Comic for Monday, January 27th, 2019
Well, I know we are a bit behind the ball here in January, which isn’t per se how I wanted to start the year, but at least we aren’t missing any comics yet. Hopefully now that I’m back from travel and what not, things will pick up a bit, buffers will be repaired, etc. Got some stuff from Patreon wants the ducks are a bit more in the row, but not sure firm ETA for getting things finished.
Kally has been showing some frustration at being at Levenworth today. We usually see only really see the grumpy side of Kally, but the Red Dragon Witch isn’t buried all that deep in there.
As for Peter, well… it seems rain tends to make him act uncharacteristically melancholy sometimes… or maybe rain just happens to coincide with thing that he isn’t all that happy about.
Wonder what’s got Tyler’s computer all worked up? Seems like a lot notifications…
Loading ...
Something’s going on in Peter’s viscinity and he doesn’t already know every implication of it!? RUN! This is WAY above anybody’s pay grade!
You sure about that? How convenient that Peter happens to be in an unsecured building…during a war…while MYM is down… and just happens to be next to a terminal that could alert him of something important.
Peter is all about calculated risk. We see the risk in this comic. I suspect we’re going to see the ‘calculated’ part of calculated risk in the next comic.
I think a lot of Peter’s omniscience comes from MYM, and MYM has been “offline” for awhile. Peter on I think is very good at predicting what people will do, but without MYM’s information feed, I don’t think he necessary knows what everyone is doing. That sort of split attention is an AI signature.
I’m going to go with a solid maybe on that. MYM has been down…maybe an hour? We’ve had a large number of comics, but most are simultaneous threads. Let’s put it this way: Ila just finished rescuing Arkady. That’s how much actual time has passed in the comic.
A portal opening would be something that MYM would have discussed with Peter. Which would explain why Peter happens to be standing beside what probably is the least-secured terminal connected to the government network in charge of tracking portals.
Poor Peter. He had to go to the least-secured terminal instead of showing up in the CEO office of said government agency. 🙂
Why would this be the least secured terminal?
Peter has official MSB status. It seems to me that it’s most likely a rather secure terminal, as terminals in MSB headquarters go. It’s just one that Peter has access to.
Now, the question is, why isn’t Peter actually actively using it?
– It could be he doesn’t want Kally to see what is on it.
– It could be eye strain. For some reason, this particular possbility resonates with me right now. Incidentally, if this response has an increase in typos from my usual, it’s due to me not actually looking at the screen for some reason.
– He’s already given the computer enough to do, and he’s determined that the best way to facilitate the computer actually performing the tasks that he most wants it to do, the best thing he can do is stop giving it more work to do. My laptop empathizes with this one.
– He actually likes looking at the rain. It’s a common thing with people with autism, and he does show a few signs of that.
– He actually did reactivate the implant because M.Y.M. was down and he felt the risk of him getting hacked by a Kor’s World SMAI was less than the risk of him getting squashed by one of the many other factions that wants his hide.
– Typing break.
– PastUtopia specifically asked him to stop with the computer, and lock the screen with a very basic screen saver, so that he didn’t need to draw the computer screen.
I love your last possibility! 🙂
Also, when I refer to terminal security, I tend to think of hardware, software, and meatware. So yes, this terminal is the least secured. Because it’s not in a building full of government officials with security guards and nosey cubical neighbors.
Oh, crud! I somehow missed the first part of your post. Wow, you’re right. Peter IS Tyler’s replacement. I forgot. …So why is Peter at school? Suddenly, nothing makes sense!
I think he’s at a school because the MSB headquarters is at Levenworth. Which means this still could be a building full of government officials with security guards. But no nosey cubical neighbors, because cube farms aren’t secure.
Why is Peter in the middle of Central and Malsa and not somewhere else? I think they each of something that he needs for his overall game plan. I think Peter wants Central to have an upper hand against invasions in the future, Kor’s World or otherwise, and wants Central to stop acting exactly like Kor’s World by invading/colonizing/looting neighbors in their own interest. The diplomacy and duplicity seems to rub him the wrong way (haha). Since Kor’s World came and went, it seems unlikely they’d come back to central, so why is Peter so interested in tech and abilities that could be used defensively or offensively? I wonder if this is where Atter and his demon-kind muddy the water. How do Atter, Ervon, the I.D.S., and Kor’s World all relate? Is Peter afraid that the demons are what Kor’s World was running from, and they left with the I.D.S. signed them on? Loving the rich layers of the tapestry that is this comic.
Well, here is a thought. Tyler’s computer is very likely hooked up to the Dimension Gate Detector. Unlike Peter, Tyler would probably have relied on the computer physically alerting him for a gate opening.
I agree the computer’s alerts are probably not M.Y.M. and gate detection alerts make sense, especially with everything that just happened.
Panel 1, what Ms. Summers says…
So… Peter has a brain implant, much like the one in Miko? Except, for some reason, the one in Peter has been deactivated? Intentionally? Was it deactivated by the military folks because it was military hardware (and too dangerous or difficult to remove)? Was it deactivated because it was defective or has serious side effects?
The suggestion here is that Peter may distrust implants because they’re hackable: http://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-thursday-april-20th/
Ah, well, that makes sense, especially if Peter knows an SAI like M.Y.M. can hack an implant. Imagine if there was another SAI out there in the world, similar to Mium. (Actually, it sounds like Kor’s World also uses SAI. And I get the impression that Peter worries about Kor’s World.)
I’m not sure that the implant is “much like the one in Miko”. That is possible, but I think it is too soon tell. I think a lot of people from Central have some degree of cybernetics.
I think Miko more likely had an experimental auto-caster implant, based on the fact that we know it was called “AC. Comp. ASSIST. IMPL. 0003”, which others have speculated (reasonable) stands for “AutoCaster Computational[or Computer] Assistance Implant”, combined with the fact that it has what looks like a unit number of 3 means it was probably an extremely limited or early test.
I can see a lot of reasons why Peter would disable any sort of implant he had though. Even if he trusts Mium explicitly, he and Miko seem to have a philosophical disagreement about being tied into AI directly.
Personally, I’m guessing that Peter’s implant might be called something like AC. Comp. ASSIST. IMPL. 0002″
It would work well to support his assertion that turning their children into weapons is a Kepler family tradition.
Edit: I’m also not entirely convinced that he leaves it disabled 100% of the time.
Kally does seem to imply that Peter stares off at nothing relatively frequently in the past, given that she expresses familiarity with this habit.
Mium himself has a similar habits (watching blank TVs, staring off into nothing from on top of a building).
This seems like it might be fairly consistent behavior for having multiple data inputs.
On the other hand, Peter does have quite a few reasons to be skeptical of implants, considering what seems to have happened to Miko.
He also uses his phone to check MIUM’s data feed. If he was hooked up to the internet (or even just the equivilent of some mundane TV station) with his brain then there would be no need for the phone at all.
I believe the translation of “Bing! Bing! Bing!” (etc.) is “Pay attention to me!”
Mium would be my bet.
p.s. I presume that it is not worth your while to edit your comments to change “wants the ducks” to “once the ducks.” I was trying to picture why Patreon wants the ducks, but failed.
panel 2: “and here i thought you were the very model of professional discipline.”
Fixed, thanks 🙂
Panel 2, bubble 1:were [the] very
Panel 5, bubble 1:is [it] you
Fixed, thanks 🙂
I don’t know what you changed or what it looked like before. However, the issue Stacts pointed out in Panel 2, bubble 1 is still present. It should read:
“Impatient? And here I thought you were the very model of professional discipline.” In other words, it is still missing a “the” between “were” and “very”.
I dunno what I fixed either at this point. Fixed, maybe?
Not making any promises at this point 🙂