Comic for Monday, December 31st, 2018
It really would have been more well timed if this was the end of Chapter 13 instead of the start of the Interlude with it being a new year and all.
Anyway, first a today’s comic related thing: I have some regrets with using the labels this way, because I used remarkably similar labels last page to represent an in-comic effect, while this time it is a UI layer effect. It just sort of occurred to me that labeling the characters that we have seen before, but do not actually know the names of (most of them) and may not recognize due to copious art drift and never really knowing who the character was originally might be actually useful.
Next comic I’ll talk about going forward, and probably ramble a bit, with a side of blathering here and there. For this comic, let’s just talk about this year in summary real quick…
Overall, I think it was a good year. We had some buffer struggles in the last quarter of it, but I overall updates were pretty regular. August was a rough month for patreon losing quite a few, but several strong months followed by December being the best month we’ve ever had for new patrons has more than offset it for an overall patron growth. All I can say on that front is thanks to all the amazing people! You’re the best.
New traffic has definitely slowed down, with more than 80% of traffic clocking in at returning readers now. I don’t think this is a huge problem, but I imagine that most people here found the comic through Project Wonderful, so there’s still not quite a way to fill that void. New traffic from TWC has sharply declined as well. That said… I don’t know if it’s really a problem. We have a lot of readers (more than I ever expected times a lot!) and reader retention has year-to-year has been pretty high.
Anyway… I said real quick, and it’s starting to look long… so I’ll leave anything else for the future. Maybe I will separate it out into a blog post for the next update. Been awhile since I made a blog post.
Related Comics:
- Minerva was last seen: https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-friday-february-26th/
- Jakim & Katome were last seen: https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-thursday-june-21st-2018/
- Marylin was last seen here: https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-thursday-january-4th/
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Personally I always really enjoy these scenes where we step back from Malsa and look at the bigger picture… and see that the people that are supposed to be in charge are essentially clueless. It fits so well with my experiences with people in positions of power where they do not at all have the sense of the gravity of the decisions at all.
Malsa is at war, and there are so many different crises that even Peter is starting to have his hands full. But for these people sitting in a conference room it is just another day.
In their defense, I do not get the feeling Arron, Biana, or Sophie are really keeping them informed at this point. Regarding why they are not talking about Kor’s World or the Skyhammer, I suspect that is because officially Minerva does not know that. It seems like Kyle has leaked the contents of Arron’s inquiry (which started due to the attempt to kidnap Kally and use the Monster Hunters to arrest Naomi, but certainly would have included the escalation to firing Skyhammer…). But regardless Minerva cannot really call them on what she officially does not know, even if both sides know she knows.
I don’t know. My experience with people in positions of power is that they sometimes do have a sense of the gravity of the decisions they need to make, and sometimes they understand some or even rarely all of the details they need to make those decisions. It’s just really infrequently that the stars align and they have all of those at once.
Minerva, named after what is traditionally the goddess of strategy and victory, seems to one be someone who can cut through any bullshit she sees in the way, and an apparent student of history (Its been mentioned multiple times its a historically bad idea to side against Keplers), HR (she recognizes that at least some people seem to be assigned to essentially Antartica), and public relations (Arron’s at least attempting to keep them despite not being diplomatic in the slightest). Plus she sees a clear path to an acceptable objective.
Though it seems Oversight is just as fractured as the field officers.
I have the feeling that these people don’t understand the position that Sophie and Biana are putting them in. I think Director Jakim, Director Brook, and Kaori are thinking that Sophie and Biana are on their side, and their ends will justify their means. Meanwhile, Director Kepler understands that Biana and Sophie’s means preclude their desired end, and Undersecretary Minerva has come to understand that.
However, like characters in any drama, she’ll talk around that point, rather than explicitly mentioning it. It’ll take something like a farming village girl from Anolia, a refugee from an unspecified northern republic, and a couple of funny kids from who knows where teaming up and making Palindra safe from Kor’s World to get them to understand that they’ve grossly underestimated the capabilities present on Palindra. They also probably don’t grasp that one of their contractors is willing to take their money to ostensibly work against the interests of his world because he has reason to believe that push comes to shove, he can take them all on and win. I mean, there exist people who could theoretically take that guy down, but of the ones presented in the comic so far, only one or two work for the IDS – and they’re not on Sophie and Biana’s team.
I also get the feeling that the way Arron will get around the pesky need for either SC or S&I to declare war by letting Sophie declare war. If he strictly follows non-war regulations to deal with them until they cross the line, he’s still in the clear as far as the people back home are concerned. “She launched a full blown military offensive against someone who was just bothering her with paperwork? Paperwork that happened to be completely legitimate? No help for her after losing that one… to the locals we had not counted on amounting to anything.” Well, either that, or Dendrin will come out and unleash whatever he wasn’t supposed to against Nathan, and that shit will turn around and bite Sophie and Biana in the insufficiently plausible deniability butt.
For groups like this, especially in the higher positons where the meddelsome nature of middle management is discarded because it would be impossible to maintain, the biggest issue is not “what really happened” but “who is causing the headache and how best to stop it”. We’ve already seen this before, both this mindset and the willingness of others to uphold the standards of this mindset. Think about how much conversation there has been about supporting the one who will come out on top (with no discussion about who was right or legal in what they did); that was the people one level down from this group taking advantage of their superior’s disinterested mindset to ensure a “victory” in this conflict by trying to allign themselves with the expected victor.
In the end, both sides are legally capable enough to get away with pretty much anything they want. Pretty much. So the real question is “which side can come out on top” and “what do they get out of it”? Neither side has any need to directly declare war, and look the agressor. Neither side has any reason to need to directly attack the other, they both have enough proxies to make that moot (at least 2 militaries, the Seat of Summers, Pax, etc.). Both demonstratably can get away with direct action against the other (Kali’s attempted kidnapping, Aaron breaking into Biana’s closed meeting). The higher ups actually seem to know what is going on and even the politicians (thanks to Aaron) know enough that “plausable deniability” is not an issue.
So if neither “Plausable deniability” nor “legal deniability” are issues it is doubtful that any big reveal of truth is likely to change anything. The only reveal that would be meaningful would be to show how one side or the other caused more long-term problems for those above them. THAT seems to be the biggest thing that this particular meeting seems to be addressing. I doubt that either side will “officially” do anything, but it is clear that Biana has become the bigger of the two headaches and so will have a much harder time of things. She might be able to maneuver herself elsewhere or she might act like a cornered animal, but she will definately be much more on the defensive thanks to this meeting.
Even more interesting are the things that are NOT being brought up in this meeting: Kor’s World attacks and demonstrated cotinual presence, Central’s military technology falling into the local’s hands, suppressed info becoming public, New powerful technology that has major applications for war (nation spanning Interdimetional Rift Scanner)… Any one of these other issues should be enough to single out Pallindra as worthy of time and focus, but all this meeting seems to be focusing on is “who is the bigger headache between Aaron and Biana”.
I would like to think there should also be a side of “who is the best to support in the long term”. Someone who is willing to fire a weapon capable of city-level damage at the capital building of a nation they are supposedly trying to be friendly with to kill a nuisance is generally someone who will be taking actions likely to have fairly significant political fallout later, too.
Reading through this again, I’m also struck by something else: Min just suggested that HQ endorse Arron cleaning house, which could be either a paperwork action or something greater. Marilyn automatically took that to mean the most violent possibility. Now, that could come from acceptance of the fact that Sophie and Biana were not going to simply sit still for a paperwork house cleaning. But it basically implies an understanding that they’re wild dogs who can’t be contained.
As far as Kor’s World’s continued presence, we’ve seen that, but the Kor’s World activity in chapter 13 had one eye witness that we know of: Naomi. It was almost certainly a PACT site, and they may have had a significant IDS presence in the building, but we don’t have any indication that they actually were aware of *who* was in the building illicitly. They saw and interacted with Naomi and Mium, so they could have reason to think that they actually found out all of who was in the building that wasn’t supposed to be there.
Biana and Sophie talked like they were certain the technology was a leak, but do they have actual evidence that it was? Peter made the detector hacking into Malsa’s weather satellites, which is strongly suggestive of them already having the technology to be *able* to be used in that fashion, they just didn’t know what needed to be done to do it. It’s something that the MSB had a great deal of incentive to do, and AVon is apparently now known for having a bit more interdimensional gate capability than the IDS want, so it’s more plausible for Levenworth and AVon to have collaborated to make it like Ryn claimed. The fact that it has a much larger range than what the IDS had is also a bit suggestive of it having not been a technology leak, but rather a different implementation of something they thought would be their own technology for longer.
That said, there’s apparently autocaster smuggling going on that Peter’s not helping them stop any longer, AVon has gate technology far beyond what IDS wants, the IDS at least are aware that they’re under threat of Biana’s involvement in the Sky Hammer attack being made public, even if it hasn’t actually been, and there is the new rift scanner. However, mitigating all of that… this is an “again” meeting. It’s entirely possible that much of that was discussed at an earlier meeting and we just didn’t see it.
Also, I don’t think Palindra being worthy of attention is at issue here. As the nearest habitable world with which they’re on reasonable terms, Palindra is obviously worthy of attention. The question is whether this flea of a country on Palindra is worthy of so much attention, given that they have all of the rest of Palindra to focus on.
In other news, there’s far too many fireworks going off outside my window given that it’s only 7PM here. I guess I don’t get to sleep on time tonight. Oh, wait, I don’t get to sleep on time anyway. No worries, then.
You would think that the “who is the bigger long term troublemaker” question would be the biggest on their minds, but it really doesn’t seem to be. You could argue that Aaron’s dogmatic nature makes him a bigger headache since he is less likely to “play the politics game” (that is, quietly bending the rules for others in order to be allowed to do the same) but we don’t really know what he did to be “exiled” to a planet like Palindra. We do know that Biana was exiled to Palindra because she was too much trouble to keep in central, and that active desire to keep her contained is one reason others has supported her, but we also know that she is connected and plays politics well. Before this we really don’t know which of the two would have been the bigger headache to support long-term.
In fact, if it wasn’t for Peter, her plans would have worked (morality be dammed). Kidnaping Kali would have left Aaron weakened, Aaron wouldn’t have known to ask for an inquiry which would have left Sophie’s accusations against him looking plausible instead of as petty attacks for pointing out her mistakes, The continuation of Pact would have left Malsa unable to respond to Aarpon’s buildup for a military takeover, The lack of evidence of Orin’s involvement in local politics would have meant that Resh would have swept in after the conflict began and make it an international issue; and this would have meant that Biana could have swept in to “clean up” the mess by taking over Malsa uninhibited by Aaron or public opinion (which were the only things that could have stopped her). Even some of her backup plans, like hitting the capital with Skyhammer, would have succeeded if it wasn’t for Peter. If you remember all this you could make a VERY convincing argument (And I’m sure Biana is already making it) that the headache isn’t Biana, rather the headache is Peter. Goodness knows that Peter has a reputation of being a big enough headache that he was sent to a lower investigative position on a backworld planet, and even that didn’t keep him out of trouble. So if Biana wants to say “I’m not the issue, it is Peter” she has a point.
Honestly, who among the people Peter has seriously pissed off would blame Sophie/Biana for trying to take him out with Skyhammer? This is a guy that makes the Seat of Summers back off; someone who’s stated “job” is to be judge, jury, and executioner against magical abuse by Central’s best mages. Peter is not a “minor headache”.
You are very right, though, we have no way of knowing what else will be discussed in relation to Malsa; I just find it most telling that the issue they decide to lead with is the Aaron/Biana struggle. They may bring up later Kor world’s presence (as shown by the kill sat and robot drops that they made, which could only have come from an established skybase), but we honestly have no idea how common this actually is (and isn’t THAT a scary thought). They may bring up if the scanning tech is stolen by Peter and simply modified to work over the entire nation (very likely, and being based off an innovation of suppressed tech still makes it suppressed tech) or if it is something entirely new; or they may ignore any new tech by simply saying “Peter” and letting his mythos cover any discrepancies. Also I’m not sure that Palindra is the main nearby habitable world where Central has influence, as we haven’t had any “Word of God” on this issue and the HQ oversight director’s comment about having “more than a hundred nations” to look over makes it even more unlikely that Palindra is viewed as anything special.
That said, your comment about them being “wild dogs that can’t be contained” is completely accurate. That is, afterall, the reason why both Aaron and Biana were shuffled away to this “backwater” planet in the first place.
I think they all feel the biggest long term troublemaker is Peter, and felt that since months before chapter 0 started. Which, personally, I feel is a bit ironic, because he seems to me to be more of a trouble finder than a trouble maker. That said, I’ve frequently seen people getting blamed for making the trouble they found, even when it was clear they had no ability to make it.
That said, I disagree with the assertion that Peter made it his job to be the JJE of magical abuse by Central’s best mages. He isn’t their judge, their jury, or their executioner. He’s just their Light of Day. He doesn’t kill, sentence, convict, or even apprehend. He used to be present for apprehending, back when he was official, but it was mostly Kally who did the apprehending part
My guess is that the gate scanning tech is something that normally probes from a single spot. It’s a fairly noisy device, as it essentially operates blindly. Because of that blind operation, it basically works a bit like a radar scanner, and if it’s to complete its probes of the area around where it is quickly enough to spot all of the gates in that area, the area it’s checking needs to be pretty small. Peter noted that when a gate is open, the weather on the other side of the gate interacts with the weather on this side of the gate. Unless the gate is completely enclosed/underground, and that includes all of the secondary and tertiary gate effects that most people don’t pay any attention to, this shows up on weather satellites. Based on that additional information, the actual gate detector doesn’t need to check everything in every direction. It just needs to check a few hundred or thousand individual spots to determine whether the weather disturbance is a gate or a localized spell.
If that guess is right, from the perspective of the people at Central, it appears to be a very different gate detection, once they figure out how to detect the gate detection. It’s sending the same kind of probe as their gate detection, but it’s just sending that probe directly at their gate. Every so often they may pick up stray probes around their gate and other areas, but it’s far quieter in Eidos than their detector.
Thinking about it further, if I’m right about what’s different about Peter’s detector and theirs, the one missing element for AVon + Levenworth to be able to build such a thing on their own, as far as Central is concerned, would be someone with Magnolia’s capabilities, someone good at spying, and someone who knew weather satellites, specifically how to recognize unexpected disturbances they see.
Of course, Central doesn’t know about the possibility of someone like Magnolia even existing, per Peter.
As far as more than 100 nations… how many nations do you think are on this planet? How special do you think we are? Of course, you’re right – there could be as many as a few dozen other worlds that Central has their eyes on. If they do have a situation of having a world with a population of roughly a billion, which has been bombed to the point of being long term viable for mere millions, probably all of their focus is on looking at every viable world, which would include having habitat construction ongoing on every uninhabited but otherwise viable world they’ve found, regardless of how impractical and unfeasible those efforts are – because, at the bare minimum, they can provide homes for the people working those efforts, which is something.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, it isn’t Peter who is the JJE for magical abuse, it is Kali’s brother Nathan Summers. From what I understand that is what the “Eboron’s Warden” title is for (as referred to when Nathan was hunting down Atter).
As for the “Hundred Nations” thing, I took my que from the map to say that it seems there would be no more than a few dozen nations sizable enough to matter on Palindra, though even that doesn’t make it clear if the director is only managing those nations where Central has a presance or every “civilized” nation on the planet. I was leaning toward the first, but even if it is the secord this would mean that the director is overseeing more than one planet. Regardless the director was speaking as though his “over a hundred” number was a lot, so I’ll assume that the others aren’t going to just roll his eyes at that.
My original theory was that the weather satalites were a smokescreen to connect to MIUM’s subrutines which would send the data through them. With the announcement that Peter is going to pass out the info about dimentional travel, however, that explanation seems much less likely.
Since all the gates seem to be indoors it seems less likely that the results of dimentional travel are actual weather effects (though it is possible) but I am thinking that it is just something that the satellites can pick up incidentally with the right way of looking at their info. Perhaps the satellites can pick up Psions spreading in a certain formation or there is a slight curvature of space (and therfore light) when one is open? I’m looking forward to the explanation of interdimentional travel to explain a few things.
Oh, re-reading that, it was my fault for misunderstanding what you said. I’m not actually doing all that great right now. Yes, Nathan does seem to be a JJE, though I have the feeling that only really applies with those who resist arrest. Of course, if they don’t resist arrest at all, he doesn’t get involved. But there’s a sliver of a window there that some could take advantage of. “Oh, the Warden’s onto me? OK, I quit. You got me.”
I get the feeling that doesn’t happen much.
I guess since the Palindra map we’ve vaguely resembles a map of Asia, I’ve imagined it as more or less a quarter of Palindra, rather than global. Also, Malsa is referred to as a tiny country, but if physics are the same (we know they’re not, so this is a bad assumption, but I still make it), and that’s practically a full world map despite the left and bottom edge issues, Malsa is fricking huge.
I’ve read quite a few stories where opening up gateways between worlds has a rather larger effect than is intended. That said, I can only cite two sources for this idea: Barbara Hambly’s Windrose Chronicles and Dr Who story 177a, “Army of Ghosts”. Now, most of these sorts of stories feature gate opening mechanics with relatively small ripple effects like in Barbara Hambly’s the Silent Tower, and pinpointing where the gate is would be a bit difficult with ripple effects on Army of Ghosts scales, but I felt I had to mention it, because I’ve not really talked with many people who had encountered any of the books in the Windrose Chronicles. That said, seeing how many she has listed on her Wikipedia page, I’m guessing she’s a lot more well known in circles I haven’t really encountered.
I was assuming the same about the size of the world, that all we were seeing was a area the size of asia. The issue with the RW count is that the RW is skewed. First there is the problem of Europe (with it’s many small “countries” that have no borders, no individual militaries capable of holding off outsiders, and share a number of governing organizations that preside over the lot of them; almost as though it was actually one country with a lot of self-governing states), then there is the issue with how many “countries” that are little more than a single city, and the fact that colonialism is essentially dead due to the presance of an outside force that is literally powerful enough to take on half the world by itself. The Real World situation that allows there to be so many nations is just plain weird.
I think that when they talk about Malsa as a “tiny country” they are talking about it in terms of world politics and military power and possibly economics. Their only real defense is the family mages, which is a horrible offense because it leaves the nation vulnerable if they are ever mobalized (which was a major issue for why they couldn’t attack until Resh was focused on Orin rather than being open to a Malsa campaign). It would be like how people would say that North Korea is a tiny nation even though you wouldn’t be as likely to say the same about South Korea; despite the fact that North Korea is 25% larger than South Korea.
It is true, there really is no way to know what effects would happen from opening a portal. My favorite theory strongly depends on what it means for worlds to be seperate in that maybe one “world” can use magic better than another. In that case the “mixing” or “bleedover” between worlds when a opening was made could have very extreme results. We just don’t have enough information yet to know. I am very interested in knowing what the author thinks about it in his universe, though.
Sigh. I missed a speech bubble at the end there. Director Jakim’s final statement could be taken too ways. While I feel like I’ve more frequently seen that sort of statement being made to complain about how annoying someone is, Marilyn personally knows him, so I’ll readily take her word that he meant it the other way.