Apologies this comes a week late. Was already running late on the comic last week, than lost power all day, and lost a good hour or two of work in the process.
This comic has the stylistic choice of not showing the full face of any character; that wasn’t a decision to hide the identity of the character or to save time drawing, but because its a recounting of events, I wanted the characters to seem more distant and harder to read, representing the ‘just the facts’ accounting of the timeline, that makes it more fuzzy how much of the character actions are performative, just as the people recounting the events aren’t sure.
I think if I was doing it again, I wouldn’t do that for the characters recounting the story, just the characters being recounted, but I only came that decision in the later stages and sure as hell wasn’t going to redraw it, so it is what it is.
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Nice verb tenses there.
Most of what the guy delivering the report says, is historic present tense. Now and then it slips into past tense (“he said”, “we identified”, “none attempted”, “he smiled”, etc). In one case mixing present and past in one line: “As the agents are leaving, the foreign dignitary shouted after them”.
The guy getting the report starts out in past tense (“what reason did she give”, “her bodyguards didn’t interfere”). Then he slips into present tense for an interesting question: “Is special agent Peter Kepler one of her citizens?” Now there’s a clue they know Peter is not history, as they’re not talking about the events in question, but of Peter’s status. ;-P From this point though, he too starts using the historic present (“is Kepler cuffed”, “they have Kepler”, “what does he say”).
It’s such a jumble of historic present and past. Reminds me of every first draft of every thing I’ve ever tried to write in the historic present. And I doubt these two drafted their dialog first. 😉
But it kinda obscures that interesting one, doesn’t it?
He smiled after being shot, or after the trigger was pulled? Big difference between those two.
I didn’t think anyone besides Biana actually wanted Peter dead that much, and she was leaving things in Central to her subordinates. My bet is Hanson was actually in a different hallway hearing orders to wait. Then a Peter illusion is the one that attempted a failed assassination.
Maintaining an illusory dead body for a large amount of time would be difficult. Though if they do think Peter is dead, that’s going to give the Council tons of leverage, and upset the councilor greatly. Even if those two don’t actually believe he’s dead.
I’ve seen some comments about whether Peter or Agent Hanson are fakes. But I’m wondering if they’re both real at this point, and that is the point Kepler was trying to make to IDS.
The fact that there can be a description of Agent Hanson pulling the trigger, and Peter’s reaction is to smile would suggest that Agent Hanson’s weapon did not go off at all. Likely due to Mium’s ability to predict and create situations.
‘Seven people watching Kepler’s apartment, and every single one became distracted by different events at the exact same time, assuming that their single distraction could not cause loss of surveillance of the apartment.’
With only visual confirmation of events, it’s not like they could go back to recordings and see Peter smile in the split second between the trigger being pulled and the weapon actually discharging.
I think Peter has just showed IDS command that they have major internal issues that need to be addressed, probably so they can become more useful to Peter. A trusted agent, who obviously had enough command of the capture operation to change it on the fly, if not in total command, modified the operation for the sole purpose of attempting to assassinate Peter.
Now IDS command has a whole host of issues presented to them. What other infiltrations at what levels have occurred? Which outside agency attempted to use the IDS as the scapegoats for killing Peter and what don’t they want him to reveal?
I’m guessing the next comic will show how all of the chaos this attempted assassination caused allowed them to lose custody of Peter.
That’s an option for sure, and I agree it’s possible the gun did not fire. I just don’t see why Hansen would do it. Executing Peter so blatantly is the kind of thing which results in a trial for murder.
Biana herself pulling the trigger probably couldn’t get away scott free, and she wasn’t really involved in the meeting.
Either way, this makes the IDS look terrible. At the least, whoever is directing this debriefing is ordering people to look into exactly why Peter is a citizen. Potentially exposing things to an entirely different IDS faction.
My guess, someone just destroyed a shell that “Query” was driving and Peter never left Malsa
Text after panel 8? should say “he WAS wearing mana suppressing cuffs.
typo, below panel 8: He was earing -> wearing
Past, No apologies are necessary. I didn’t think about no faces being shown until you mentioned it. Excellent comic as usual. The abundance of text in the new format makes for a more interesting story line.
Just according to keikaku. But what does appearing to be arrested and summarily executed in a maintenance hallway accomplish? Where’s the real Peter? And what does his choice of method to not actually be the one getting shot mean? That last oen hasn’t been shown, but there’s no way in hell the real Peter is getting shot in a way that matters. Not on purpose and not as part of his own plan. The fact that he’s got a proverbial arm tied behind his back with the cuffs is incredibly suspicious.
Part of why Peter’s plans are hard to unravel is that he is never doing just one thing. In this case, he is doing at least three things, and probably more:
#1) He is making Alex Fairway (the council member) pissed off at the IDS. Alex Fairway was already going to be pissed the IDS barged in and arrested someone he invited (because it makes him look bad), but that person being killed in custody makes it a hundred times worse.
#2) He is giving the Consul leverage. He basically told her to play up the fact he got arrested and to kick up a fuss. It will be much harder to appease her demands when one of her delegates got arrested and shot, even if it was a sham.
#1 and #2 are more or less what he said he is doing, but beyond that is speculative, and digs into why Peter bothered to do any of this in the first place. If I had to guess, #3 is that Peter wants to make the IDS look bad. Barging into a diplomatic summit, arresting someone, and having that person executed in custody is going to be extremely hard to explain.
It has seemingly been one of Peter’s goals to reign in the IDS acting like… exactly how they acted here. The IDS acts like they are untouchable, and Peter is now rubbing that in the face of the people in Central, causing the IDS’s heavy handed tactics to collide with the other branches of power in a public and embarrassing way.
This could be in relation to Kyle Kepler, who seems to have somewhat similar goals, or it could just be part of Peter’s other plans. It seems pretty likely that Peter intentionally broke Malsa out of IDS control, and as soon as it was outside of the IDS control, Peter started this resettlement operation. It certainly appears like Peter is trying to break the stranglehold of IDS authority.
If I was going to speculate, I would guess there is someone in the IDS that Peter wanted to arrest, but proved to be untouchable. That seems very plausible given that we have seen people like Biana and Sophie largely get away with murder and attempted war crimes. Peter, being Peter, decided break the IDS. He might have some greater plan or reason though.
I think Peter made a backup copy of himself in a body like Vium’s, and *that* is who we are going to know as Peter for the rest of the story. Because if Original peter is slain like this with the IDS assuming that it will get rid of his plots, but peter has a Backup of himself of the nature that Miko has on the Avon Mainframe, then the factions in the IDS against him have cost themselves massive political influence and leverage, for no gain at all. On *top* of this, it’s likely he can leverage this to get his family to respect Miko’s wishes on the subject of the transhumanism, even if they can no longer *stop* her.
I understand why you might think that and your reasoning is sound as far as it goes.
But I don’t think Peter is ready to give up human-corporeal existence at this time. Too much fun to be had with Kally!
I think Special Agent Hanson was unreal and used to stage a fake assassination of Peter, which will give the Consul lots ot cause for swinging her weight around, while giving Peter some room to cause mayhem while he is missing and presumed dead.
Was it really Peter? I’m skeptical. They should be, too.
Agreed. Special Agent Hanson was the hologram in this apparent assination attempt. Peter switched up his tactics this time, Last time, the Consul hologram was “assinated”.
option three, Peter never got cuffed; they thought they cuffed an illusion good enough that they essentially handed him a set of cuffs, which are needed for step seven of a backup plan that won’t come into the plot for another in-setting month, waste not, want not