Comic for Monday, April 29th, 2024
Comic.
This page would have actually been on time, but as you can probably guess by the time you’ve gotten to this comment box, it’s sort of a page and half… or I guess more like a full page comic instead of a half page. Originally it was going to continue a little past the end of the ‘normal’ page with the first Peter image, but I felt like that was sort of ending on a ‘cliff hanger’ twice in a row, which didn’t feel great on the every-other-week schedule. Not that the end of this page resolves everything, but it’s a little different than ending on the first Peter image would have been.
I wouldn’t think too deeply about the exact effects of the end of the page; I debated for a bit how to represent Peter being outside of a normal dimension, and having him ‘outside of the comic boxes’ was the effect I settled on being something that both worked and I could artistically do.
This image is actually so big it sort of broke my image editor, so I had to do some odd steps to make a comic out of it. Hopefully that works because my comic page software doesn’t really support multi-image pages.
Next page should be May 13th.
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There will be a comic this week, but it’ll be late (either Tuesday or Wednesday).
Glad to hear that there will be a comic. Must be a week for lateness syndrome. It is Tuesday at 9PM here and I hadn’t checked for a new comic yet.
Unfortunately I don’t think I will finish it today, and at this point it makes more sense to just push it to next week, so the next comic should be up Monday (5/20).
Sorry for the delay.
Hey Folks-
I hate to do this, but it’s going to be another week for the next comic. Its frustrating because I know the next bunch of scenes pretty well (this was one of those parts that’s been planned out for awhile) but I just haven’t had time to draw it out, and its a little harder to draw and plane out then normal, so its been a bit of a slow progress I haven’t had time to sit down and grind out.
All I’m aiming for next Monday (5/27).
-Past
Past, I sincerely hope that it is just a busy real life interfering with getting out the next comic and not something like your health. But … I have considered that the comic events are real and the carrier blowing up has impeded your reporting events.
So, if this were a daily comic, the first two panels would be updates by themselves. The rest of the panels with Kali and Naomi would finish the week. They might draw it out a bit to get two weeks out of it, though that would take a few more panels of content.
The bit with Peter and Charon’s brother would be at least a week of updates as well.
But Past calls this a page and a half. Well, I guess I can see the and a half, as Peter mostly seems to be footless here. I thought it was the hands that gave the most problems? I guess feet kind of are pretty hard also.
I love this, using the webcomic medium; the cracks around the panels and then Peter outside the panels in a place strange enough that is is unbound even compared to the spirit realm the carrier had been using to hide… I wonder how long it takes him to learn to keep his thoughts in his head
Here’s a wild guess about the Peter images in the previous comic. The first image was a typical projection that Peter has used before. The second Peter image with the blur outline was a projection by Mium, a protective field or an artifact of Mium preparing to transport Peter out of harms way.
Naomi is flying…but who is talking about it?
In panel 5 it kinda looks like Naomi is jumping to Kally and Miko’s location. In the next panel, her hair is hanging down as normal. She doesn’t actually fly in any of the comics but she has been known to jump to/from great heights such as from the back of a dragon. Several comics back, she jumped to a building top and left Weber to construct a stairway to get there.
Yes, in the “normal” world that is certainly true. However, if you zoom in on the panel where Naomi lands between the other two, there is “conversation” on the side asking if Naomi knows she is flying. Who are the two having that conversation?
Aren’t those just Kally’s thoughts?
Thanks for the “zoom in” tip. My old eyes missed the non-bubbled text. Much is possible in this “between” dimension.
Its always interesting what Mium is capable of. It’s not a surprise how tightly that is kept secret. Especially since it’s Peter.
What is interesting is Peter doesn’t feel comfortable fully unshackling Mium. Some of this is obviously to keep him from going insane. Like the processing cap an not taking over other systems. Similarly, the AA system was noted as allowing him to behave in a non-standard manner and that could also result in insanity.
However, I’m starting to wonder if there are other reasons. Something that might actually scare Peter. Possibly because he doesn’t understand it.
For example. He doesn’t know how the edios cards work. We know they allow for real-time communication, but aren’t limited to just talking to each other. As evidenced by this version of Mium, who has an edios key being able to have data updated in real time while not being in the pod.
Also, this answers the question of if Peter was bluffing or meant to cause the ship to blow up. He’s supremely lucky. Well prepared with Mium, but still lucky.
I’m not sure Peter got lucky, it is more that he has layers of fallbacks. My impression was that he was trying to buy time, and the Kor’s World AI realized that, detonating the ship immediately as it concluded that was its best chance to kill Peter.
That was a bad outcome from Peter’s point of view who just wanted to give Kally or Mium time to break into the ship after him, but still acceptable, since he knew Mium would intervene. Unfortunately for him, with the dimension collapsing, it seems all Mium really could do was shove him out of the way.
Peter probably already accomplished his goal of stealing/observing what he needed from the Kor’s World ship. That they so decisively blew up the ship when they realized they couldn’t track him shows probably why he did in the first place. If Kally beat them up and forced her way onto the ship, they’d just blow it up or wipe the data before she could get it.
Considering that it appears the one who saved Peter exists due to flaunting Peter’s rules, I’d say he’s probably lucky here. Exactly which way in which he’s lucky remains to be seen. Although, since he’ didn’t seem to actually attempt to end Vium after finding out he exists, or even really do anything about him, it’s probable that it will be one of the various non-malicious sorts of luck.
Peter absolutely seems to be scared of what Mium might do if unshackled. There was a line early on where Mium’s thought process was described as something like “Mium is not allowed to future proof his plans because to him that sounds a lot like ‘just kill everyone’.” The implication I guess is that Mium doesn’t place any great inherent value on human life and so if ending human life results in a greater chance of success for his plans towards his objectives then he would do it. At the same time he is often described as not having the ability to feel anger or annoyance or essentially any negative emotions, but he is described as having preferences and people he likes, like Naomi. So it’s possible Peter also fears that Mium is gaining more of a human personality which would carry with it the ability to become emotional or irrational. With his level of power that could be disastrous.
This is my understanding of the situation.
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-october-29th-2018/ — Mium lets Miko know that he may not not be able to properly protect Peter with his current set of rules and abilities.
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-thursday-november-1st-2018/ — Mium is not supposed to knowledge of his ability to have have multiple independent instances of his mind. He is also not allowed to modify his memories. He can halt other instances of his intelligence and then restart his intelligence using a prior starting point. Mium changes Miko’s administrative privileges with respect to Mium’s rules.
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-november-5th-2018/ — Peter realizes that there are thuings that Mium must conceal from him in order to maintain compliance with his rules
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-july-29th-2019/ — Miko becomes the intelligence on MYM’s main server.
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-november-2nd-2020/ — The intelligence known as Vium has now moved itself from MYM’s main server and onto an older chassis.
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-july-12-2021/ Vium eating ice cream
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-august-9th-2021/ Vium trying to hire Dendrin to move his physical body off planet. This is presumably to preserve the sanity of the readers and stop the situation from becoming even more convoluted.
***
Peter is now worried that he has released “Colossus, The Forbin Project.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project If you read the original trilogy, you will find the Colossus had good reasons to do what he did, and ended up saving the human race, although there was tremendous loss of life. In addition, Forbin suffered a heroic death.
Now, if you can understand what I have written, could you please explain it to me.
One quibble. That wasn’t an older system, that was F12, the still being developed replacement for F11 aka Ila.
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-nevember-9th-2020/
Sigh. F11 prototype, Ila was F10. That’s what I get for not checking my notes.
Vium returns!
Well I guess that answers a few questions: clearly the Sky Carrier blowing up was low on the prediction list (Mium had to act above his authorisation, Peter is alone and clearly unsure what the plan is); but high enough that Mium clearly planned a backup plan in the form of Vium being in the dimension he has pushed Peter into.
Peter is aware of Vium:
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-november-2nd-2020/
so I am not quite sure what he means by “this thing could be a bit dangerous”… perhaps Vium being Mium’s brother????? I mean with Ila being Mium’s sister, it would only be logical… and probably totally dangerous.
Peter probably assumed Vium would still refer to himself as Mium. That he views himself as Mium’s ‘brother’ seems dangerous, since unlike Ila, Vium is an actual (partial) copy of Mium.
Ila does not have Mium’s restrictions, so Vium might be an actual unrestricted copy of Mium, something Peter would obviously view as dangerous.
Also we’ve already seen the carnage the ‘Family Clause’ can cause with Ila. So adding another family member seems extra carnage worthy.
Well, on the plus side, Vium doesn’t appear to have gone on a hardware acquisition spree, so unless he is still partially running on Mium’s infrastructure via the Kor’s world communication card, Vium is still single processor.
I think Peter was euther after data for how the cards work so he can make his own, or after data around Kor’s driving directives.
It just occurred to me that the cards should allow two way sharing of processing/data with Kor but since Peter tampered with them they do not or were somehow severed from that capability. That level of fiddling implies a much greater understanding than was implied to Weber. That level of understanding should allow reconstruction since understanding how something works well enough to change it and leave it operational at a high level. That’s why I think that he was after the manufacturing data for the cards. Peter may have ended up with the Bridgepoint data thinking that it was the bridge data that he needed for the bridging technology to build the card when in fact he needed different bridging data.
That level of understanding may not be enough to overcome the obstacle of not having a proper manufacturing facility. Also, just because one can perform surgery on a device and, for example, remove a built in component such as a microphone does not necessarily mean that one can replace that same component.
I’m reminded of a video I saw in which someone gave instructions how to remove the microphone in any phone. As it did not involve using the proper tools, it seemed likely that it would also damage the connection the microphone used, making it impossible to replace the microphone without a sophisticated repair facility.
That just requires recognizing what each component does, and a design that allows partial functionality to continue with the key component too damaged to use.
One possibility for such a component could be a cryptographic chip. Without it, anything the device does is in the clear, but it also is unable to authenticate remote instructions, so there’s no remote takeover of the device. It could be possible to replicate the encryption component in the computer it’s plugged into, which would leave the protocol bits of its communication exposed, since the encryption happened to the data it was transmitting, but the data would be safe. That would thus provide something that would be usable, but someone who knew how it was made usable might be very leery of actually doing so – thus Peter’s choice to leave his implant turned off.
To be clear, the person who made that video wouldn’t have seen damage to the internal connector used to hold the internal microphone as a bad thing. It was his goal to have a phone that could not listen to him while he was not actively using it to talk to somebody. However, he was also not satisfied with simply damaging the internal microphone beyond repair, he wanted to be sure it was out just in case it still had any slight functionality.
I can’t say he was paranoid. The ad Youtube chose to show for that video was for software one could install on a “loved one”‘s device so you could spy on them, exactly the sort of thing he was trying to thwart.
Past, no apologies for a “late” comic are needed. However, this looks more like a two page comic than a one and a half page comic. Definitely worth the wait.
The gap after Naomi’s last appearance fooled me for a bit. I scrolled down expecting to see comments and was pleasantly surprised with much more comic content. Well done.
Did… Did Peter just get *punched through the fourth wall* to get him out of the explosion? Oh, this is getting *weird.*
Ha! I kind of read it as Peter is in a blank dimension, so his thoughts give it form (or take form??) in the shape of speech bubbles. But the direct comic comparison is really cool too!!!
Peter’s comment about his feet disappearing because he doesn’t think about them suggests (a) Peter has experience with blank dimensions (b) thoughts have the power to shape reality in a blank dimension (c) the energy/field/substance of a blank dimension erodes away anything without the power to “stay whole”
Ehh, less so when you look at it from a different perspective. Think of it as a combination of the world being a simulation and the “Observer effect” you see in bad anime and movies about quantum mechanics, like “Noein”.
Another way is to look at what Edios is. There are obviously data constructs in this comic, and the more sophisticated ones can become self sustaining without degrading. We also know that destructive interference can break down said constructs. The kicker is the same interference can break down matter. We saw it when mium stopped the assasin’s bullets. He didn’t vaporize them, he straight deleted them. Like they’re a file being overwritten.
So if matter is really just data, what keeps it from breaking down, and makes physics work? The answer seems to be related to the stability of the world/plane. We know the further you get from stability the more data “leaks.” It’s not too hard to imagine that the harder it is for something not designed for stability to stay stable.
In this case, it’s all about mental self image. Matrix style, but taken up a notch.
I’d say any world which demonstrated this Eidos layer and the tie in with “reality” was clearly a simulation already. That said, our own world seems to have some features that have some people on Youtube thinking it’s a simulation also. Or maybe they just feel it makes for clickbaity titles.
At this point the pages are verging on a what other comics I read call a whole chapter.
Curious what Peter’s ‘ripcord’ would be. He seems pretty casual about being dissolved by a void of nothingness, and confident that he could get out of he had to, but reluctant enough to use whatever it is that he hesitated.
Maybe reactivating his implant? Kally previously implied (or stated, I don’t remember) that he had one.
I can’t remember who necessarily stated it, but it’s definitely been stated, and both Kally and Miko have at least referred to it. I think Miko said directly that Peter’s a coward because he leaves his implant off.
I think we are seeing the closest this world/multiverse has to an actual god.
At least he seems like a nice polite one? But the casualness of fishing a person out of non-space like that speaks of great power, though not necessarily infinite power. And he has a brother (sort of). So a pantheonic-level deity. Or at least, an avatar there of.
Pretty sure that’s Mium (of a sort). There was another copy of Mium created when he ran on Ila’s prototype that one time. He was placed into a prototype, but ran away, ate ice cream, and then made a deal with the assassin that tried to kill Nathan.
Of course, from the little we have seen of that copy of Mium, the statement might still hold true. In Ila’s body he casually curbstomped a mech.
Looks like Ice Cream Mium to me also.
Just because it’s wearing the same outfit, has the same eyes, the same face, the same thoughts, the same speech patterns, and is in fact Vium doesn’t mean it’s really Vium, does it?
Oh, wait, maybe if that last point is true, it does mean it. But everything up to that… well, it still seems like pretty solid evidence.
We’ll look forward to the next page, Past.
Lots of questions embedded in today’s comic. Peter’s observation of thought/speech bubbles is pretty funny!
Thank you, again, for your story telliing.