’s very DNA by ionizing radiation is either not possible or not practical.
Think about it: Our DNA contains an enormous amount of data. And despite scientists having sequenced human DNA a number of years ago, they are nowhere remotely close to fully understanding what it all does. This doesn’t even take into account how vastly complex the human body is.
How can you repair something unimaginably complex when you don’t understand how it all works and don’t have a backup copy to restore?
For a mind-boggling glimpse into just how complex our DNA and the machinery of the body is, watch this video on a computer model of cell replication: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkjwL6gnvoA
I’m not going to guess at how Past configures his worlds, but I know a little about radiation damage to DNA.
Alpha radiation is stopped by most anything, unless it is in your food and water (probably is in this scenario) it isn’t meaningful re: DNA damage. Beta radiation is a little tougher, but again not the significant source.
Gamma radiation and any other high energy radiation penetrates flesh to excite bits of DNA. This effectively causes scrambling of the code. Literally data loss. If it is minor, the body can often times rebuild the data, restoring the DNA.
Magic in TFSoU is effectively reading and writing data, in so far as I understand it. To us software nuts, yeah, that’s some serious fantasy fodder there.
Extrapolating out the analogy of writing code, magic might help a lot with the recovery the body could do on its own. But restoring data that was destroyed? Probably not.
On the other hand, maybe the Eidos key of a person can act as an ethereal backup for the DNA? Allowing a sufficiently advanced mage to do what appears miraculous to those societies without magic?
I suspect someone like Naomi could stop herself from being damaged by radiation, but remember that most people are not nature/innate mages, and using magic directly on someone else is much harder than using it on objects (because people or their Eidos key interferes with magic).
I would also guess that missing with atomic level stuff is probably beyond the scope of most mages. Kally was able to manipulate the oxygen content of the air or disperse an airborne toxin/drug using magic, but that is still not atomic level.
Even if widescale magic was capable of suppressing radiation, it would be hard to maintain, as the world tries to return to its natural state.
My guess is that they can largely treat radiation poisoning. a lot of the older people have signs that look a lot like radiation poisoning/skin cancer, but otherwise fairly healthy seeming. This treatment might not be available to everyone though.
Humans can live in pretty high radiation zones, they just die young for the most part. Acute radiation only kills at absurdly high levels, which would be unlikely to be widespread even after an apocalyptic disaster. I would guess the “habitats” are less about radiation and more about the fact the world is probably in nuclear winter.
Preventing oneself from being subjected to damage by radiation is one thing. But helping someone recover from radiation damage done to DNA is quite another. And it seems clear that the majority of Central’s inhabitants can’t use magic. If radiation wasn’t such a big deal to them, then why bother to live in habitats and why talk about the breaking down of a habitat as such a big deal that merely reminding them of that will bring down moral?
Also, as Glider points out, it’s very likely that the food and water has been contaminated. If someone eats or drinks it, that has the potential to be far worse than merely being exposed to a minor amount of radiation. If the body absorbs contamination and uses it to build new cells or store it in your teeth, your bones or as fat, you’re rather screwd.
On the other hand, documentaries reveal that the area around Chernobyl seems to be recovering. The wildlife has really proliferated, especially the deer and wolves, with seemingly little side effects. Of course, it’s far too hazardous for people to live there. But radioactive isotopes have a half-life. Given the passage of enough time, it should become habitable again.
Perhaps Kor’s World is looking at the long-term? Perhaps they plan to, eventually, claim Central as their own, after the inhabitants have either fled or died off and after it becomes safe to colonize?
I was actually thinking about editing reality so that atoms no longer emit alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. Edios can easily alter the kinetic energy of an object. In theory, it should be able to edit the radioactivity of an object as well.
Sure, the medical stuff is important too. But it was my impression that they were on space stations because their planet was irradiated.
I’m on the fence. Velocity data is apparently easy-ish to write, location data is readable, but writing it is unknown except for one Malsan family mage.
How does one magically decontaminate radiation? Rewrite U235 into Pb207? Maybe it just all becomes some isotope of iron? I think anything other than transmutation isn’t a stable construct?
Anyone recall conversations about transmutation? I want to say that it is possible for Central, but usually not economical. I might be thinking of a Piers Anthony book.
Hmm. I was under the impression that there was very little U235 left after the bomb explodes. I was thinking more of the conversion (or maybe even just the collection) of strontium-90, cesium-134, cesium-137, and iodine-131 and any other long-term radioactive fallout.
Technically speaking, if you have something capable of assessing the DNA of every cell of somebody’s body to repair damage, you effectively have all of the backup copies you need.
Radiation damage is random. Even if every cell’s DNA is damaged, the damage to each will be different. For that level of radiation, you’d need a fairly high powered computer to do the 50 trillion-way differential analysis to see exactly what should be in the DNA, but it could be done. Eventually. With today’s most powerful super computer, it would probably take longer than it would to wait for a more powerful super computer and start the processing *then*, so it probably wouldn’t be quick enough to save the person. But it’s in the set of problems that could be solved.
However, in most cases, radiation poisoning is nowhere near every cell damaged. Most of the cells are *fine*. Thanks to chimerism, you can’t just take the one majority DNA source in every case, but since chimerism is practically limited to single digits (I’ve not heard of more than 2, but I’m only comfortable saying it’s certainly going to be less than 10, since we’re talking about hypothetical imaginary people’s very lives), it should still be pretty feasible to identify which sets of DNA are most common, and sufficiently common to be healthy, and what DNA most closely resembles them.
Of course, I should note that I’m only considering this feasible due to having already surmounted the premise of having the capability to look at every cell’s DNA and contemplate fixing it. That’s a really incredibly high bar, and I’m saying this kind of analysis is probably within the capabilities of something that meets that high bar.
One’s gut flora would probably be pretty severely impacted by this, but that’s pretty frequently toasted and restored by typical humans’ typical diets anyway. It would probably also be possible to put in a filter that excluded processing of cells whose DNA is not at least 99% human.
Nice catch, Tgape.
With current real world genome mapping time drifting from now than a decade to what is it now, couple of months? If you had the sort of processing power available to say, Mium, then it might very well be possible to identify the original, unscrambled DNA if any but the very worst radiated people.
I’m not sure that translates into a cute though. That level of processing is clearly NOT tied into autocasters such that we’ve seen.
However it does demonstrate that the information is available, making the possibility of a cure hopeful. One wouldn’t necessarily have to read and write that data, just find a way to have Eidos update the broken records with good records?
Yeah, I don’t think we’ve seen enough of the magic system mechanics to know one way or another.
At no point in my reply did I even *think* it could be within the capability range of an autocaster… assuming we’re not including Mium with the AA system going, after Miko’s trained to magic.
That having been said, all of that supposes DNA. There’s no real indication that TFSoU uses DNA stored in every cell as the genetic blueprint for life. It could simply be nefariously complex Eidos etchings in the heart of each person’s magic interference core. “Simply”, I say, but there’s nothing that would necessarily require this alternate model to be less complex. It could, for example, at its base be similar to a program written in a brainf*ck variant with no memory limit and the ability to modify its own code (basically, the code sits in the program’s data space) that implements the entire person, storing not just their physical build plan, but their memories and personality.
(For those readers who are not programmers, or are not familiar with this particular obscenity of a language, brainf*ck is not a compact language. It has eight operators, which do not include add, subtract, multiply, divide, equals, greater than, less than, greater than or equal to, less than or equal to, concatenate, or raise to the power. There’s no stack, push, pop, or goto, so there’s no subroutines. (There *are* two branch instructions, but basically nothing is easy. Or quick.)
Please understand, I’m not suggesting this is so, merely stating that nothing says it isn’t.
It’s my guess that brainf*ck is not involved, and the genetic structure of people is stored in a fashion that is at least somewhat simpler than how DNA works. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a lot simpler. It also leaves the possibility that somebody’s blueprint *isn’t* redundant enough such that a super computer with an automated autocaster would be able to definitely piece together what their original blueprint, so long as they had not received enough damage to the blueprint that they were definitely dead.
Note: even if the thought that TFSoU genetic map structure is simpler than ours, it’s *still* something that is far too complicated for any commercial autocaster to muck with.
I think it is intended as an insult. Rather than the people on Central’s planet surface being exposed to destructive radiation, they work in space station like environments, growing food. They are farmers who cannot leave the radioactive waste dump that is the surface. And certain other people view them as lower class.
Most of this page talks about the assassination attempt on Kyle Kepler from an outside perspective. Interesting.
This page’s conversation reveals that (a) Central has habitats that are breaking down and (b) a derogatory term for the unfortunate people who are stuck outside a habitat – likely due to their habitat breaking down or due to there not being enough room for everyone – is “radiation farmer”. (Could he be referring to actual farmers left outside of the habitat? But, context suggests the term is meant to be more hurtful than accurate, being just derogatory slang.)
This is one of the few in-comic hints we have, so far, about how bad things actually are on Central and how it was likely rendered mostly uninhabitable by the Kor’s World invasion. No wonder Central’s government and it’s inhabitants are desperate to leave for a livable world with clean air, water and food! It’s only a matter of time before their habitats fail. And any real potential future of the inhabitants will, obviously, be on a different world.
I’d feel pretty sorry for them… if it wasn’t for the despicable lengths many in IDS seem to be going to in order to effectively take over Palindra and force themselves onto their world in huge numbers.
At first, I was taking his conversation as evidence of how deep-seated a sense of entitlement and bigotry runs, even among young students at the IDS academy. I mean, viewing the natives of other worlds as “monkeys”? Generally, I have a thick skin. But this makes my stomach turn.
Then I remembered that he was one of the two rude students we saw from before, right before that discontent tried to kill Kyle.
The last panel implies that Mari Kepler is viewed as a social pariah, at least by certain segments of the social elite. I’m guessing that this has little to do with her, personally, but with the reputation of the Kepler family.
BTW: In the distance, we can spot someone in a bright yellow uniform/coat in in panel 1. The figure looks female, though it’s small and hard to tell at this distance. In any case, we know the yellow coat uniform signifies Civil Service from the conversation on an earlier page. And I was wondering if that was a minor easter egg or if this was plot relevant.
Speaking of things in the back ground, it is too low resolution to be sure, but I think that is Nick Otte in the background of panel 2.
I don’t know if I would go as far as saying Mari Kepler is a social pariah, just that she is essentially a social studies teacher in a world with magic. People would much rather study magic than the culture and society. He calls her “Miss Mari” until he corrects himself, which also makes me suspect she is fairly close in age to the students. The combination of those factors just make her get very little respect, particularly from a student that is sort of a shithead.
My read on the Miss Kepler reference is that the student knew he’d gotten on her naughty list. When he’s telling his sister that he had done the family name good, he suddenly remembered that there was at least one exception.
I think it was more a consequence of their own (defensive?) use of <nuclear> weaponry against the incursion, than the incursion itself. After Kor’s World withdrew (possibly because the contamination left the local world useless for them as a destination for their own refugees) Central was left to deal with the contamination they couldn’t just run away from (other than to orbit or Palindra, or worlds beyond of course)
Habitats breaking down would explain the pressure on IDS to clear colony areas on such worlds, and of course, a bridgehead would be ideal for the sort of bulk transport that would require as thousands of refugees, with their belongings and enough matériel to set up a viable community are transported to an outworld.
Your theory on Central using nuclear weaponry against the incursion may have some merit. However, you must be unaware of how PastUtopia revealed earlier that it was because Kor’s World specifically targeted nuclear power plants. This would, effectively, create countless Chernobyl and Fukushima-scale nuclear disasters all around the globe. If they managed to do this to most of the nuclear power plants in the world… Well, let’s just say it would not leave much habitable land left, especially since wind currents can spread the fallout over an enormous area.
I remember Peter saying that Central’s weaponry were more detrimental to Central than to Kor’s world, and I interpreted that as Central using nuclear.
http://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-thursday-november-8th-2018/
Where did PastUtopia reveal that Kor’s World targeted nuclear facilities? I must have missed that!
It would be easy to miss. Fortunately we have people here who track these details.
On this page: https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-april-17th/
xspacetrue asks (April 17, 2017, 9:47 pm) in reference to a nuclear contamination theory:
“That’s an interesting theory. But… based on what? Can you mention one piece of evidence?”
Ferrus replies (April 18, 2017, 12:09 am):
…Nuclear fallout is an option; even if the nations of central didn’t try to nuke the invaders, the Kor’s World incursion was specifically mentioned as trying to “started to systematically destroy the infrastructure of the world.” and specifically mentions targeting nuclear power plants (Lore page, incursion entry), so there is a distinct possibility the world is irradiated by Kor’s World even if no nukes were fired….
Even earlier on this page: https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-november-7th/
Amaranth mentions (November 7, 2016, 6:45 pm):
“…n the Lore section nuclear weapons are mentioned, if the Incursion triggered a nuclear retaliations against Kor’s World, Central could be a lot more screwed up than I’ve been assuming.”
To which Past replies (November 8, 2016, 4:19 am):
“Eh, these things happen. Sometimes you end up in space. Sometimes you end up on strange distant worlds. Such is the life of the Interdimensional Rogue Agent… ”
Now this Lore page??? No longer seems to be part of the official website. We’ve since moved to the wiki. However I cannot find some of the content that I know was in the Lore section of the website on the current wiki.
Fortunately it IS still extant, just not linked.
https://pastutopia.com/lore/
Interesting reading right around the third paragraph re: nuclear plants and infrastructure.
Those discussions in the past are definitely worth reading again. Particularly the 2016 one where Amaranth accurately predicts that Central has at least partially fled the planet’s surface to live in orbit.
And the Lore page? Re-reading that with the July 2019 perspective…. One has to wonder just how long Peter has been playing the Palindra game.
I’ve re-read it a few times. The only bigotry I read in this is from the Vicksberg boy. It doesn’t seem like Milli Vicksberg shares his attitude, and his mother, at least, seems opposed to at least some of his attitude. I’m not sure where his father stands on it; the comment about the boy’s first derogatory comment could have been “Don’t talk like that; your mother would be offended” or “Don’t talk like that or we’ll both be in trouble with your mother, as she knows where you get it from.” That said, I’m still disappointed in the father, as the appropriate answer is to try to fix the bad attitudes your kids have, and if you don’t know how, try to get help from somebody who should be better equipped to handle the attitude problem.
I think I’ve brought this up before, but an inhabitable but uninhabited planet is probably NOT what Central is looking for. High tech habitats erected in a likely hasty fashion that are never the less capable of fending off the radiation and allowing continued existence years later? Space habitats for the ‘important’ people, and not just a half dozen astronauts?
Drop these people onto a dirt ball planet with raw building materials, seeds to plant crops, and 6 months worth of food and you’ll likely end up with… Mass starvation and suicide until 95% extinction is reach at around 6.5 months.
They are probably looking for a planet with a decent base technology, but still with sufficient room for immigrants.
I’m betting that the Central exploration has discovered a lot of planets with a stone age or less civilization. And I’ll bet that the majority of such planets is where the concept of monkeys and monkey talk is originating. Bigoted? Yes. Based on the worst cases and exaggerated out to the average case? Probably.
But that is all the more reason to believe that Palindra is special for a number of reasons. For all intents and purposes they appear to have achieved a fairly Earth & Central level of living without having discovered nuclear power.
Depending on exactly how large of a gate a bridgepoint could be, I could easily see them going for a habitable but uninhabited planet, by moving one of these advanced habitats there in its entirety, with all hands on board. This would probably require building a new habitat built to fit the bridgepoint, but they clearly need to be building new habitats already.
Short of that, you’re probably right, at least as far as the plan for the bulk of the people. It would make sense to me to not put all of ones eggs in one basket, so there could be multiple plans in process.
I can see this family will go far in improving the relations with different civilizations….excuse me…local monkeys.
“I don’t plan to talk to the local monkeys or play shepard to a bunch of — people.”
“She just teaches…”
And… change of tempo!
Fixed, thanks 🙂
Technically, sheperd is misspelled. It’s shepherd. I don’t care that much, it’s just this is my first chance to report a mistake!! Ya me!