Comic for Monday, August 31st, 2020
No long description where I ramble and complain today… super late. On the bright side, I think I made my last trip to my old house this weekend, so moving is official done. Done I say (glaring a the boxes sitting all around waiting to be unpacked…)
It does seem like Mium’s shirt has acquired some holes as well. Guess he’s been busy since we last saw him. Arkady has heard quite a bit about Mium from Ila, and most of what he has heard concerns him greatly, so he’s not quite sure what to do when suddenly confronted by the actual Mium.
Does Mium intentionally sneak up behind people, or does he just happen to come from the direction they are facing away from by chance? Who knows… who knows indeed.
We are closing in on the end of Chapter 15… very closing in. Of course, that just means the start of Chapter 16, but hey.
The nations of this world don’t really have great information on the IDS as we are seeing. The Consul’s comment here comes off as a bit more naive than it is – she didn’t expect the IDS to be weak., but she expected their strength to be in their technology, autocasters, and manpower (from PACT), and that these things could not quickly be brought to bear. By using powerful mages (which she didn’t expect the IDS to have a direct counter to) she was hoping to route them before they could bring their strengths to bear (again, mostly PACT).
This thought was somewhat blasted from the sky when Kally attempted to destroy the skyhammer attack, but that occurred after the Consul gave the order for the Registered Mages to start solo blasting their way through IDS compounds. And in the Consul’s defense, for the most part it worked. As we saw from Tyler’s first assault, having a powerful known mage storm the compound prevented a lot of the people that might have deployed to defend from even trying – it was a largely successful intimidation to PACT. The Consul just didn’t really have perspective to appreciate what the difference between Corporate Affairs/PACT branches and Situation Containment branches (that contained people like Elizabeth).
The Consul largely expected the majority of the moderately powerful mages to be from PACT, who would likely break seeing Family mages go in spells blazing, but the points where that planned ended up failing was Situation Containment and places where Orish Warmages were involved.
Huh that ended up being a fairly long ramble anyway. Anyway, good morning!
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I hate to do this in the land of buffers and happiness, but Monday’s comic will be up sometime in Monday afternoon probably.
I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to add a part of page that wasn’t in the outline and that I didn’t end up having time to finish, and this part of a page opened various rabbit holes I felt needed exploring in my notes and throughout the comic.
The first page and a bit of the next chapter is actually pretty much done, so we should still get the buffer this week as planned.
Rabbits are delicious. Here’s hoping it pans out!
I guess Monday’s comic’s not gonna show up.
Of course it is.
We’ve got to keep in mind, the odd timestamps on the site? The obvious fact that English isn’t Past’s native tongue? We already know he’s operating out of a different dimension.
Guinea pigs are perhaps the perfect pet.
None of the above statements are related.
It’s up now.
You’re referring to the guinea pig?
I like beans.
I think Miss Niome is leveraging the friend cudgel rater heavily upon both parties in the discussion.she is confiming Arkady’s friend status for mium. In an actual form rather than the logical one that was used previously. In a way she is also informing Arkady on why he was the beneficiary of this highly targeted assistance.
Arkady fully determined Miss Ila’s likely nature during this event but I bet he was sub-conscious of it after the hospital event. That hospital event also brought this awareness to Magnolia Dai who used her ‘sight’ to perceive Ila’s true nature, and likewise determined that Tyler was an appropriate counter magic wise for that nature. She also notified Tyler of this state, though Tyler did not share the information that Mium was also of similar concern.
Magnolia has passed her information on to her superior/supervisor and likely will reach the same conclusion for Mium eventually. Since Magnolia has decided to not take direct action, I would presume that state would continue based on her MSB activities.
Other than our primaries, the group of people who currently understand Mium’s and Ila’s nature is really quite large.
The Consul
Tyler Weber
Magnolia Dai
Avon’s experimental department
Avon Blops
Kardus
Rovak Stas
Aaron Kepler
Kyle Kepler
Susan Summers
Nathan Summers (who has currently decided to not officially notice)
Kor’s World
Accessories know about MYM’s nature, but have not made the leap to the 3 ambulatory interfaces just yet.
Tamara Anseli
The high level technical staff of the Consul’s office
Arkady didn’t witness the hospital event. You’re thinking of Ashian.
Arkady had some suspicions since the tennis match, though. 🙂
It’s my understanding that the current amount of understanding that particular Kardus is capable of at the current point in time is not particularly clear. While it is frequent that settings in which magic is a prominent element will also include the ability to understand things when one is in the sort of state that Kardus is in, this particular setting has not, as far as I recall, made any assertions in one direction or another on that particular point.
As such, I feel like that particular line item on your list could possibly benefit from an asterisk or footnote indicating such.
I do not have a Susan Summers in my notes. Or, for that matter, any Susan. If you have any references, I would like an opportunity to update my notes. Thank you. Or are you possibly conflating Kalisto (Kally) with another similar character, such as Susan Pompoms of El Goonish Shive fame?
I was thinking of commenting re: Kardus as well. I’m glad you did it, as you did it better than I could have. The only thing I’ll add is that given the amount of lamenting Atter did over his extreme data loss, it seems that we’re unlikely to see Force ghost style characters often.
No Susan appears on the current cast page.
http://wiki.pastutopia.com/index.php?title=Category:Cast
Also just how many different comics are you tracking at this level? Have you considered putting this information online?
I’m tracking one comic at this level. I did consider putting this information online. In fact, I started to, with the wiki, but then work shenanigans happened. While those shenanigans have resolved, there continue to be more and varied shenanigans, so I haven’t really gotten back to it.
I’ve made some flailings at tracking QC, but I think I only got the characters recorded to about page 400 or so.
I don’t track EGS at all, actually. That said, the only reason I’m confident I didn’t go to high school in Moperville is that there was only one high school. It hits home a lot more than something that squirrelly has any reason to.
Not in the comic, but…
> ,,,she was hoping to route them before they could bring their strengths to bear (again, mostly PACT).
I assume you mean rout, not route: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/rout
As Mium says, appearing behind people is generally preferably to appearing in front of them…
Though, presumably, he cannot do that in non-digital space.
I feel presumptions like that would be… unwise….
Oh no! Run Arkady: Mium is going to have to erase your memory of Ila. (It would have to be something difficult to do… otherwise you’d just run around rewriting everyone’s memories to suit). Or the alternative, he’s going to get you to swear allegiance to the cause??? That might not be so bad.
And I’d just like to point out the route to a rout is to defeat enemy is such a way to cause them to retreat in a disorderly fashion: it’s the type of thing you’d only really do by accident to a weaker or more poorly prepared opponent. So perhaps the Consul was not hoping to cause a rout, but hoping to get them to surrender before they could bring their strengths to bear: this is tactically the better solution when faced with a stronger or unknown opponent: when their forces surrender, you now have leverage (i.e. the return of the surrendered forces) to negotiate with the enemy.
Possibly even better: if you get your opponents’ forces to surrender rather than flee in a disorganized fashion, you may possibly, if you’re much more skilled at acquiring friends and retaining than your opponents are at propaganda and festering hate, you can turn these surrendered forces into your friends, such that they will be of less use to your opponents even after they re-acquire them.
For what it’s worth, I appear to have considerable ability in gaining friends, but not in retaining them. Some have suggested that more cookies after the first one might be in order. I’m dubious about this claim, however. I mean, when I give people cookies, they don’t have expire dates on them, so they should last forever. I don’t want to fill up their disk space with all of the cookies I give them. And there are some people who want to review and decide whether to accept or reject each one, which can be a real chore if there’s an unreasonable number of them. I know at least one person who’s asserted that the reasonable number of cookies is one.
I think Mium is just having to factor in what Arkady is likely to do with the information.
I mean the Consul is aware of the MYM/Mium relationship, and between Ila being observed at the hospital, Miko’s actions at AVON, and Mium’s actions on Central, I would assume all the major players now know roughly what Mium is, some know about Ila, and all of them are uncomfortably aware that there may be some important things they DON’T know. This, plus the strong hint Arkady should be getting that he is privvy to things he wasn’t supposed to know, purely because Ila wanted to protect him, will probably put things back on the path Mym was planning anyhow.
Or at least all of the major players that the Consul wants to know.
I suspect that President Kokato does not know. There are probably significant people in the IDS that do not know, as Kally and Arron don’t share everything they know with all of the IDS. In fact, it appears that Arron did not share what he knows about Mium with his own brother.
I don’t feel like Mium Efiate has revealed quite as much of his nature as I think you think he has. He *risked* it by calling Query `family`, but then gave an explanation for how that could possibly apply that would only work on someone who was either not nearly as familiar with Query as Kyle clearly is, or really hoping to not encounter a walking, talking general SMAI, especially one his son made. But I’m pretty sure that Kyle fits within that latter set.
I think we can classify most of the major players who don’t know as “Opfor” 🙂
Team Consul, and hopefully Team Webber – after he and the Consul get a chance to compare notes – should have a pretty good handle on MYM, Mium (possibly without knowing of his second chassis) and Ila.
This is tempered by Isiam’s observation that they will know almost entirely what MYM *wants* them to know, which leads to extended “MYM knows they know he knows” type statements I think we can skip for now.
Nathan seems to be privy to some of MYM’s history he may not have yet shared with Arron. who in turn seems to know Mium is the successor to query and a little of the relationship between Mium and Miko’s implant. Kyle and his wife have had an interesting interaction with Mium, who is asserting a claim on Query as the corpse of a pet… which may be purely to mess with them of course. Lilly has no idea what the Eidos drive card is capable of, but now knows one is installed into the Query module. Mium has literally just suggested Kyle go compare notes with Arron though, so it is fair to assume what we could call Team Arron will be up to speed on the “Mium is super-query” version of the info MYM wants them to believe, in the near future.
Arkady is a special case. Due to the emotional attachment both Naomi and Ila have for him, MYM has set his survival priority fairly high, he has had extended interaction with Ila, and Naomi just literally took a bullet for him. Mium seems to be shaping his speculations as to Ila’s true nature with what are not lies, but more oblique truths. Arkady has already shown he will protect Ila from his own team, so some of his knowledge on Ila may not make it back to Team Consul, but I suspect after her part in the Spirit Beast incident, there are going to be some pointed questions asked. I would assume MYM is also fully aware of the summit the Consul just held to selectively brief certain family heads and discuss him. The speculation around the human factor is mildly worrying – given Peter can’t easily be manipulated, but Naomi and Arkady probably can be, Ashvalt may make some… unwise decisions in that area.
I suspect Mium’s decided that at a certain point it’s better to give relatively complete and accurate information rather than deal with whatever speculations Arkady comes up with on his own.
Ah, yes, I’m familiar with moving being done. Done I say (glaring at the boxes sitting around, still waiting to be unpacked, years after the last move). I wish you luck in unpacking them before you manage to determine the boxes are more useful as furniture you never bothered to get than their contents would be if you unpacked them. At least, according to whatever vague memory of what their contents might be that you still have.
I expect Mium might know if he intentionally sneaks up on people. Though, to be fair, I don’t intentionally sneak up on people, I just don’t anticipate their hearing to be quite so bad. I mean, I stomp around almost as loud as a cat, why the hell can they not hear my approach? Also, why do people keep talking about how quietly cats walk, when they really aren’t that quiet?
Considerably in the last frame seems like it should be considerable as it’s an adjective, not an adverb.
Last panel, “considerably” should be “considerable” and that is a wee bit of an understatement.
Fixed, thanks 🙂