Comic for Monday, April 18th, 2022
The thing the expect the least… an on time comic.
Naomi is realizing she miscalculated slightly leaving Ila to deal with people as she hadn’t quite grasped that Ila doesn’t not have the same limitations as Mium and is nearly completely ambivalent on the continued functionality of humans she doesn’t care about, but she is also not that concerned about these people. She’s both way more willing to escalate levels of violence when Arkady, Lisa, and particularly Artem and Avi are potentially in danger, and has more or less complete faith that if Mium says people are bad, they are probably bad, particularly as she assumes (probably correctly) these are (roughly) the same people that kidnapped Artem previously, and while she would have been content to just lightly beat them to a pulp, she herself was considering dismembering them at the neck just the other day herself.
She will probably lecture Ila later on if “mass dismemberment” is the appropriate first step of conflict resolution, but now doesn’t seem to be the time.
Lisa isn’t a normal student, but is quickly realizing that a bunch of people were at very least badly wounded, and Ila definitely shot first, and that’s not going to be a good look in a legal sense. Being that she’s not from the Families or Peter’s group, she’s probably the only there that her first though (well, second thought… the first one was more a bit more horrified) was that this is probably going to be a major legal problem. Even for people associated to the Bureau or Military in Malsa, dismembering a group of people because you thought they were up to no good is a tough sell for self defense, and she is still trying (and somewhat failing) to process is what is going on, so skipped the part of “who is this kid and why can she do that” to the parts she is better able to comprehend.
Artem is somewhat correctly deducing that Arkady expects him to be freaked out that Ila is mass dismembering people, and Artem is probably more a bit more freaked out than he is trying to show, but he also has a pretty strong reason to dislike people in suits trying to kidnap him, and is not exactly a normal kid being from the Families. It’s a bit of running theme that Arkady has a bit of an access of sanity, and expects people to be more freaked out by the terrible things that keep happening.
Artem knows that as a member of the Families, it’s way more likely that he’d would get away with whatever has happened, and thinks that if Ila did it to help him (from his point of view, though not entirely wrong), than his family name should shield what she did. Of course, very likely unnecessary, but from his point of view he’d expect there to be trouble his father would need to sort out.
It’s not particularly clear from blocking of the shots, but Avi is largely behind Arkady and cannot see exactly what is going on, but likely has the view on justice that runs roughly that if her beloved sister is beating people up, they were bad people that deserved whatever they got, and as she couldn’t actually see what was going on, isn’t quite understanding the gravity of things.
Loading ...
Hey past, on an archive binge and I wanted you to know the website is having that spam/popup redirect issue again where you go to load a page and it sends you to a scam website like every third or so page. Check your password and plugins.
Great job on the comic as always, love how you characterise AI.
This is hopefully fixed.
Unfortunately as with last time, I’m not able to reproduce the issue, so I cannot tell if it’s fixed myself.
Let me know if you are still getting the issue.
I thought perhaps the “boom” was whatever Kally did with Peter being VERY LOUD.
The BOOM is at the mall. Kally and Peter are at another location likely some distance away since they used public transport. It it is doubtful a Fluffy stomping boom would be heard at the mall.
It’s unclear exactly where K&P are relative to everyone else. Sure, they were depicted as using public transport, but this is Malsa, everybody uses it to go everywhere. The others probably used it to get to the mall also. They just didn’t get depicted on it because them plus some typical Nav Trans passengers resulted in a busier scene than Past wanted to draw, and it wasn’t plot critical.
Also, Dragon can fly, and since Peter’s visit didn’t go according to plan, it seems likely they were going to be leaving. It’s possible that they MOVED, and were then attacked at a new location.
That said, the BOOM looked more like Rovak to me than Dragon.
The one thing I didn’t see anyone mention is that the goons are largely made up of that force from Central who failed in their Consul assassination plot. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind of them swept under the rug, or more accurate in this case, a mop up operation.
There are plenty of twists and turns in the plot for sure. We have rogue IDS agents trying to kidnap a Rogue Family kid. Given the attitude expressed by some Central citizens that Pallindra natives are primitive, it might not be surprising that black suits keep trying their doomed missions. It if probable that all mall cameras have experienced technical difficulties with Mium on overwatch. The consul might be pleased that offworlders with guns have been disabled or eliminated. It is not apparent if David was able to convince any Rogue family members to participate in his disaster but the consul wouldn’t mind a few of them being eliminated either.
Is he a Rogue Family kid? I thought that he’s from one of the loyal families.
Back when the Rogue Families voted on eliminating the position of Consul, Ashvalt showed up and voted against. Elmon and others were there. Maybe I misunderstood the meeting?
I’m not aware of any Rogue Family kids that have made it into the comic yet.
Artem is Ashvalt’s son. You know, Mr. Accord, the closest thing to a single person who set the Consul up.
Avi is Naomi’s sister. Naomi’s the hero of Malsa, and somehow got it into her head that meant she needed to save the world. (To be clear, I’m not aware of anything that said she was the actual top athlete in Malsa, but she’s a contender.) She’s not Family, but she’s also very definitely not Rogue.
If I read the past few comics correctly, it was one of the Rogue family boosters that put David into this scenario and asked him to help them kidnap Artem. David isn’t organizing this.
I thought the meeting where there was a vote about eliminating the position of Consul was a meeting of Rouge Families. Was it a meeting of Families in general?
It was an all Family Heads meeting. If it was just Rogue Families, then it would’ve taken place in Arpon, not the capital of Malsa, and we wouldn’t have Rogue Family members wandering freely around Malsa. Also, there wouldn’t have needed to be a vote, as the rogues were always opposed to the Consul. The Consul probably wouldn’t have felt safe enough to attend.
Basically, the rogues were given amnesty to go to the meeting and return home, and they’re abusing it to go after Ashvalt’s son because they see Ashvalt as the primary pillar upon whom the current regime stands.
They’d also gone after Eliana, as she’s another pillar and they’re foolish enough to think mobility impaired == weak despite magic. But they probably learned that lesson, since she repelled that attack herself and then went to deal with Saldur. In any event, we don’t need to worry about her much because she can probably take care of herself, as she demonstrated.
Not wrong, but while the Consul probably doesn’t feel any real need to protect the tin cans from Central, she DOES have an opinion on Naomi wandering around with dyed hair in front of cameras (not less for the whole “walking around in her own branded gear” thing)
Walking around in her own merch may actually help. She could be mistaken for a fan of hers.
But yeah, she’s pretty much flat out disobeying the one request the Consul made to her.
With regard to how people are going to view Ila shooting first, I believe that you are using set of rules of engagement (ROE). Given how bad the situation in Malsa is and the fact that Mium, Arkady and Naomi are associated with government sponsored paramilitary groups, the military combat rules of engagement or police rules of engagement under riot conditions would seem to apply. Mium has already indicated that the opponents have violent intentions and has even provide IFF (identification friend or foe) information on their opponents (the red dots that Mium placed on the “bad guys”), I believe that the identification by Mium of the individuals as lethally hostile, lethal force would seem to be justified even without them attacking first.
This is like the debate over whether Han or Greedo shot first in Star Wars. Once Greedo has pulled his gun and declared that he is going to kill Han, the rational belief that Greedo is actually going to do it is justification under self-defense to have Han shoot Greedo. Please note that this is not a justification for “Stand Your Ground” laws, as normal defense requires a situation where a reasonable man would find himself in danger of death or injury while “Stand Your Grounds” merely require that the shooter feels that there is a threat.
There is little chance of Ila actually getting into legal trouble, but I can see a few problems for them.
Mium is unofficially associated with the government, and using the defense “my illegal SMAI told me they were bad” would probably not work great (it is not actually clear if Mium is illegal in Malsa, or just by the IDS rules). The other problem is that Ila is (probably) not a registered mage, and almost certainly is powerful enough she should be. This sort of incident being whole reason for that.
It is likely that if this became an issue, the Consul could and would squash it and make it disappear. She does seem to have pretty broad powers, and is very unlikely to want to start trouble with Mium and Peter.
But that would still cause her some problems. The other angle that I do not think Lisa, Arkady, or Artem would be aware of is that Ila may technically be a member of the Families now (being Eliana’s “cousin”). While we do not know the details of their arrangement, it feels likely that the broad protections the Families seem to have in the Malsan legal system would be why Mium made some sort of deal with them.
It does not seem like Arkady or Naomi are particularly concerned with getting into trouble over this (Naomi is probably more concerned about the Consul lecturing her about her dyed hair). Arkady at least has reason to suspect that whoever Ila is, legal threats are not a large concern. He seems to only have a guess who/what her brother is, but he does know that she threated Mium would reduce the civilization level of his country if they tried to dissect her in a lab.
I do suspect someone (Peter, Naomi, Mium etc.) might give Ila a lecture about letting the bad guys shoot first, at least once. Because it will lead to much less work on the not getting lawed side.
“Stand your ground” has been brought up. I don’t want to start any sort of war, jokes about pitchforks and torches aside. I would like to point out that for most states “stand your ground” laws don’t do half of what the media claims.
In most states, your state may differ from this. Please don’t think I’m offering legal advice, I’m not.
There are / were a number of states that have / had a “duty to retreat” wording before self defense became a legitimate reason for deploying potentially lethal force. The problem there is that if someone was injured via a claimed self defense, how do we know that person attempted an appropriate attempt at retreat?
So in most states the only thing “stand your ground” does is to remove that obligation to retreat. If you are not the aggressor, you don’t have to retreat. Exactly how that works depends on your state. It may still only apply within your home. It may apply in your yard. In some states it applies nearly anywhere, again as long as you are not the aggressor.
Of course now we question what counts as being the aggressor. If you choose to carry a gun, it’s a really good idea to learn to loose arguments with idiots. If you win the verbal dispute, and the idiot takes a baseball bat to your head?
It also USUALLY doesn’t mention what sort of potentially lethal force. So, rifle, handgun, black belt level martial training, black licorice jelly bean and a lot of math?
I’m not rendering judgement here. Ignore for the moment that this is a different country, on a different continent, on a different world, in a different plane of existence… if this was in Texas, with quasi military, psuedo royalty level magicians, synthetic humans? I think a lawyer with decades of court room experience would get a migraine.
Anyway, I really do not mean any insult or injury to anyone out there. I just saw Naldru mention “stand your ground” and wanted to comment. Thank you Naldru for the inspiration.
I really don’t think this comic gets close to that territory. Effectively everyone involved has a privileged status of some sort. It does make me wonder about the laws regarding such things in Palindra though. Registration of mages seems pretty universal, and at least some weapons that seem to be really available (in my state anyway, sorry Californians!) have WoG that there is no such license issued.
Well, she’s not a Texan lawyer, but I asked my lawyer about this and she said she had a headache, so that checks out as well as I can feasibly manage.
I don’t think this is a stand your ground issue. The black suit idiots have already used lethal force in the first Artem kidnapping attempt. The comic is not clear whether if the goons had drawn their weapons or not. Being armed and surrounding Artem and others would be enough to present a clear and present danger. I don’t think any of the “good guys” are going to have legal problems. Survivors would be questioned and their plot would be exposed. The black suits may not survive even if ILA’s target practice does not kill them outright. They may be found with head, arm and shoulder separated from their bodies. Ashvalt is going to be in a really, really bad mood when finds out about the mall attack.
ILA did shoot first. However, if the black suit idiots had already drawn weapons, she would have been completely justified. Since ILA “dis-armed” the goons, it appears to me that they had already drawn weapons.
Sounds like it is time for Past to start selling t shirts.
“Ila did nothing wrong!”
Naomi exercised discretion and suggests they *all* leave the mall, not just the others while she goes to investigate! Character growth for the win.
We never learned what the “real” plot was, after the decoys had been sacrificed to Naomi and she’d been distracted. The timing of it has to have been thrown off by how rapidly the black suits were taken off line, so to speak, but I do wonder if leaving the mall was the expected action for Artem, et al, and if so, what bit of mayhem is awaiting them.
OTOH, if there were Orish mages and Rovak has come to take them away, then that next step is probably unrecognizable, too!
Lisa’s going to need some therapy. Arkady, too, probably. But if the families behind this disastrous effort are known, there are going to be even fewer of the current crop of family heads in the foreseeable future.
I think the ‘real’ plan was have black suits pull Naomi away, have IDS+Orish perform a smash and grab on a Artem, re-unite later. I suspect anyone still looking at the plan, especially with Rovak taking HIS toys away, and expressing disapproval of their potential destructive use, is realizing they came into a war with squirt guns. Then again, goons have been more foolish before.
Panel 1 … “That’s enough that” should be “That’s enough OF that”.
Panel 3 “This IS a mall” … “But we do need to get out OF here”.
Thankfully ILA has lost her evil Sith Lord look and is back to the cute, adorable, hungry, homicidal kid we all love. Her hood is still up so it may be that her appearance did change when she was in a shooting mood.
Panel 8 “BOOM” may indicate that Rovak is having fun. Hopefully it is just him leaving his calling card and the mall is not going to be completely destroyed along with a large body count. It could be his twisted logic providing cover for ILA who he now admires as much as he does Mium.
I disagree. After this, I’m pretty sure Rovak admires Ila *more* than Mium. She may not have quite the job satisfaction that he would like to have in his replacement, but she’s a lot closer to it than Mium. Also, she’s clearly willing to do the job, which Mium seems to not want to do.
I think we can agree that the explosion is Rovak. Exactly what/ why/ where, who knows? But that BOOM! was Rovak.
Presumably Panel 2 for “This IS a mall” and Panel 3 for “But we do need to get out OF here.”
You are correct. I mistakenly listed both corrections for panel 3.