Comic for Monday, August 14th
Aug14
Many of Naomi’s dilemmas end up as “to punch, or not to punch?”. Unfortunately with all this plotting and scheming stuff there are complicated charts of who to punch and who not to punch. Rovak would sympathize. Hmmm. That should probably be worrisome. I don’t think “Well, Rovak would agree” is a good argument for, well, anything.
Some of the titles Mium attributes to him are suspect in origin. I mean, technically speaking, sure, I guess they are titles people attribute to him, but I think it’s fair to say that Mium is going out of his way to balance the bad with the good. Nathan is not in Mium’s top ten favorite people, such as Mium could be said to have a top ten favorite people.
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Jeez, Mium, why not just spout out how many times he stole from the cookie jar when he was a kid, listed out by year…..since I think that’s about the only way you could step that up….
I adore Nathan’s rank of “Classified” though. That’s just awesome.
In other news, the comic continues it’s streak of having very fun to read dialogue….
I can only imagine what the children would be like, Nathan & Naomi that is. He’s thinky punchy and she’s punchy heroic.
All the worlds that exist, have existed, or will exist, could not be prepared what would come from that… 😐
I have to say, as a long time reader, it is interesting to see the art where it is. It really is its own thing these days, you have made an art style that doesn’t really remind me of anything else. It’s been a pleasure to watch you learn to draw this.
I agree! 🙂
This is a general note but… something very interesting is going on with Peters’ left arm in that last panel. It looks like has a ring of scars or something around his left shoulder, as well as something in/on his arm.
Very interesting. Now I am not saying Kally did it, but it does make you wander about his choice of words here.
Honestly I thought the same when I saw it. My first thought was if he had needed his arm reattached, and then there is the fact that her dragon did indeed rip the robot’s arm off earlier. I’m glad i’m not the only one to pick up on that.
No on scars but more like to define the shoulder muscle a bit forward as the arm is back a bit behind as it’s off the side on the bed. That my own view on that panel. I do find fun that for a nerdy type of guy he has decent body! Smirking, no lazy tummy definition.
So 26% has no common factors of division with 100% below 2%, and all other factors of 100 result in estimated numbers other than 26%. How impressive this is can be determined by how many of these divisions are linked by a common origin on the planning tree, how many are treated as distinct planned entities, and other similar factors.
That is a technical way of saying that Peter has at LEAST 50 active plans, or else Nathan couldn’t be a problem to 26% of them (instead he would be a problem to 25% or 27% or some other percentage of them). Of course this may mean that there are at least 50 planning trees, with individual contingencies, or that there are many fewer trees but they can be disrupted by a common factor. Perhaps the common factor is as simple as “Nathan can capture Naomi” and Naomi is imperitive for 26% of the plans, but that also depends on how finicky the initial scale is. If all it takes to be a major hazard is to “prevent normal interaction with people at school”, then that would change things. How big a threat he actually is and of how many plans is dependent on such factors.
I think it is safe to say that Mium has more active plans than Peter, no matter how many plans Peter has. While Peter calls the shots in the big picture objectives, Mium is clearly handling the detail the level plotting in many cases (why he has to be specifically forbidden from plotting extinction routes).
The way I view it is Peter says “I want X” and Mium builds countless plans of how to get X, varying them based on what the world decides to do, Naomi’s whims, etc. Nathan is probably a hazard to 26% of Mium’s Plans, which likely number in the hundreds. Least that is the way I read it.
I don’t know. Peter himself has a LOT of plans too as shown by this comic and others:
http://pastutopia.com/?comic=comic-for-monday-june-22nd
It seems to me that most potential mages fall into certain categories, at least this is how I’ve come to think about the power levels and how they relate to each other. Any thoughts on my system would be appreciated, so hopefully this will help make it easier to figure out. Basically anyone within one category is a difficult battle, two level differences mean that survival is the “victory” condition, and being a creditable threat against someone three levels away is only through luck or major advantages in other areas. Major advantages in other areas do exist, though, so this is not the only determination of victory.
0: No casting ability: no real ability in use of magic, though these characters often make up for it in other ways. Peter Kepler seems to fall into this category, so far as we have seen, so this gives you an idea about how capable someone can be despite this limitation. They often have to depend on others around them for certain tasks and, in a world where magic can be so powerful, are not a perfect “all around” character as a result.
1: Very Basic Casting: Usually through the use of a pre-programmed autocaster, these characters have certain advantages in dealing with other mages and certain advantages against non-mages that sets them apart, but are little more than normal people with specialized tools or with such basic magic that they might be mistaken for a non-mage. Something as trivial as controlling the tendency of a coin flip might seem worthless, but used well it puts these people in a completely different category from someone without that ability.
2: General casting ability: This category includes both general autocasters with a fair number of options put in and trained mages of the basic level. The main difference that categorizes this level is flexibility, which counts for a lot. We don’t see many trained mages of this level, but certain things about the school infer that they are around. What we do see in the story are people with enough innate casting ability but not enough training using general autocasters, as this allows those people to focus their training in other areas. Basic designer children without focused specialized abilities often fall into this category as well. A non-mage can still take down someone of this category, but (unless the mage is completely non-combat oriented) it would be a difficult fight and almost certainly a loosing one. This ability for non-mages to fight back, however, is presupposing access to the “technology” of guns; otherwise survival is the best one can reasonably hope for.
3: Focused major ability: generally these are either designer children with a significant ability or others with an extreme level of capability in breadth and reach of their magic despite having no other modifying factors on their magic. This category is the highest category possible for those without some sort of outside influence; such as significant background, genetic engineering, or cybernetic enhancement. The hallmark that sets this apart from the previous category seems to be raw power, and as such they are basically untouchable for those without casting abilities, a nightmare for those with focused autocasters, and a difficult battle for those with general autocasters who can prepare because the general autocasters simply can’t keep up. Most of Tyler’s group fall into this category, partly because this is the lowest category with any possibility of surviving the real major threats of the world (and even surviving would be difficult). The teleporting mage also falls into this category as do many others from the major families. “Mr. Orange” is an example of what seems to be an extremely talented person with no other major power-boosting factors.
4: Major all-round ability: This includes those with major generalized enhancements that allow them to deal with almost any situation with enough power to be a possible threat to literally any mage out there. In essence they are like general autocaster users without many of the limitations in programming, the ability to change things from moment to moment, and the power to back it up in incredibly specific ways. This means that those with focused abilities will usually be overwhelmed from the side, those with general autocasters can do little more than employ stalling tactics, and the rest can little more than pray that they aren’t viewed as a threat. Naomi is a classic example of someone who falls into this category, as do some of the more talented of those from the major families, and there is the possibility that Callisto Summers may even dip into this category (Our only peek at her full power was when fighting a the robot, but she was in a populated area where she likely knew she couldn’t go all out). MIUM also seems to fall into this category as his body enhancement, regeneration, anti-magic abilities, and ability to hack others to destroy matter are powerful but still have certain limitations that prevent moving into the next category (though he more than makes up for this in other ways).
5: One man army: These characters are capable of taking down major groups of highly qualified individuals without significant danger and are capable of single handedly and LITERALLY taking on entire armies by themselves. The major thing that divides this group from the last one is power multiplication over multiple targets. While the last group can generally hit one target with overwhelming force and/or survive overwhelming force from one target, those in this category make numbers all but meaningless. Those without a major ability are little more than cannon fodder, and even those with a single major ability can only hope to delay the inevitable. Both Rovak Stais and Tyler Webber fall squarely into this category, but Ila F10 may also be breaking into this group as well.
I usually think of it as a two axis model, or maybe three axis model depending if “Magic Resistence/Eidos Interference” is tied to a mage’s “Power” (that being ability to make reality confirm to what they write into Eidos).
The three categories would be “Power”, “Calculation”, and “Resistance”, split across three groups “Autocaster Users”, “Natural Mages”, and “Innate Mages”.
Using and autocaster vs natural mage does not necessarily seem to mean stronger, though frequently it does.
It is complicated by a fair amount of Rock-Paper-Scissors as well as you note at the start. For example in most cases Rovak’s I-Code is more or less a trump card, but against Tyler’s freezing power it might not help him, or Ila’s railgun (or are we calling it gauss cannon now?) against Mium’s dematerialize. Or Naomi vs anyone in punching distance, since punching seems faster than casting most things.
I think I would swap some of the people rankings around, but it is debatable. Rovak and Tyler are both powerful, but their range seems fairly limited, which is why I am not sure they fall into Tactical Mage category. Kally is said to be a tactical mage, but we have not seen the full power of her tactical ability yet (probably the “here’s the thing about Dragons, Corporal… They breath fire.“).
The more I think about it, the harder it is to commit to a rating though. Kally and Ila are actually similar in that they appear to be strongest at long range, and have to make due with lesser abilities at close range, while Rovak and Tyler excel at medium range, and Naomi and Mium at short range (or any null caster, though Mium seems like he might be the best).
Nope, I think I have to think about this some more. There goes my afternoon… Good thing I have nothing else to do sitting at work.
The only other note is I think 0 and 1 are really the same category. I think anyone can use a pre-programmed autocaster (the kind that has physical buttons or triggers). The only limitations are the ones that are activated without a physical trigger require some magic talent, and that most people without magical talent can not bring out all that much mana at once (what is needed to make a change from Eidos write to the real world).
We have seen a few mooks with sci-fi guns that are actually autocasters, like the guy that thought shooting Rovak would be a good idea. Likely Peter could use one of those, but he seems to prefer to keep his hands clean. That said, we have not actually seen Peter in a tight spot where it would make the difference (the only times he was in danger it would not have mattered).
One of the biggest things complicating this whole thing are null casters. Do you count them as someone with exceptionally high magic resistance who can turn that resistance outward, or are they something completely different. For that matter can a true “null caster” actually cast other types of spells or are they limited to only power disruption. It could be that their ability preserves the normal workings of the world rather than altering it, and the few people referred to as null casters didn’t actually cast anything else themselves (at best they used a boost engine); but that could have just been them personally. It could be that their strength in that area was part of their powers as an innate mage? Honestly, I just don’t know.
All I do know is that it really screws up my power ranking. Some people can sometimes overcome the power of a null caster (think about the null caster who mentioned shutting Cali down, and the other one in the group that advised him against it as though it wouldn’t work) so even that doesn’t fit neatly into the system.
As I understood things general autocaster users have the advantage of not needing to study or train, though they still must have the power to sustain the magic, but their biggest issue is that they can’t change their magic on the fly and they are more limited in what they can do. Natural mages are those who can do the calculations to create magic themselves, and gain more flexibility and versatility in what they can do and how they can do in, while natural mages have the disadvantage of needing training to reach their peak ability. Innate mages are more like people with super-powers who can just do their thing, and so have both the ability to train as natural mages or simply use their ability as easily as another person might move their arm; but their disadvantage is that their natural ability can often lock them into one main type of magic. The most powerful mages seem to usually be innate/natural mage combinations, though there is some indication that Rovak may be a natural/autocaster mage combination (with the “autocaster” actually being fairly heavy levels of cybernetic enhancement). Perhaps all the most powerful mages are just people with two different types of casting pushed to a high degree? It is hard to say. Perhaps the high number of low level autocaster users are just due to how much cheaper/easier it is to outfit people with some talent with a gauntlet rather than teaching a person to calculate properly or finding the right genetics and then growing up a person with them from conception.
I agree that power and calculation are two main categories, but I’m not sure about resistance either. Most If you are talking about the resistance of a person’s magic to be interfered with, there is no way to know if that isn’t just a function of power. And if you are talking about a mage’s personal resistance than that may be a function of their self modification capabalities, including boosting. Could a third category be creativity? Spontaneity? Sensitivity to how magic is currently working? Experience? Or something else? There just seems to be something more to being a good mage then just power/calculations, but I’m not sure what.
As for the 0 and 1 categories I divided them up because of some of the advantages that specific autocasters have against mages that non-mages don’t have (such as penetration and disruption against spells) and the fact that removing the advantages of technology really does require that there be something between the 0 and 2 categories. The average bystander on the street cannot be assumed to have a gun and the average person with a gun is not as effective at taking down a mage as an autocaster. Look in the comments under the page where Rovak got shot while recovering the statesman to see about why weaponized triggered specific autocasters (those things that look like guns but shoot light) are better than regular guns vs mages. I have no clue if anyone can use them, what type of drain they have, or if a person’s power has any effect on their output at all; all I know is that the most powerful spells and the most capable mages don’t utilize them at all. That said, take away the general auto-caster from a “mage” who casts using one and they also become exactly the same as a 0 level caster, so I can accept that some “tools” might be part and parcel to some people’s casting ability.
As for the power rankings, Rovak was able to blow up someone on a catwalk at least a hundred meters away simply by looking at them and Tyler froze the entire entrance area of a building, so I feel pretty confident in their ability to take out an army if conditions are right. Cali… she seemed to have to disperse her dragon to block the second tank-robot from shooting her, so that might be a limitation when dealing with multiple directions of attack. But on the other hand her dragon could have made short work of the first and even second tank if it could have breathed its fire/plasma-beam at it, so I really don’t know.
Of course the rating system is only a rough starting point to categorize power levels. How exactly do you categorize and compare Rovak’s regeneration with Tyler’s ability to repair the damage done by an explosion? Or the fact that Cali’s dragon moves like a real animal, may therefor have its own limited intelligence, and may then even be able to act semi-indipendently? (Think about the implications of that for a second: an aware, nearly indestructible combatant, that can just be reformed if you do somehow manage to take it down.) Or even comparing similar things; how do you compare Naomi’s ability to heal from a non-fatal gunshot would with just a few hours of rest to Rovak’s ability to heal from a fatal gunshot would in a few seconds? Is Naomi’s ability half as powerful? A quarter? A tenth? And how would her ability compare to the minimum of weeks of basic recovery, likely months of full recovery, and possibility of chronic lifelong pain that would be the experience of a normal person who just got shot?
So yeah, this is really only a starting point to look at power levels. Hopefully, though, it is a useful starting point.
I don’t remember where, but somewhere it was mentioned that Kally’s main weakness is using multiple spells at once, which is why she she frequently uses the dragon as her shield as well as her attack. The obvious weakness there is that when she sends it out to charge something down, she is sort of left exposed.
Rovak is powerful, but I think he’s at something of a disadvantage against a powerful mage, like as we saw against Tyler he had to resort to indirect explosions sense he couldn’t directly overcome his resistance.
I definitely agree that Rovak is probably not entirely a natural mage. I don’t know if it’s cybernetics or something else, but several pages have implied that that the I-Code is an addition to his normal suite of skills.
I think technically speaking Ila might count as an autocaster user, she’s just her own autocaster. That might seem like a natural mage, but I don’t really thinks so. Early one she notes that she only actually knows five spells, it’s just that she can cast all 5 (or the same one five times) at the same time.
Part of the power grading for Kally’s dragon would come down to how far it can go. We always see it fighting with her in the immediate area, but if she can send a basically invincible dragon off to go fuck with people, her power jumps up the ladder a lot.
I think we just have not seen enough of a lot of the characters trump cards to really know. We’ve seen that Naomi can push further where the glowing lines start appearing on skin, but not really what she can do like that, we’ve seen that the dragon can breath fire, but it was just used to destroy some incoming missile. We don’t really know if Rovak is a two-trick pony or if he can actually use a full suite of magic (I suspect he can, he’s just sort of screwing around usually). Tyler might be pretty strong, but he has less combat experience, especially against powerful people, than the others.
So yeah her inability to maintain multiple spells is a big disadvantage, so there is good reason to put Kali into tier 4 rather than 5, but I’m sure arguments could be made either way. That said, you are right about how a good deal of her power depends on how autonimous her dragon is. Not to mention the fact that we aren’t sure if we have seen her trump card yet. There is a chance it is the Dragon’s “fire”, but that dragon also heals from damage, can conceivably fly, has enough strength to pin down a Kor’s World tank, and acts like it is reacting to Kali’s affections; who knows what other tricks it may have access to. Explosive egg bombs? Different types of fire? A deafening or power canceling roar? I honestly wouldn’t rule anything out at this point.
As for the Rovak vs Tyler fight, both of them were using indirect attacks fairly quickly. Tyler’s ice stopped a few feet away from Rovak and Rovak’s explosions couldn’t reach Tyler, so Rovak tried to collapse the roof with explosions but Tyler was a bit busy repairing the entire roof of the building to respond. While the standard beam attacks are pretty standard (we’ve seen them multiple times) Rovak’s explosions seem to have a LOT more power behind them (which explains why he would use them rather than the common beam). In addition to his I-code and explosions Rovak has also blocked magic (for himself and his lackie vs Tyler) and used healing on Ila, so he obviously is not just a one-trick pony with an additional I-code.
Speaking of Ila, I’m really wondering what her actual limitations are. She said that she can only “store six calculation types” in her memory, but what does that mean? Does that mean she only knows six spells and can never learn more? Does that mean she can’t maintain one spell while casting others if the max goes over six (only six can be in her memory at any given time)? Can she switch out the spells that she has in her memory with others? and if so, how long and in-depth is that process? The comic doesn’t seem to answer that question either. Multiple times we see her use six of the same spell (six movement gates, six beam orbs) but I can only specifically recall 4 individual spells she has used (her hand, a wall, the movement gates, and beam orbs). Her biggest issue seems to be lack of battle experience and insistence on “displaying” her power rather than attacking more cautiously. All I really know about her power is that it is significant enough to take on at least 2 squads of witch hunters (ie: mage killers) that had been assembled to suppress Kali, and that she at least fought them well enough to not be taken down. That is definitely saying something.
Well, I’m a page late on following up with your discussion here, but figured I’d chime in on as it’s an interesting discussion.
In world, mages ‘talent’ is usually compiled in a score of:
-# of simultaneous calculations the mage can operate (how many individual calculations they can run at once).
-scale of calculation (how complicated a magic is)
-range of effect (how far away they can activate magic – not how far the effect can go, but how far away the origin of the calculation can be).
-maximum amount of mana they can access at once (which influences how much they can really change).
-capacity of imagination (no, really, though it doesn’t appear on official test results as much 🙂 )
These can interact in strange ways – Ila being an example. Technically speaking, you could accelerate to an object with a single calculation to any given speed, but the bigger difference requires exponentially more mana, so going 0-50, 50-100, 100-150 is actually easier than doing 0-150, but doing three spell parallel calculations is harder; in Ila’s use-case, essentially impossible for a human to do as you have to execute them too precisely for what a normal human can do, though it would still be in range for an innate ability, as human could conceive of doing it, just not consciously execute it, meaning it has to be processed by the ‘Eidos Key’, and that’s far too big a reconciliation for it make it most cases.
Ranking the mages against each other is hard, just because there is so much variety in what they specialize in, but they can placed in broad categories. Tyler is the only one that’s been confirmed to be a registered mage, but Kally, Rovak and Jayce don’t really exist inside the official structure for these things.
Battle experience is also one of the biggest factors, and the biggest thing that holds Tyler back. He has little experience with combating people he’s power doesn’t just instantly overwhelm. Kally has more experience, but is overspecialized toward her original job.
I’m guessing that Nathan was a bit shaken by Mium’s little dissertation on him. ^^
“…he who spouts many words..” aaah, you’re killing me, here. XD
Great expressions and body language. 🙂
I get the feeling that some of the titles are less… official… than other ones. It’s not that Mium would insult someone, no, never that. Just select data selectively as may best suit his opinion of someone.
“You do not currently pay Miss Naomi, Peter.”
“Oh, right. Well, in that case, I’ll give her a 20% raise, effective immediately.”
Haha, well, no one can say he’s not generous then! 😉
Logic always getting in the way of a good scrap. I sympathize with Naomi’s plight here. A good sport would have a good little sparring session that’d leave the rooftop in shambles.
Panel 5: “he is classified as a major hazard in twenty six percent of all active plans.” Panel 7: “I think he actually likes Miss Kallisto,”
Fixed, thanks 🙂
you’re welcome.
5th panel first bubble “He is classified as a…”
You have an extra as after the is and you typed “as a” twice between classified and hazard
If you fixed it it did not change yet.
I think I messed it up more when I fixed it originally… I shouldn’t try to type things after sleepy time. Fixed(er), thanks 🙂