Comic for Monday, April 17th
Apr17
This page is a bit of a mess. I tried to lay it out in something of a an order, but it was like piecing a jigsaw puzzle together. This probably suggests I decided to cram too much onto one page.
Sometimes I wonder about these Kepler’s. I am not convinced they are particularly normal.
Does the 12th panel count as gore? It seems pretty graphic to me 🙁 This page bums me out.
Sorry I’ve been a little slow on the comments, rest assure I still read them, and I appreciate all the people that participate!
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As is becoming more normal than I’d like (I thought I’d get this page down early for once… haha… right) the page will be up end of day Thursday rather than start of day.
I am thinking about how to get things back on schedule, if I want to take a hit on page size, art detail, updates, idk. Been barely keep up here and sort of following behind on Patreon stuff (why we haven’t had a new goal despite being so close to 100… I haven’t finished the last one 🙁 ). I think the next goal will be smaller scale – series of shorts, probably silly things or something, instead of another bonus comic plot (for now).
Will keep ya’ll posted, but things will march on. We are just getting to the good part after all* 😉
*Goodness not guaranteed, reading time is spent at the users own risk, the author cannot be held responsible for any red herrings, overly long expositions, vaguely philosophical rambling or endless cast expansion that may occur. Gratuitous pages of Naomi beating things up may occur without prior notice or updates to the Terms and Conditions.
“Goodness not guaranteed…” My goodness, I will take whatever I can get, and I will love it. By Goddess!
“Red herrings and long expositions…” Quick! To the wild schemes message board!
“Gratuitous pages of Naomi…” Heart rate increases
“…beating things up” (Our doctors did what they could for him, but it took them an hour to just get the smile off of his face)
Just be sure to eat.
We will stay glued to our computer screens.
Basically when I default to not having the slightest idea what to draw, I just draw Naomi, which is half the reason most of the bonus art is her. She is sort of the default setting for drawing things I guess? A lot of the time by when I get to drawing the brain is on it’s last legs for the day and does not really want to do thinking, so, thinking up what to draw is hard. I have a lot more time for “drawing” than I do “drawing that requires effort”, the first of those shares time with things like “surfing the internet” and “playing phone games (a tier lower than playing video games)”. The second has to share time with all the shit I actually have to do 😛
She isn’t the first character for the comic, but she more or less came from that the original cast was more boring draw back when the only drawing involved was doodling in college notebooks (as they usually just stand there, where its perfectly in character to draw Naomi sitting upside down on a couch).
The other half being that she is by far the most popular character.
This leads to the eternal disconnect between the writer who mostly just wants to write people standing around yapping endless and the artist that basically just would mostly draw Naomi doing Naomi things.
I think I might be disappointed if Query doesn’t turn out to be more than meets the eye. (Like, a lot.)
Though it definitely appears to be pushing the Keplers out of the way to get shot itself….for some reason that just seems too mundane. (Perhaps I’m overestimating Pet- nevermind. Doubt that one’s possible….)
I dunno, he really seems like he’s just a fancy search algorithm to me. Definitely just that. 😛
Didn’t you read his cast page entrance “Definitely not suspicious”. Ah, wait. Who’s this Query you speak of? I know of no Query here!…
Anything possibly marked “suspiciously specific denial” is immediately suspect to investigation forever.
Let’s be obvious, here. It’s suspiciously specific denial.
AA and a dissolving bullet? Who has an implant? Kyle? Peter’s sister? Someone knows a lot more than they’re showing.
Also, Query seems to be capable of minor magic. Either that or it’s the source of AA and capable of major magic.
Query is one of Miums nodes. He’s probably entirely capable of using it.
Back in chapter 7, we learned that the Kor’s World eidos drive cards allow for seemingly instant communication and remote casting. Peter knew what they were on sight, so he had at least one before – at a time when it was just M.Y.M., Query, and Mium. We know that M.Y.M. has one (from the same page). But as many Kor’s World tanks as were destroyed on Central in their fight, I would guess someone of Peter’s talents and determination would have gotten several, so Query probably had one also… which would explain his seemingly instant communication and also let him make use of Mium’s null casting.
Well, @PastUtopia, you managed to convey the chaos of the situation pretty well. ^^
Seriously, though, I really liked the blur effect. It really added to the feeling of motion. 🙂
I used to like blur effects more when I reckon’d than I didn’t have to really draw the stuff, I could just make it super blurry. Nowdays that doesn’t work as well, so I gotta draw it then blur it… 🙁
Still, I like it the effect for either differentiating the speed between two things or making the scene seem chaotic. Drawing true action shots is super hard, but making things blurry makes them more exciting than they are 😛
On Jtartus’ topic of the Palindra poster (previous page):
That is likely an outline of Palindra, such as one might find on Wikipedia about a nation. That is, info like languages spoken, political relations, major religions, currencies, ethnicity, population density, and possibly stuff like major industry, resources, and GNI/PPP.
This class teaches potential IDS recruits about Palindra culture and/or languages in order to prepare them for their duties. I doubt it is to teach them how to conquer the world or prepare them to move there.
U.S. military personnel go through cultural awareness training prior to deployment overseas. Even back in WWII, servicemen were given guidebooks that outlined a nation’s history, cultural rules, politics, money, language, and the do’s and don’ts of interacting with locals.
In interactions with other nations, perceptions are important. You don’t want to erode trust. You don’t want misunderstandings. You don’t want mounting resentment towards your troops. You don’t want them to perceive your military’s might or conviction as a paper tiger.
Whether percieved or intentional, humiliation and disrespect can harm relations. And, conceivably, spies and insurgents could exploit such to win over locals, especially if tensions are high to begin with.
Also, there’s “cultural intelligence”, which is using cultural awareness to understand how a people think to forcast how they may act or react. It’s used to predict where and from whom likely threats will emerge. And there is a need for soldiers to understand the social environment as it impacts their battlespace.
On the subject of using social science and waging a psychological war to win over a people, I’m reminded of GATE: Where the JSDF Fought. Granted, it is fiction. But the author is a former member of the JSDF. And it is entertaining. (Though, the manga is better. The anime leaves out far too much.)
On the previous page, some seemed to suggest an impression that the governments of Central plan to migrate their entire population to another world… Or am I wrong?
My impression of Central is that it is a ‘Parallel Earth’. That is, I suspect Central was like our Earth, up until some point where it got invaded by Kor’s World.
If so, Central must have had BILLIONS prior to their Kor’s World invasion. Even assuming half or 3/4’ths of the population died during their war, that’d still mean relocating well over a BILLION. (Myself, I’d be surprised if even half died during that war.)
That’s quite impossible, particularly since IDS had their Bridgepoint research sabatoged and stolen. (Research which is QUITE top secret. They won’t talk about it in a public classroom.)
Try to imagine how long it would take to transport billions of people, one person or even a dozen at a time. Now, consider the UNICEF 2014 estimate that 255 humans are born a minute. That’s 4.3 births every second! Then there’s the issue of transporting enough food, supplies, housing, weapons, equipment, luggage… Then there’s the nightmare of logistics.
Also, we have no idea how much energy is required to transport even one person or suitcase. Also, how many personnel are needed to operate their facilities (including security)? And how expensive is the equipment and facilities? My guess is that it is far from cheap, else we’d see more open trade and more frequent inter-dimensional travel.
Besides, Palindra couldn’t possibly have enough land and resources to make it worthwhile, especially if is expected to support billions of it’s own natives plus billions more from Central.
The people of Palindra do not even speak the languages of Central. Forget mistrust and resentment. How about fear and loathing? Such a mass migration would mean resource shortages, incredible inflation and surely spark riots and outright conflict – likely starvation, too. Even attempted peaceably, it would probably result in casualties measured in millions.
Remember, too, that IDS is the Dimension Police. (Reminds me of how the U.S. tries to be the World Police.) They have explored a lot of other dimensions and brokered deals with whole worlds, such as Palindra.
After scouting who knows how many worlds, IDS must have found at least one or two that are uninhabited. Assuming it was even technically feasible, it’d be far less troublesome to migrate to such. They could have all the resources without having to fight over them. But, that further assumes Central has a reason to migrate, such as some sort of impending doom.
I’m pretty sure that Central would love to migrate to an uninhabited world, but from what the extras page lists it seems like all the uninhabited worlds they’ve found are full of monsters that require a lot of resources to take out. As for the deadline I suspect that Central’s home-world as lost a lot of usable land during the invasion. I theorize that the land was lost due to nuclear fallout.
While it’s a theory, I think it’s definitely possible. I still think there are bigger darker things out there. There can’t really be monster hunters without monsters.
Or those worlds were the ones that Kor’s World got to before Central, and are similar rendered unsuitable for settlement.
Well, Vick(s)berg made reference to “playing settlers” on the last page. Toss in the remarks about dirt plantations, and it would seem IDS may be making at least some effort to colonize other worlds.
They may not be planning to move everyone yet, but rather are running preliminary tests through these colonies – like how, if we wanted to colonize Mars, we wouldn’t send up its full population initially, but rather start with a small group attempting to terraform it (or at least build a large base which can sustain a large population. Moving most if not all people may be an eventual goal, but, say, some decades in the future (which is why the Bridgepoint data would still be in development – they’re still doing research into how to transport that many people) rather than in the short term.
” … it seems like all the uninhabited worlds they’ve found are full of monsters … ”
On the World(s) page:
” It’s also known that there are some other worlds the IDS has discovered that they list as ‘uninhabited/no civilization’. ”
” Of these, one of them has a lot more red underlines on the standard ‘All Attempts To Travel To Dimension Are Forbidden’ notation… ”
So far, that’s it. That’s all we have to go on about IDS’ knowledge of uninhabited worlds.
I believe you are trying too hard to read between the lines. We can tell from this that they know of more than one world that is uninhabited. Being forbidden implies that some of these could be dangerous, one in particular. But anything else is pure conjecture. (Or, maybe a world is forbidden because they plan to colonize it and don’t want others to take it or even know about it?)
Besides, if other dimensions are numerous, probability theory suggests more than one had a civilization that was wiped out by a giant meteor, a nasty plague (genetically engineered or natural), or an invasion that concluded very badly for the defenders. That, or perhaps a world never had conditions that favored the development of intelligent life or a civilization.
” As for the deadline I suspect that Central’s home-world as lost a lot of usable land during the invasion. I theorize that the land was lost due to nuclear fallout. ”
That’s an interesting theory. But… based on what? Can you mention one piece of evidence?
I suspect the motivation behind all Kor’s World attacks is being pre-emptive with extreme prejudice. We have little to go on, besides the one-sided dialog of that one Kor’s World operative. But my impression is that their policy is to neutralize the technology of any world which could one day threaten their existence, just to be on the safe side. Indeed, I’m getting the impression that IDS may have unintentionally started down a similar path that could one day lead Central to the same mindset.
” Well, Vick(s)berg made reference to ‘playing settlers’ on the last page. Toss in the remarks about dirt plantations… ”
Okay, so it is strongly implied that IDS is looking to set up a colony on another world. Or, at least, a self-sufficient outpost.
” They may not be planning to move everyone yet… ”
Any wealthy nation would be crazy not to have a desire to set up a colony on another world. But is there any evidence to support the theory that they ever intend to abandon their home world? Any at all?
Moving billions is impossible. Over 4 people are born ever second. By the time you read this, hundreds have been born. Babies would be born to mothers waiting in line faster than people could be transported to their new home.
Let’s assume they could build several ginormous Bridgepoint tech facilities around the world. Imagine the power requirements. Imagine the long lines. Imagine millions of people going through inspections at every airport in the world. Imagine the security and logistics nightmares.
Moreover, they’d have to convince their entire population to leave. And some people are very stubborn. Ever hear of China’s “nail houses” – homes where owners refuse to move? Have you seen the photo of a house in the middle of a six-lane highway? Did you know that, to this day, about 200 people still live inside Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone, despite government orders to leave?
Now consider the Syrian Refugee Crisis. That’s just 4.8 million people – less than 5 million – with a million more requesting asylum in Europe. It’s a -huge- issue, despite how 29 countries have been accepting them. Twenty nine!
Multiply that crisis by 1000 and you might start to get an inkling of the issues such a migration would create. Never mind that PACT and the nations of Palindra would never accept this. Even if Palindra had less than 1 billion natives with considerable unused land (a very big if), they’d likely all band together to wage war on IDS before they’d allow that to happen.
We know that for some reason central wants to move a lot of people of Malsa/Palindra. This might be in addition to moving to the other uninhabited worlds, or there might be some reason those worlds are off the table.
We don’t know for sure that all the other worlds are actually particularly habitable (like, if it’s like a Mars or something, it would uninhabited, but also not really ready for settlers). They may be all parallel earths, but they are clearly not identical (Palindra’s map that we’ve seen does not match earth). Lastly, I don’t think we can be sure that Central is “Earth”… though that’s somewhat implied.
I suspect that Central is somehow in bad shape. 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.
We have seen some real attitude problems from the IDS before; while it’s true that real modern militarizes try to impart some cultural sensitivity, that has not always been the case. There is clearly some divide here about people that value other cultures, and people that really don’t seem to.
Population is an interesting one, but if there was a nuclear problem, the depopulation could be way way more severe than 75%. If all nations set off their nukes, it could be just a few percentage left.
One more thing to consider: On an uninhabited world, you have only what you bring with you. There is no infrastructure (roads, rails, bridges, ships), no manufacturing base (smelters, refineries, machine shops, assembly plants), no materials extraction (lumber, mining, hydrodcarbons).
It would be much easier to go to a place where you could access all those things, even if you had to pay for them–especially if you are in a hurry to resettle a largish group of people.
Those are some good points and you’ve clearly put thought into this. But 20000 is not -that- many people. That can’t be considered a migration. And it’s not not likely to cause much alarm to Palindrans. Perhaps they plan to start with 20k on Palindra, gradually increasing it to a million or so, while simultaneously doing similar on other world(s)?
” Lastly, I don’t think we can be sure that Central is ‘Earth’ ”
That’s just a theory. We do know that Central was technologically advanced while magick was all but unheard of before the invasion, relegated to secrecy in secret societies.
” …the Kor’s World incursion…
…specifically mentions targeting nuclear power plants, so there is a distinct possibility the world is irradiated by Kor’s World even if no nukes were fired. ”
Ah! I either missed or don’t recall that. If many of Earth’s nuclear power plants were destroyed… I don’t know.
Earth has about 440 nuclear plants, with most of them in the U.S., France and Japan. It sounds like the biggest problem with an accident like Chernobyl or Fukushima is how it can get in the atmosphere or water to be carried great distances. Though, by far, the worst of it is near the plant itself.
There are steps to help mitigate the damages. Clouds can be seeded to force contaminated rain to fall away from populated areas. Contaminated materials can be hauled away to be buried. The plant itself can be entombed to prevent leaking.
In any case, there must be parts of the globe which are habitable. Many nations do not use nuclear power. If nothing else, there’s the polar ice caps and oceans.
If people were desperate and money was no object, they could dig to avoid the radiation, building underground megacities to house millions. Or, they could use the oceans. (Google “floating city” or “underwater city” to see serious projects being considered and under development.)
Trivia: Did you know that, today, Chernobyl is a tourist zone with enough interest to support several tour firms? It is still contaminated. But the vegetation is green and wildlife thrives. Though, it’s estimated that it will be about 1000 years before it’ll be fit for humans again.
my theory: the year is 3120, central is actually a failing martian colony, palindra is a fully terraformed venus (why all the girls there are super pretty lol). kor’s world is actually earth taken over by an evil overlord ai called Kor. magic gates are a lot cheaper and quicker than rockets to get back and forth.
just kidding 🙂 lol. love the analysis and saves me from having to go back and reread all the details constantly lol
how long can someone be in Chernobyl beofre getting cancer? do you have to wear a suit or is just like getting a daily xray?
I’ve watched PBS’ “Radioactive Wolves” and other videos on Chernobyl as well as read a few articles. The radiation varies greatly, depending on location. As I said, about 200 people refuse to leave. But, you really don’t want to eat the vegetation or wildlife. Today, radiation is 10 to 100 times higher than normal background radiation.
Tour guides carry Geiger counters and tourists are warned not to touch things or sit on the ground. Hazmat suits are -not- required everywhere. Not even the plant itself is hazardous in all areas. Of course tourists must wear suits to go into certain areas. But my impression was that it was partly for the experience and partly to be on the safe side. Tourists are not allowed into the dangerous areas.
I’ve seen a scientist debunk fears over the claimed contamination of the ocean from Fukushima. He went into detailed reasoning and compared it to the radiation of taking a high-altitude plane trip – that is, -not- dangerous.
Haha 😀
” …but if there was a nuclear problem, the depopulation could be way way more severe than 75%. If all nations set off their nukes, it could be just a few percentage left. ”
Sorry, I do not buy that. The Lore page makes it very clear that it was the United Collation developing the autocaster which turned the tide of the Kor’s World invasion. It was a weapon which enabled ordinary humans to fight a Kor’s World soldier. But this required a -lot- of people:
” But they were effective in the sense of a dozen – or even a hundred – people armed with them could. ”
” …had literal millions of people to recruit. ”
If their world’s population had already been reduced to just a single digit percentage of what it was before – if they had been reduced to a mere 8-digit world population – then they simply would -not- have had the numbers necessary to exhaust the formidable, technologically superior Kor’s World invaders. Central would have lost the war, otherwise. Having greater numbers and the defending your home advantage were their only true strengths.
Also, even when desperate, only a portion of your nation’s population are fit to be soldiers. You could not conscript your children or senior citizens. And then there’s the injured, which have to be cared for. Though, some of these could be employed to run the infrastructure, grow food, etc. My point is that their world population would have to have been quite considerable to have won against Kor’s World.
I’m saying that I do not buy Central having much less than 1 billion at the close of the invasion. Some of you may point out that radiation can kill long after exposure. And this is true. Health issues developing later in life or in children is a -much- bigger problem of radiation poisoning than immediate deaths. All to easily, it can make a person infertile, too. Perhaps their biggest issues would be lots of illness and a significant drop in birthrates?
” We know that for some reason central wants to move a lot of people of Malsa/Palindra. This might be in addition to moving to the other uninhabited worlds… ”
I can think of a number of good reasons for wanting to establish colonies and/or bases on several worlds. For one, Kor’s World would have a harder time wiping all of them out. For another, it allows them to take advantage of whatever resources are available on each world.
A quick note I would also like to add: On this page, “relocation numbers” for Malsa were mentioned. Namely, twenty thousand. Though not concrete, this still seems to hint in the same general direction.
On the topic of why not a uninhabited world, that is a good point. There is however the unknown factor of the physics/math behind dimensional travel. This is mostly conjecture, but if Palindra is “closer” or easier to travel to then another wold (Which if I remember correctly is a factor in dimensional travel mentioned… ah here! ), then it may make a better relocation spot for the very same logistics reasons outlined.
That actually might be the answer, it says right there that Palindra is the easiest world to reach from Central. If building a Bridgepoint (which would be the only realistic way to move hundreds of thousands of people and the stuff needed for habitation I’m guessing) is super complicated, maybe that’s the only spot they think they can hit.
I love the setting information for this comic. Reading for awhile it starts to seem like an actual explanation of how the world works, like I am Wikipedia or something.
Consider a situation like Fallout or the like. A very large portion of the population might just be living out in the radiation, while a smaller fraction of “survivors” are in more secure locations and looking for less dangerous worlds.
They might not be trying to evacuate a world worth people, just a fraction, leaving the rest to their own devices. It is just a theory (and one of many!) but it there is definitely seems possible. It is a reach, but this guy could be even be a point of evidence toward a scenario like that.
Perhaps mages were able to “save” a fragment of the population, and that is what the IDS/”Central” is.
There is also the possibility that the world’s problems are more esoteric, magical plagues, demons, could be basically anything considering. Do not have enough information to speculate, but I think it is likely the IDS has more going on than just curiosity in their settlement plans, they seem a little too eager.
The comments on this comic are really some of the best.
The arrows render the first… mm… two thirds of the page perfectly readable to me, if a little disjointed (since I actually have to look for the arrows). The action sequence is a little hard to interpret, though. Yeah, probably should have been two pages, even if I am happy to have more story sooner rather than later.
Panel 2: but *I* wanted (it sounds more natural to me that was at least)
Panel 5, bubble 3: “a while” (also, in bubble 1, it looks like you have two spaces between “Peter” and “again”)
Other than that, I don’t see anything. Oh wait: panel 9, “AAAAAAAHHHHHH” should be “AAAAAAHHHHHHH” (just a typo, I’m sure). 😉 😛
“Your brother is a fugitive from the interdimensional cops”
“Again?!”
You have to wonder about this poor girl’s life.
RIP (Rest in Pieces) Query. Too soon?
Too soon.