Comic for Monday, April 11th, 2022
Kally is protesting that seems like entrapment to ask her to summon her dragon in the labs after telling her not to destroy them.
What’s going on in Panel 7 is probably not super clear. Honestly I just don’t have a good way to draw it after a few tries. Ila has fired off a high speed projectile and is repeatedly rapidly changing it’s direction mid flight to zig-zag it about through the targets. That’s what she needed to borrow Mium’s calculation power for, as while she can easily launch a projectile at high speed, she wouldn’t be able to “catch” it to change the direction, nor would she be able to calculate that far away from her with that much accuracy (she probably couldn’t calculate that far away from herself at all – she did when when grounding the airship, but that’s while she was still integrated to the lab computers).
Mium has avoided targeting the enemies heads… but, uh, humans don’t necessarily stay in all the pieces when colliding with high speed projectiles. Part of why I didn’t opt to draw that panel too close up. Ila isn’t super concerned about the intactness of would-be Arkady-nappers. I could probably have spent like a whole page drawing that panel in a more clear manner, but it didn’t seem worth it.
She actually probably could take down that many targets on her own by using Rupture (the right lightning that makes things blow up) but that really would level most of the building and kill a bunch of uninvolved people. This is Ila on low collateral high restraint low collateral damage mode (by her estimation).
Arkady implying that Avi and Artem shouldn’t look at the carnage, but they are both definitely ignoring him. Lisa and Arkady’s reaction to Ila complete disregard for life (or in this case limb) is… probably more normal than people like Naomi, Peter, or Mium, as they are… quite a bit more inured to violence. Even someone like Naomi. Arkady is a family mage, but rarely is running around exploding people or chopping them in two, and while we’ll see more about Lisa, she’s not a soldier.
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I just realized something. In panel #7, we see ILA “disarming” 4 black suits. We don’t see what happens after #4. However, in panel #9, the “screaming intensifies” may indicate more ILA targeting. Hopefully, that will teach those annoying people with guns to not cause ILA to eat non-tasty food!
Loving the Peter and Kally banter these last few pages.
Panel 7 seemed perfectly clear to me.
The *screaming intensifies* got me too.
I’m anxiously awaiting the next comic to see what ILA did to cause the *screaming intensifies*. I believe that there were more than 4 annoying people with guns that ILA wanted to deal with beyond Miums “defect” limitation. Arkady has seen ILA in destroyer mode before but he is still shocked.
Correction on Panel 6: it’s supposed to be “your”, not “you’re”. Did good on all the “their” though.
That’s about how well I expected it to go for the would be kidnappers. Maybe slightly better thanks to Mium’s inclination to not kill them.
Yes. When Ila is your primary gunner, and has augmented skills, a low body count is a bit unexpected.
I didn’t expect most of the wannabe kidnappers to live. The black suits owe a huge debt to Mium for his non-lethal targeting. ILA is clearly angry both for the new kidnapping attempt and having to partially eat a non-tasty food ration. The look on ILA’s face in panel 6 would make me wet myself if she was looking at me. Somebody … get ILA some ice cream before she finds a way around Mium’s “defect.”
I’m almost wondering if these folks are going to appreciate that fact that they warranted the extra care to not be instantly killed.
Or if they are going to be kvetching over being sent into the meat grinder again without sufficient heads up.
And if I.D.S. guy will thank Rovak for giving him an excuse not to get involved.
I wonder if Rovak killed the IDS guy as he hinted in previous comic.
Perhaps a series of smaller panels? Show the projectile obviously under active magic changing course in mid air – with just a tiny bit of blood splatter from whichever direction it came from?
Mr Zombie is going to love this.
That was what I originally did, but it wasn’t at clear what was happening there either. There’s certainly a way to do it, but I didn’t want to delay the page to try to figure it out. Action panels involving magic and projectiles are a bit advanced for my story-boarding skills (or lack thereof).
Some combination of both would probably have been better, but I sort of just pulled the plug in order to get the page up on some rough approximation of “on time”.
I read the comic, then the author post that accompanies the comic, then the comments. The intent of panel 7 was immediately clear IMO.
Some of the finer details didn’t come into focus for me until the comments section. But that’s a side effect of my reading this in a mobile device. Heathenistic, I know.
I had to take a closer look at the lines to see it was one projectile, and not a new shot from ila at them for each guy, but other than that it parsed perfectly. I think it was a fine way of doing the scene.
Maybe a descriptive line across the bottom of the panel such as “ILA wounds several black suits with a bank shot.” Still, an excellent comic as usual. Poor Avi, Artem and Lisa in shock at the carnage. Arcady shocked but he has seen such before from ILA. That dialog in the last panel says it all …. “Arcady … I know … Arcady … I know … What do we do-? … Nothing …”
deleted – meant as a reply elsewhere
A key thing to remember is that Mium isn’t trying to kill them he’s trying to wound them. That requires a but more precision targeting than just hitting center mass.
The track seems needlessly inefficient. I count four direction changes when only two were necessary and I find it odd that computers would be so inefficient.
Panel seven, btw.
I think it is the “no unnecessary kills” thing again.
Those impacts are going through limbs, not center of mass. If Mium was at peace with a likely lethal impact then two, maybe even one direction change would be adequate.
Thanks for pointing the “side shots” out. Hydrostatic shock may still make a kill shot or few.
That’s not my point. What I’m saying is that there is no reason not line up multiple hits with a single direction change. Two points equal one line. Again, we’re dealing with super computers here. It seems strange to me that there are so many unnecessary direction changes.
The shot track goes through casualty 1, changes direction, changes direction again, then impacts casualty 2. That seems unnecessary to me.
If less-than-lethal required one extra direction change, so be it. I cannot understand why it would require two extra changes of direction.
The facility is multi-leveled with ILA on the ground in a courtyard. She shoots the projectile first to her right at ground level, bounces it back into the courtyard reflects it to the 2nd floor for two targets, bounces back to the courtyard to reflect it up to the 3rd floor target.
As you can see, Naomi is holding that lucky SOB over the railing of an upper floor. And looking down at ILA, as she realizes her miscalculation.
Pretty sure there is a pillar/barrier in the way. While it could keep going further, there might be more things or something Mium doesn’t want to hit off panel further behind the target. Going through the side by side by side targets horizontally would also probably be lethal damage.
Also there is probably a limitation on how close she cast the spell to a human magic user without natural interference, as well as a maximum range she can activate the spell (as Past mentions this already out of her normal range without being linked to Mium).
Your point only makes sense if you’re trying to kill the targets and not to limit collateral: you just aim for the big part (the chest) and line up as many targets as you can. Head shot is usually an instant kill: but a lot harder to get more than two in a straight line. Chest shot is going to kill most humans, either through bleeding or organ damage (it’s why we train humans to shoot at the chest: it’s biggest target on a human, and holds lots of vital systems).
If you’re trying to wing targets (a.k.a. not kill them) like a top level sniper, then you’d be aiming for legs or arms.
Changing velocity and direction of the projectile within a target would require extra calculations to take into account mass of the target and movement of the target. Considering the target is a human: the movement is going to be annoying (because humans have a body, arms, and legs that can get in the way). Also you’re doing extra damage to the target (increasing probability they’ll die).
Shooting the projectile through the target (arm or leg?) means you avoid the target interfering with your projectile more than once. And because this first interaction is high speed, your projectile should keep flying.
Also a human probably interferes with the accuracy of the calculation because humans interfere/interact with magic.
And finally: this is NOT Mium selecting the path for the projectile: he is only providing the targeting data. Ila is the one borrowing Mium’s computing power to pull of the direction changes and calculation at a distance. And she is a black box intelligence so her decision making process does not need to result in something “efficient”. In fact, that she chooses to engage each target individually when trying to limit collateral tells you something about her “black box” process.
Something that doesn’t seem to have been touched on yet, we don’t know what the projectile is. It didn’t look like more than a rock. Even a perfectly round marble has crap for aerodynamics.
And then what happens as it passes through flesh and back out again? It doesn’t take much to trigger a well designed projectile to start tumbling. The catch and redirect (maybe even a new speed boost to make up for energy lost in the target? ) after each impact makes a lot of sense.
Who is choosing the path is somewhat open to debate I think. Yes, Ila is casting these spells. But she complained that Mium wasn’t putting the targeting dots on their heads. And calculations running on his servers that he doesn’t adjust to suit his purposes? Doesn’t seem Mium’s style.
Hmmm …. what did ILA have in her hand? Am I imagining too much or did she possibly use the other half of the non-tasty food to shoot a bunch of annoying people with guns? LOL
I’m pretty sure that we see the projectile in panel 6. Or rather that’s the clearest we see it. I cannot rule out that it is part of the not tasty food. I can’t confirm it, but it would be hilarious. In a very dark way.
Now that you pointed that panel out, it looks like a black licorice jelly bean. ILA is looking in a very dark way in that panel. Let’s hope it is just her face being shadowed from her hood as someone pointed out.
Black licorice jelly bean of doom! I knew those black jelly beans were deadly.
Maybe the “not tasty food” IS licorice flavoured.
Black licorice jelly bean! One of the deadliest of all candies!
Than goodness for Mium’s calming influence! This could have been a blood bath!
Two points define a line, but it has to come from the old trajectory too. Once you have specified “line passes through this point and this line” [actually a ray, but I’ll ignore that for now], then you have specified the plane of the trajectory of the projectile, which may or may not pass through a third point of interest in three dimensions. [If it does, then – absent obstructions – you can hit two at once; otherwise, only one.]
Thanks for the panel 7 explanation regarding ILA’s need for calculation power. My initial thought was Naomi zipping around smiling and punching. ILA is still our cute, adorable homicidal maniac (notice I didn’t mistype as “manic” this time) but she has matured and is intentionally limiting collateral damage. ILA’s new motto is “one shot, several kills.”
PS-Woohoo!!! first comment!
One shot, ALL the kills 😀
Would she get bonus points if she is actually using what is left of the foul tasting energy bar?
Got the reply in the proper place this time. ILA didn’t quite get all the kills. Naomi is “discussing” the situation with a surviving black suit. Foolish black suits have improved the gene pool.
My understanding is that they lured Naomi away by presenting some of the blacksuits on an upper story; Naomi is now dangling one of the still conscious blacksuits over the balcony while Ila has demonstrated how awesome she would be at dodgeball on the ground floor. I doubt Naomi has or will kill HER blacksuits, nor would Ila kill-steal from her, so….
Depends on who is scoring, I think. If it is Ila, bonus points are scored for eating LESS of the not tasty food.
Fair; I think Naomi is more likely to be the one assigning points, as she is more game-orientated than most and Ila would respect her decision 😀