Comic for Monday, August 5th, 2019
You can tell we are back from the interlude because all the main characters are back-… wait. Uh. I mean, we have seen at least one of these characters before… 🙂
So this was obviously a bit of a stretch to make by today, but I said tonight, so… wanted to get it up tonight. I would say a second comic this week isn’t still a maybe; I wish that weren’t so, but I don’t want to say for sure and not make it 😐
This won’t be the new status quo forever; I don’t really know for sure when things will sort out, but they will eventually and things will get back to normal here. Or better than normal, who knows. If this does go on long enough, I’ll change things up – either quit my job or hire an artist… of those the first one is more likely the second. But things will probably limp along for a bit this way, at least for this month.
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Page is coming, but won’t be tonight. Just wanted to keep people in the general loop that things march on.
i’ll wait a month, i’ll wait a year, and through it all, i will still hold this comic dear.
thanks for the notice!
Meoi Lass
PS, i seem to remember seeing something about your user icon when i was binging the archives again, and just wanted to say, i haden’t realized it was a dog siloet. now that i see that and not some weird abstract shape, it looks really cool.
Regarding the user icon; yeah, it’s dog silhouette on a palm tree (a golden retriever, though that’d be hard to tell on the silhouette); when I had a handful of self-employed ventures, I called my brand Past Utopia Productions (PUP); though the real logic behind it is that I like dogs and palm trees.
It’s a little bit easier to see as the full sized icon:
I used to use the logo for the comic in general, but while PastUtopia is loosely named after the comic (as its one of things I was working on at the time) the logo doesn’t really have anything to do with the comic. I may replace it at some point, but it’s never been high on my priority list. I leave the various comic characters themselves to commenters to use as avatars, and the comic logo at this point is mostly just the name of the comic with Query.
Since the only other published stuff I do right now is the D&D homebrew stuff and it has it’s own dog based logo as I do that under a different username, currently this is the only thing left under the PUP/Pastutopia name.
wow. by the way, did you get my comment about Panel 3 on this page?
Fixed; thanks.
I think last time I saw it I wasn’t at my computer.
And here I thought it was a polar bear…
It’s a polar golden retriever, they’re rare.
You can tell by the icy blue palm tree above it. These are found only near the West Pole.
So that could put us on Uranus, which is very cold, is blue in tint, and has an East and West Pole of sorts (its rotational axis is almost in the plane of its solar orbit).
Well you know what they say about the starship Enterprise and toilet paper being similar. They both circle Uranus and capture Klingons.
The same West Pole that the Hetereodyne Boys visited?
Camellia, Elaina and the Consul are pretending to be badly injured, dead and dead respectively so that the exiled families will make their move, and will show up later.
However what exactly was this meeting called for? Just who is the “kid” Eldmon refers to that Sarine is afraid of? The first read through I thought that the Kid referred to Camillia.
The second read through I thought it might be be Illa referred to, but how would they know about her. Is Hadrian leaking info to the exiles as well as Rovack?
Then on about the third read through I realized that “sparks #1 & #2” L to R in pannel 5 of Sunday, July 21st, 2019 might be exile family #2 & #3 in panel 4. And thus the Kid might be Miko.
Forth read through I thought tthe Kid might be the newest prototype
On the fifth read through I am back to thinking the Kid is Camilla again because Sarine apparently dose not know she is injured, or possibly is wandering if she died of her injuries. but that exile family #2 & #3 have bombshell info if things get to incriminating.
All in all this is another building with an higher than average chance of blowing up :).
I am pretty sure it would be Camilla, because it seems like Elmon and Saraine are meeting for the first time in awhile here, and they both know what he is referring to, so I assume the event is fairly far in the past.
Camilla is sort of implied to have been a terrifying and highly destructive kid (Doll of Destruction). My read is that during the Conul’s rise to power, Elmon wanted Saraine to defeat the loyalists, but she wouldn’t fight Camilla and the rogues capitulated into exile.
As for the last part, I agree. This is going to be some capital S shit going down. This is primarily Peter’s plot, and we have seen that Peter is sort of losing his patience, so I imagine it is going to be nothing short of the end of the rogue Families.
If Peter is bothering to deal with your politics, you better believe he is going to “solve” them. He might be distracted by his other concurrent plan to mess with the IDS though (Mium on Central seems like a big deal too).
All in all, I feel like some major shit is going down, but lowkey, major shit has been going down basically non-stop for awhile with no breaks if I think back.
Peter set this in motion, and obviously everything that happens is one of his plans, more or less – frequently annoying early and several contingencies deep, but he’s allowed for it.
But even if the Consul is following Peter’s plan, she does not in this case appear to be following his instructions, but rather using her own methods according to her own agenda – or at least that’s what I get trying to read between these lines of hers: “[W]hile I suspect [killing me off] might be just what he does for fun … this is an opportunity that is too useful to pass up. Time to see who is making a play for my country.”
Peters plotting is mostly on a higher level and peter has already whacked this beehive hard by “killing” the consul, unless this plot is tightly integrated into other plots. From here on its looks to be Regin & the Consul Verses the leader of the rogues whoever that is show.
However is nobody going to comment on possible wildcards? Will they sick the kitten that followed Arkady home(Illa) on them. What about the possibility that 2 of them were in Avons basement. Will Cicila(the blue haired teleporter) show up with a gun integrated into her new arm? And how do you charge a ghost(Hadrian Martin) with conspiracy to commit treason.
Well, to be a little too literal and a little too close to our reality: laws don’t have to actually make sense to be passed.
Charging him with treason is pretty easy. But I think you’re aiming for punishing him if/when he’s found guilty. Sounds like a problem that Fluffy or Mium can solve.
I believe the teleporter is Acalia. If there’s a Cicila in this comic, I’ve missed them. That having been said, with a cast of nearly 100 named characters, I’m probably missing some. It wasn’t that long ago that I’d last found I’d missed somebody.
Panel 3: you put “First.” twice.
Panel 2: “We live in different names now” did you mean “We live in different times now” ?
Yeah; I think so. To be honest I was 3/4 asleep when I wrote the dialog for this page, but that’s probably what I meant 😀
Sure. *wink wink* *nudge nudge*
Not a dark outter god thing at all.
My thoughts…
… who are all these people?
…
… oh, there’s someone i recognize.
(good thing little miss walking HVC saved him)
The are the Family mages. More specifically, the head’s of each Family.
We know that Camilla is the head of one of the mage Families, though she is younger and more powerful than most of them as I understand it.
Regin is likely the head of Eliana’s family.
We can safely assume that Arkady’s family is also a “loyalist” family (to the Consul). As we see at least four Families here that are indicated to be “rogue” families, there should be at least 2 more unaccounted for Loyalist Families assuming they have the majority (it is possible they don’t, and the are just that scared by Camilla).
First comment written for last weeks comic. My thoughts as to which copies of Mium are going to be independent. It is likely that the newest prototype will be autonomous because that is the whole point of Miko’s expedition and she had vi-mium to advise her. This is possible because from Mium’s point of view vi-miko, prototype EF11, the copy running without a network card, and possibly, vi-mium when running on Miko were/are misappropriated or stolen code and thus not something he was responsible for. And yes that is loophole abuse on par with “not military equipment”.
Mium will probably take steps to reintegrate the Council’s copy because he dose not want to be responsible for many more siblings.
Efelven(?) is however a friend and creation/ward of Miko who now has root privileges.
The fact that vi-miko can download info on Kyle indicates that the edios cards can communicate across dimensions, so EF5 is in all likelihood still integrated.
Doctor Martian is afraid of MYM because he imagines not all SMAI’s are forgiving of being murdered. So the unanswered question is where is he. Is he hiding in some unlabeled memory pool, if so on who’s computer or chassis. Did he write his own FTP protocols and escape out through the internet or possibly even lab5’s edos connection with the data from this collaborative experiment? Will he continue to haunt Rovack?
As for today’s comic, ooh new charters Elmon, Saraine, seem to be exiled Families. Regen and Ashley are loyalist. Dose anyone recognize any of the five others.
As for spelling/gramer i don’t know if Elmons first language is local, panel 2 “we live in different NAMES now”?
Older folks with matching green hair. Died for fashion? Died to prove they are immune to the hair coloring laws? A relic of a time before designer children were available to the masses?
It may be that “We live in different names now” was meant to be “We live in different times now”. However I interpreted it to mean that they had changed their identities. They recognize one another from an older time or other dimension, when they used different names.
However it might be a reference to some level of magic that I’m not picking up on. Namespaces are common things in software development, Past is familiar with software development and uses those concepts as part of his core magic system as I understand it. It might well be that a namespace corresponds to a dimension, and dimensional travel is nothing more complicated than changing namespace. If you know how to change the namespace of the reality you are populating, dimensional travel becomes easy. If not, well then you might have to jump through hoops to use gadgets and code snippets written by someone else.
Then again, if you substitute ‘times’ for ‘names’ it does make sense, and it is simpler than any story I’ve cooked up.
I like my version though. These are two uber powerful, dimension hopping demons with powers bordering on the god-like. They’ve stopped by to watch the foolish mortals squabble over dribbled bits of power, slivers of understanding the cosmic code that are mostly misunderstandings anyway, and possibly to snack on a few souls.
The remainder of that sentence “leave such things in the Past” is a reference pointing through the fourth wall, and indicating that the author is in fact one of them. An eldritch horror capable of altering the tenuous fabric of reality for his own amusement. Reading his comics invites a not so gentle descent into madness.
I think I’m starting to make out the words in that chanting. Can you hear it?
It’s been my impression that designer children are the latest in genemod kids, but genemod kids in general is something that Malsa has had for quite some time, such that even older Family members like Regin were gene modded a bit. But for the older folks, that look just means their parents had more money than sense, and didn’t really affect their power level in a quantifiable or predictable fashion.
Your whole namespaces thing sounds like you’re reaching… much like I would have if you hadn’t beaten me to the punch.
I think it did effect their power. The Families are well known to be terrifyingly powerful mages. They might not be so outrageous in the world of autocasters, but they are likely no slouches. While it’s true that Elliana and Camilla are the most powerful ones we have seen, it was my impression they were still “Family mages” rather than “designer kids”. Not all the designer kids are powerhouses either. While Naomi is a monster, people like her green haired friend don’t seem to have unsual magical power.
Further, people like Magnolia and Tyler are as powerful as anyone and not modified. I think that Family mages and Designer kids just raise the “hit” chance of being a powerful innate/natural mage.
Remember when Acalia teleported in front of Miko? Miko instantly identified she was a Family mage not just a Designer kid, as only Family mages had innate powers that weird/strong.
At this point, we cannot visually identify designer kids from family mages (and they are likely pretty similar) but not the same (as Miko’s analysis shows). Family mages seem to have a very hit “hit” chance for powerful innate abilities.
I would guess most of the people in this room are pretty powerful mages. Remember that even Ash is a registered mage, thought have not seen him do anything powerful. Arkady was considered a bit of a failure by Camillia, but could still curbstomp a death-robo-tank that was wiping out soldiers like nothing. Bluebeard was a mage-commander. We never saw him do anything, but that is the same rank as Tyler.
Family mages got to be Family mages by being the most powerful mages out there. It’s my understanding that mage power is hereditary, so you wouldn’t need to have genetic modifications for most of the children of a couple family mages to have potent magic.
That having been said, the Family mages weren’t content with ‘most’, and so there’s been research on how to fix that. This has had a consequence that having children with potent magic is more accessible to the rest of the wealthy of the country, too.
However, that’s acceptable, as that’s also an elite bunch. Plus, many of them are descendants of Family mages through branches of the Family that didn’t get magic, or didn’t get enough magic, and so it really is more of a correcting nature’s oversight. There’s also the aspect that the best training in how to use ones magical gifts would naturally be only available to the wealthy elite.
Wait, the Consul’s just *giving* it away to anyone who demonstrates both enough magical potency and Malsan patriotism? What the – who does she think she *is*? Does she think that this is *her* country to do with as she pleases? OMG, we need to revolt!
And so thus we have the exiled families who can’t accept the changes being wrought in their former country.
All of that said, they still haven’t worked out exactly how to give kids magic with certainty. Designer kids are more likely to have magic, and it’s more likely to be potent if they do have it. But some of them don’t, and others can just barely make an umbrella for two.
Also, designer kids don’t seem to have an entirely new power level available, except possibly Naomi. She, incidentally, seems a bit like she might be an explanation for why that is – despite her seemingly endless reserve and easy aptitude for stuff, she still is limited to some of the most basic magics. Presumably, this is because she has enough power to easily make them do what she wants, so she hasn’t been seriously pushed to actually progress to even standard proficiency.
The focus of this comic means that we don’t really get a feel for the incidence rate of these things. Powerful Family mages have more of an influence on the world around them, due to their combination of political and magical power, so we’re much more likely to see them.
You’re right, it does seem like being a Family member increases ones chance over background of having major magical power than being a designer child does – but I do think there’s reason to believe that family mages who are designer children are even more likely to have such power.
However, that doesn’t mean that the older genetic manipulation to give the matching hair and eye color gave any increase over normal to the incidence rate of powerful mages in the families.
On one hand I want PastUtopia to take his time on making comics… on the other hand I just crave more content for this setting in a way that may not be entirely healthy.
Reading through comments like this make realize how much we could still learn about this world. I feel like I need to know. I want to learn more about the setting almost as much as I want to see more of the story. I somehow keep expecting to find an endless depth of wiki content, as if there would be another source for all this lore than the comic itself.
So you also Google for Malsa and Palindra and are baffled as I am by the lack of Wikipedia articles?
I have tried it, no luck. I think my problem is that a lot of popular media with deep lore has source material (old comics, web novels, books). I am not equipped to deal with original content where I cannot lore-binge all the details I crave.
Yup. I’m right there with you.
The instance running on a computer without a network card is actually running on a computer with a network card. Final speech bubble of chapter 13, page 1.
Proposed theory: Doctor Martin killed M.Y.M. to wear its skin. That is, to say, to download himself onto the hardware. Peter then attempted to kill Doctor Martin to restore the old M.Y.M. He was successful in the latter case, but not the former.
I’m not going to claim this is a new theory, because my memory of user discussions is too fractured for me to be able to determine if somebody else has already proposed this theory or not. My apologies to anyone who has.
Miko later called peter and suggested that when MYM went single thread Tamera poped out the network card and restarted him with an overlooked start code. Even later after peter rebooted MYM his non-local version provided Consul with info on gate usage and ask for authority to seize them. What really happened to the instance running on that isolated terminal is not known with certainty. Tamera may not have done that, or Miko might have suggested she do so by text.
Hey, possible typo on panel number four, third speech bubble.
Currently “,they can hardly talk to each other, let alone make a decent make a decent coup…”
Proposed alternate “,they can hardly talk to each other, let alone stage a decent coup…”
Oh! And the update schedule is good, personally. Even if it takes years, I will still come back and check for updates. Still do with other webcomics.
Meoi Lass
Fixed; I think. I am pretty far past the land of even having a vague grasp of grammar at this point today, but I’ll swing by the comic tomorrow with a mop if there are more issues 😀
Panel 4, “I don’t why you worry” probably intended to be “I don’t know why you worry”.
Alternatively I’m very tired, and perhaps I simply can’t grok what I’m looking at.
Arkady is the one I think we’ve seen before. Which is to say the one I think is Arkady we’ve seen before, but I’m too tired to be confident that I got the name right.
Also, I’m watching you, Meoi. Don’t be talking the artist into delaying my fix. I’ve been awake for 4 days waiting for this!
You must be tired, because even I can correct you. That is Ash, Camilla’s brother. Arkady is her fiance.
If that one’s Ash, which one is Emily?!
Oh, wait, I misfiled this comic!
Thanks Kevin. I knew something didn’t feel right about that.
Now I’m even more nervous about the code I was trying to write last night. I’d feel better if it didn’t compile, then I’d know where (some of) the bugs are.
We’ve also seen Regin before, and not too long ago. Chapter 14, page 43.
Thanks; I recognized the name, but completely blanked when trying to place it. I was starting to wonder if it might have been from another story entirely …
Seconded. Two per week is an awesome target, one per week is a respectable rate, but still isn’t a deadline; its worth waiting for 🙂
I totally mis-read that line as make a decent Cuppa…meaning coffee. I though that was the joke of having Akardy there. He would seem to be type of person to make a decent cuppa.