Comic for Monday, December 12th
I think this is the first time we’ve seen someone in the Central Military uniform. Typically it’s just sort of green-ish and uniformish looking, the yellow slashes represent a particular unit inside the organization, not a rank. Central Military is actually not part of the I.D.S., but Situation Containment members belong to both, as they tend to be a little too well armed and capable for an even technically civilian branch. People like Kally who are not currently in the either the military or S.C. are retained on reserve – a powerful mage is rarely ever discharged entirely. Arron is a different case in that he was always technically active, but not generally expected to use his rank as a Major over his rank as an IDS Director, as he was more a representative/observer of the military due to the very limited presence on Palindra. That said, he is far better liked in the military than the I.D.S., though mostly among older members.
I debated for awhile if it made sense that Kally would change to her uniform (or even have a uniform, considering she wasn’t on active duty). Than I remember this is Kally, of course she would (to both).
The ranks of the S.C. (and Central Military) are a bit odd, as there has been sort of a rank Inflation due to original practice of mages being given an artificially high rank, now that most of the military is somewhat magic-equipped it’s faded a bit, but it’s fairly common for a squad to have several Corporals or even mostly be made of them. This holds doubly true for someone like Kally (whose rank we haven’t seen yet), though as a specialist (special) officer rather than a command officer, she is not typically any command of anyone (and thus is not necessarily trained as an officer).
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have u considered posting a summary? or story so far? i’ve been reading the new pages but the archive is pretty hard to make it thru. just a thought because there is no wiki or plot summary i could find.
The story universe is enormous, encompassing parts of two universes, being impacted by a third, and with more being referenced. Any summary that would give you a useful feel for the comic, would be almost as long as the comic itself.
Heck, I’m one of the ones who has been reading it the longest, and I still get lost occasionally. O.o
It’s a little more work to read than most webcomics, but it’s definitely worth the extra effort. 🙂
A plot summary would be really hard because this a comic where the devil is usually in the details. I think you would miss a lot just by not reading the commentaries.
I have recommend the comic to a few friends, and what I tell them is that if you start now and just read the new pages, it will probably still be good. My recommendation is to stick with it, and maybe pick away at the archive from time to time.
It’s something I will think about. I want to truncate the archive (as trust me, the old pages are more painful for me than you) but I don’t currently view it as possible. Eventually there is a high chance I will set a new starting point with a “Part II” or something, but I haven’t decided exactly what to do on that front.
Oh dear, I do believe I love the way that was phrased.
“I gave an order, and I intend to see it obeyed.”
I need to……heheee~ SQUEE!
I’m glad you enjoyed it… but… I think somehow Kally would be offended at being “squee”‘d at… 😀
Then how about I giggle maniacally while going “EEEEEE” in joy?
Your panel count is definitely heading north of six again. I love it, but do not burn out.
I think I hear Kally’s theme music playing. It is also interesting how she treats her Ethereal differently than the other ones we have seen (mostly Ila’s). Ila will grab a thing (or flick a thing) and then the hand goes away. Kally just seems to be keeping her’s like it is an actual dragon pet.
She may have vaulted Tyler in the badass rankings, and she has not technically done anything yet. Though to be fair, she was always up there, and he only passed her because of one cool fight with Rovak. I mean, she is the only one that has a title.
Well if I remember correctly, it was said that animated ethereal constructs are more stable then other ones, as well as red being the most stable color of ethereal constructs. Those two things added together I would guess, mean that the dragon is just about as real as a construct can get.
I wonder if Kally has named it?
Haha, I wonder now… 😛
One thing is for sure, if she did name it, she would never ever admit that…
The proper person to ask about it would OBVIOUSLY be Peter.
Asking Peter seems to only lead to irritation and confusion rarely an answer. That being said I am thinking Fluffy.
Two comics for the price of one! (Or y’know, since we don’t pay for them…)
Haha, well, sort of. Between the generous Patreon supporter folks and the ads, at least we don’t run red here anymore (server and stuff is easily covered at this point), but I’m happy with people that pay in comments and traffic numbers too (how comic-artist validate their existence, best I can tell) 🙂
I mean… all of the above is the best, but I’m grateful and little befuddled we’ve gotten so many awesome people along for the ride from the earliest doodles to the current… well, still sort-of-doodles 😉
Hopefully with bonus comics and stuff we’ll keep growing readers and supporters alike. 😀
since arron is a major, the best cally should be is a captain(excat rank structure depending)
tho for some reason i really dont think kally would settle for being a “mere” nco. but she obviously has enough rank to basicly tell the corpral to go to hell. that suggests officer or highranking nco. tho they could have pulled out some sort of arcane rank structure out for mages. something like what the old ss used during ww2.
Kally could be the same or higher rank as Arron. Technically I don’t think we’ve seen him give her an order yet. He reactivated her military commission in order to keep investigating Kor’s World, Peter, and the general local fuckery, but everything has been a request if I remember correctly.
Clearly she is not going to be a command officer in charge of people (I am not sure if her age has ever been shown, but I don’t think she’s all that old), but her actual rank could be basically anything.
well the fact is that theres been only, what? 2 people that have been given ranks? arron and the monster hunters. also delta-v’s thread you mention that arron is a somewhat lax commander. at least with his people. giving direct orders seems to only be reserved for serious situations, or people like peter. who seems to take orders as suggestions anyway.
as for her rank and who/what she could legaly be in charge of… well thats open to interpitation.
also the more i think about it, and look at the three circles and the triangle, im not wondering if the mage side doesnt have some sort of obtuse rank structure thats sidreal to “normal” rank.
and finnaly age, i belive it was stated that both peter and kally where fairly close in age. and both young enough to pass as college students (for some reason i really dont think levonworth is a high school) tho that could also be some combination of good genetics (or geneticists), magic, really good health care, and awsome good technology. of which 3 of 4 of them are known to be there and assuming that kyle has enough pull in the civil service to warrent peter (and taki) getting access to them.
The ranks mages have are specialist ranks, but they share a title with normal ranks for Central. The reason for this is that they were introduced to an existing system that didn’t include mages, they are typically referenced as “special officers” regardless of their rank, but technically they are “specialist captain” or whatnot.
Both Peter and Kally were involved in government affair stuff from a rather young age, but for different reasons; so they are both pretty young for the amount of history they have with the IDS, and are indeed of similar age (and the age they appear, but I reckon I’d get widely varying ages on what that it is… 😛 )
I believe Kally has officially Had A Gutfull
Kally’s been running on fumes in the patience department since we first saw her… 😉
I don’t recognize the person talking with Arron. Is that a new character, someone I’ve forgotten, or just a handy sounding board? ^^
Kally is quite impressive when she’s glowering at someone besides Peter, and her dragon is a good argument for people to listen to her. 🙂
He is the guy you see with Julie (my avatar). He was referred to as Cheeto person once in the comments. He is the one who asked, “Are you going to tell Peter?”
*These two IDS intelligence staff do not have names in the comic yet. I just assume her name is Julie, because she acts like a Julie (maybe Michelle).
I wondered if that was him, but he’s being awfully bold for a fairly low-ranking analyst. After all, Arron is the head of the whole department, and Cheeto person is questioning his boss’ decision, so I didn’t look him up. ><
Arguing with the boss is not usually a good career move.
Arron seems pretty lax with his employees. Likely because analysts are computer geeks, and trying to teach computer geeks discipline is like herding cats.
I mean, he just sighed and facepalmed when he realized they were leaking information to Peter, and that’s basically treason.
Arron tends to view his underlings failing as his own failing to share with them the information that would make them come to the correct realization. He also probably gives his subordinates a little too much credit sometimes.
CI tends to be a bunch of projects tracking down people independently, they rarely need a centeralized command as much as a facilitator. Things have not been exactly typical recently, however, so we are seeing the military commander slower resurface.
Id also imagine that in this situation he has many of the same reservations as cheeto person, he just doesnt want to voice them.
It sort of seems like “hey, look, Kally does actually like Peter” when you compare her glare here to what she usually points at Peter.
The Peter targeted one is usually “I am not amused by your antics, and find your existence annoying”. This one is “I am seriously considering your arms having been ripped off by a dragon in the near future”. Maybe just the art getting better or Kally’s general state of grumpiness increasing though.
Given Kally’s day (or week, or month…), I’d say she’s probably happier with them refusing to follow orders than not.
Nice simultaneous-event structure here. Easy to follow both (some difficulty with that in the past, when they’ve been intermingled), and it lines up really well, too.
My grammar checks:
Panel 6, main: “neither you *nor” would be more conventional, I think, although it might depend on the individual dialect.
Panel 8, main: “but *to* assume”
Panel 4, side: *who’s
Fixed! Many thanks! 🙂
Well… inter-department conflict just got a lot more heated. Now if S.C. wasn’t such interlopers.
It’s sort of cheating for C.A. to bring S.C. to the table, but C.I. technically did it first with Kally. Corporate Affairs and Criminal Investigations both are considerably lower in combat mage strength – Emmi for example would stand almost not chance against a single one of the S.C. people, and she’s an enforcement agent and one of the better ones Malsa C.I. has.
Kally probably represents more combat strength than the rest of her department combined (not counting special agents). And probably several neighboring C.I. departments for that matter.