Comic for Friday, May 17th, 2019
Well, better late than never, eh?
I did say we were going to see the monster hunters again. A few of them have had had a severe case of the being-shots, and aren’t present here, including their usual commander. It’s a tough life when the people that give orders are squabbling. The Monster Hunters loyalty is particularly complicated, but it’s a bit more complicated than just following orders.
We have actually seen the person in the last panel before, he talked to Arron after Arron visited the Situation Containment offices and objected to Sophie’s plan previously.
I figure I should clarify a point on art, as I think it’s not particularly clear always, but to people in world Sophie does not look particularly old. Just by looking at them, it would be hard to say if she was older or younger than Elizabeth or Tokiwa, though her hair is grey-ish.
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On this reread, I learned what Arron did with his arm and why the tracer was placed there in the first place.
I’m glad the monster hunters have better aim than Naomi when enterering offices via windows. However this implies that Sophie is on Palindra since Central is a spacestation and windows entry there leads to many serious problems.
Unless Kyle or Mari is there, or it is explicitly stated to be on another world, I assume everything takes place on Palindra.
Still, I’m a little unclear on where exactly this “regional” (aka Palindran) IDS main office is. Arpon? Orin? An otherwise unclaimed island somewhere?
Presumably Sophie is (or was) here: http://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-january-1st/
That would put her somewhere in Malsa, as that location was attacked by Malsa’s purple princess for not leaving Malsa fast enough after the IDS was told to leave.
She was there (or at least Nathan seemed to think so), but is she still there? It seems to me the place was pretty much destroyed.
And even if that’s where she still is, I doubt that’s where the regional IDS leadership have met one another.
Particularly 2018-12-31, with comments like “this Malsa thing again?”, “more than a hundred nations on my plate”, “Malsa was on of the more promising ones”, suggests that Malsa is not that pivotal to their presence on Palindra.
But perhaps even more clearly 2018-01-04 – in which IDS regional leaders discuss how Biana is in Malsa, and speaking of the possibility of her dying “there” (not “here”) – tells me they are meeting somewhere outside of Malsa – but not on Central either, as they also discuss sending Biana “back there”.
Question mostly unrelated to the comic:
Any artists reading the comic? I have a maybe-cannon / maybe-not-cannon idea for some guest artist pages for PastUtopia to post here. Please let me know how much you’d charge. I’m thinking perhaps 5 days, with 3 panels each day. You’d have to draw Fluffy, Kally, Peter, Ila, Mium, and 3+ other people. And some background art and props. And I’d like approximately the same level of artistic talent (or greater) as what we’ve been seeing from PastUtopia recently. Said art won’t have anything to do with the current storyline, but could hopefully become cannon in future story arcs.
If anyone is interested, please let me know here.
Thanks!!!
First off, i love the Sophie split face semi panel at the top right. Its deliciously threatening and evocative of the power which she has been wielding. Then there is the realization that roosting is taking place.
I’m also seriously curious what action “Major” Aaron Kepler took during the Kor’s world war. His son, on the council is also seen as extremely capable in the same vein as his father. Peter is likewise extremely capable even if he is completely unorthodox.
Aaron’s actions had to have been gray area because otherwise his rank would have been elevated, however it was public because everyone seems to respect his action which likely ended the war. His posting/banishment/retirement to Palindra is a result of his his politically ambiguous state. Too popular to fire, but too powerful to keep ‘at court’. Traditionally ambassadors are created from this catagory, but Palindra and Central don’t seem to have this type of relationship, although perhaps he is functionally an abassador, but Central may not have a defined ambassador position in within the Civil Services.
It’s possible he simply denied promotion, or that whatever it was was the kind of thing you never publicly acknowledge happened in any way, including promotions resulting from it.
DANGER DANGER DANGER!!!!
The villain isn’t panicking!
Villain not panicking when faced with arrest is indeed a bad sign.
To evaluate how bad we have to consider what Sophie knows. She has just found out that her information on Arron’s location has been wrong and has correctly guessed why. Confirming that she has been tracking Arron arm via the code piece.
She didn’t think he had it in him to cut it off and rally the troops.
Therefore it is likely that she can sense the location and general status of Atter. With increased resource draw indicating under major attack and ceasing of of said draw indicating he is dispelled/dead.
Over all she probably thinks that Atter killed most or all of the heredity leadership of Malsa (probable outcome without Mium intervention). Weber is newly appointed lacking hereditary gravitas, and along with Camille is superposed to be in intensive care.
And that her strike force has or will shortly capture or kill the the current political leadership (again lacking intervention) With no prospect of coropation from Malsa.
Sofie probably thinks she can politic her way out of arrest.
Yep. Sophie thinks this action is coming too late to actually stop her, and assumes that if she accomplishes her objectives Central will let her get away with it. If she actually knew everything going on, including that her primary missions have failed horribly, I suspect she would be much less calm.
She’s either assuming that Arron isn’t smart enough to figure out that she’s gunning for the Consul, or that her people will be able to overcome any barrier that he represents and still manage to do the job.
She comes across to me like somebody who could be naive enough to think, “Ok, person outsmarted me by performing a stunt that only wild animals are known to do. Person is still stupid.” But that doesn’t mean that she is. I’m often wrong about people.
It’s unclear how much of a draw anchoring Atter has on her. It’s my guess that Atter is an entity with its own power and its own motivation for being here. It’s also not clear if Atter is really gone or just hurt. It’s tough for us to say as we don’t know its nature.
If Atter is gone, she might be in a state of shock. Or she could be having one of those oh shit moments, in which she realizes she can’t surrender, as the terms of surrender include turning over something that has been destroyed that the people she’s surrendering to don’t believe could be destroyed.
But thank you for reminding me that it’s been long enough since we’ve seen Weber that he could be up and about, using his IV drip bag support pole as a walking aid, and all set to freeze the crap out of Sophie if she gets past these guys.
Um, Tyler? Don’t do it. You’ll freeze your saline bag, which will probably be overall bad for you.
Sigh. OMG these hero types.
Panel 1:
..laying the groundwork for *an* explanation…
And confirming that Arron was indeed disarmed.
++PLS
Fixed, thanks 🙂
I wonder who gets to tell those monster hunters, Tokiwa and perhaps Sophie that they are to late to save Atter that Kally got to him first.
Pretty sure the only one capable of doing that would be Kally. Because I suspect everyone here is missing that development.
If Sophie is anchoring Atter (or is it Bianca? I think Sophie?) doesn’t that imply that he is drawing some sort of resources from her? Would she know he’s in trouble based on an increased draw?
I could be completely mistaken, but: My interpretation of how Sophie is anchoring Atter is that this makes it impossible for anyone to kill Atter without first killing Sophie or convincing her to stop anchoring him. My theory is that Atter, at least at this point, no longer has a physical body that he could genuinely call his own. The body we saw him in earlier, I suspect, is one he either abandoned or is not his original body. At this point, he might be closer to Kally’s red dragon magical construct than an actual human, able to body hop from one person to another and able to infect magical constructs like a virus.
Think of Agent Smith in the Matrix sequels.
OTOH, perhaps he does still have his original body? And perhaps the “anchoring” that Sophie does only helps Atter get back to his body after he is done infecting magical constructs, sort of like an anchor for someone who is astral projecting?
Hmmm. I’m going to operate on the theory that Atter no longer has a physical body. The way Nathan, Peter, and Kally all talk about him? They talk like he’s a weapon who’s only vulnerability is Sophie….or Mium or Fluffy.
We know that the ‘battered shell’ he just abandoned isn’t his real body because Mium cracked it in the past and we saw red construct for his insides.
I don’t think he body-hops, but I could easily be wrong.
So what is anchoring? We don’t know. Possibilities I’m entertaining:
1. Supply constant power
2. Supply constant calculations
3. Supply power and/or calculations to restore damage.
4. Some sort of mental thing to keep his mind stable.
5. Any combination of the above
I’m of the opinion that he never really had a body of his own. Not in this dimension at least.
I’m not feeling like I understand the anchoring thing enough to hazard a guess at what it is. However if I were suddenly dropped in universe knowing what I know now, and tasked with helping force out Atter? Dismembering Sophie would be high on my list of things that would likely help.
If it didn’t, well maybe Biana would be there next best point.
I wonder if you could just render her unconscious … maybe a medical coma…rather than attempting to physically render Sophie. herself. I don’t think Central has Head in a Jar technical capabilities, so I’m wondering how punishment will be meted out. Either way, this is obviously a gross abuse of power and any consequences are likely to be likewise gross in both scope and result.
Presumably Nathan Summers knows the answer to my question.
However given the status update on Arron’s arm, I’m inclined to suspect my theory is correct. The anchoring of Atter can be ended via massive applied force (Dragon), voluntarily (I assume, but maybe this isn’t an option?), or by the death of the anchor.
6. Stablizing his connection with their reality. This is basically just keeping a portal open and part of Atter pulled through it. Exactly what happens to Atter doesn’t really affect the anchoring person, though they may be able to sense the reverberation of repeated blows.
In the universe that I’m pulling this concept from, demons were apparently 5 dimensional beings, who could at most insert an infinitesimal fraction of themselves through it. You couldn’t do appreciable harm to the being as a whole through this opening. Trying to kill a person with a paper cut at a single point is not quite an apt analogy, as the paper is vastly thicker compared to the effective thickness of a three dimensional aperture to their 5-Dness.
Without anchoring, the demon would have to not only regenerate from their wounds, but also find their way to wherever the new aperture forms and align themselves just so. With anchoring, the portal aperture stays put, the demon stays connected, so regen time is the only part that matters.
This feels like it might be something like what we have going on here, as Sophie really does not seem to be in a distressed state, despite the fact that Atter has been massacred into small fragments.