Comic for Monday, July 11th
Well, I’m back in the country and that means we once again have comic updates!
The lighting from the door is admittedly a tad weird. It’s one of those things were the writer is like “it’s super dark but there is light coming from the door” and the artist was like “???”. Yup, that’s how this comic gets made… 😀
It seems our pale husk fellow can indeed talk. Sort of. What do we think he’s up to?
Rambling:
I think one of things that is perhaps as relevant to a comic as the art or writing is the editing (and not the can-you-grammar kind, that’s what I have you guys for after all 😉 – but the stitching the story together kind). Probably about a third of the outline never makes it out of the cutting room floor, which I think is the first step to this, but stitching back together what’s left seamlessly I think is the part I find tricky still. As we can tell with this little blurbles I write, brevity and elegance of communication is not my default mode of operation… Makes the comic approach a very real challenge in formatting ideas that would expansive to shove into a book into speech bubbles and a few dubiously rendered pictures 😛
All this is to say, this was really not supposed to be the first time we saw this fellow, but here we are 😉
I’ve started making minor updates the setting information; nothing particularly major, but refined some stuff, expanded some stuff, removed some stuff. How much I leave to the Setting pages as purely optional side content is another one of those editing decisions. I try not to include things that are necessary to read the comic, and conversely try not just dump entirely unrelated stuff there.
Related Comics:
- Where we first saw this fellow. It is suggested this fellow pre-dates Mir’s attempts at the F series prototypes.
- Where we last saw this fellow. It seemed he was being ignored.
- The symbol floating in the air, I think we’ve seen that before as well.
- How could this possible be relevant to this page?? 😐
Ah, and I updated the sketchbook with art for another fellow webcomic Vatican Assassins (which is currently on hiatus, but you can view here). Read a webcomic you think is awesome and that you think should be subjected to my drawing skills? Feel free to make a suggestion! With this one I’ve cleared out most of what I remember of my to-do list.
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It’s back it’s back it’s back! \^^/
Welcome back! Mium[computer-version] is probably here to watch over Miko? But how did not-Mium know he was there? Maybe Mium [computer version] is always in this lab if this is his old lab? But Mir probably would have turned it off in that case.
It is indeed back. Welcome back to you too.
Mium can definitely be in multiple places even at the normal-ist of times. Things like taking over Mir’s lab takes a wee bit more effort allocated processing then just running another interface.
Mir has not been highly successful in de-M.Y.M.ifying computers, and is probably* not willing to destroy hardware. Much.
Panel 3: “And it should be safe in… ah, His… lab for now.”
Interesting. I’m thinking that either MIR has forbidden her colleagues from mentioning her predecessor’s name, or this guy is smart enough not to use Dr. Martin’s name because it would cause her to rant or get upset. And I think the latter is more likely.
I would imagine it’s a sort of unofficial rule among the more easily intimidated colleagues. The likes of Gate was pretty casual in talking about Martin, and the name itself doesn’t usually set her off, but it’s easy to see where some of the fellows would get the impression that it did, and would steer clear just in case. 😉
This fellow seems fairly cautious all things considered.
Interesting. If a model as late as F5 seems to be only semi-sentient, there was a pretty big leap between 5 and 8. Mium at 8 can be a little weird, but is capable of passing as a human easily and well beyond.
It’s interesting that it would go to M.Y.M. for help. Clearly it doesn’t consider M.Y.M. a traitor or rogue. Either it doesn’t know or understand, or things not influenced by Mir don’t see him as such.
This also makes me incredibly curious what F9 was; if Ila is F10 and Mium is F8, was F9 made by Mir or by Martin? Is it more advanced Mium or less advanced Ila?
Mium might be the reason F8 is so different then F5. I think Mium might have been after market for the prototype so to speak. he may even have hijacked the original F8.
Progress is not always a linear thing, particularly with the prototypes, and F8’s circumstances were a little different.
It’s a good question if F8 was Martin’s last version! 😐
Welcome back! ^^
So that’s F5? And for all it’s flaws, it’s more of a real AI than anything Mir has done? No wonder she keeps it around even while threatening Ila with disassembly! It’s the best piece of Dr. Martin’s tech that Mir still has her hands on, probably thanks to someone we know. ^^
And I can’t say Dr. Martin’s name without thinking of shoes.) 😀
Maybe when we see Dr. Martin he’ll be wearing pair? ^^
To be fair, I’m fairly certain the one that claimed it was better then anything Mir had made was Miko; while Miko may perhaps the most tech savvy person we’ve met, fair and impartial may not appear on the resume.
Communicating is not really F5’s strong suit.
“Communicating is not really F5’s strong suit.”
If we’re talking about being weak in social skills, the same might be said for Miko, Mium and Peter. And I think it’s safe to say Dr. Mir is a bit lacking in that department. Also, from what we’ve seen, Gate, Jayce Myer and Agent Summers often seem to be people of few words. (Not entirely sure about Agent Summers. But it would probably help explain how she got along so well with Peter back when they worked together.)
There are some characters who are clearly sociable, though. We haven’t seen a lot of Saria, but she seems normal enough and good at her job, which is dealing with people. Arron also seems normal enough. Rovak strikes me as someone who might talk your ear off, as long as he’s not trying to kill you. Actually… he might still try to talk your ear off, even while maintaining a smile. ^_^
Valid points 😀 Communication specialists are in short supply aren’t they.
I’d say Jayce is more or less normal, we just usually only see him when someone is trying to kill him 😛
Mium can be better at acting normal then he usually is. He has bad influences though between Miko and Peter 🙁 He can also do a lot worse at acting normal… 😐
Miko and Peter are just sort of lost causes.
Tyler is pretty sane, all things considered. In fact, comparatively his group is rampant with normal, sane, people, with the likely exception of Marc 😛 though we haven’t seen his group that much, really.
That said… F5’s problem is less weak social skills and more… a bit of a disconnect between how he thinks and words, I suppose.
To be fair:
Social skills are not usually a job requirement for scientists, data miners, hackers (i.e., cybersecurity specialists), “troubleshooters”, military types, and mercs.
Also, some types of jobs can change a person. For example: From what I’ve heard, burnout is common among social workers.
And I think prototype androids and AI have a good excuse. They don’t have the benefit of decades of learned social behavior.
A few loose screws probably is helpful for most of those professions too… 😉
Plus most of the cast we’ve seen have been doing not-so-normal stuff for awhile, and half of them aren’t all that old. Probably doesn’t help in the normal social skills department 😛