Comic for Monday, July 5th, 2021
Saldur is a fairly dangerous enemy, but was heavily disadvantaged with Mium there, to the point where it’s not really much of a fight. As was alluded to with Sophie, a null caster is sort of the worst case scenario in what would otherwise by a construct based fight, and Mium’s ability exceeds the IDS Nullcaster’s (and Saldur’s wouldn’t be up to Sophie’s level for that matter). The best tactic to defend against that is to keep a particularly good booster around, but Daelia was tied up and taken out by Ila.
This page is probably a little confusing, but we’ve seen before characters that don’t die when killed very well. Saldur is not the same as Atter, but there’s a similar thread in both cases. It was implied by Ashvalt way back here that he was under the impression he’d killed Saldur before, it just didn’t stick. That said, that event left a bit more room for ambiguity (to Ashvalt and the other families) and they just assumed Saldur was less fatally wounded than it had seemed. Only Saraine of the other Family heads we’ve seen would know in depth about Saldur’s various secrets, but Elliana knows much more about “spirits” than most of them, having been taught by Tefzarin, and being somewhat more perceptive than he’d realized, and has recently come across a very well informed “cousin” who is as helpful as suits his needs when it comes to unraveling certain mysteries.
This is sort of the basis of Saldur’s confidence, but in particular, that he tends to be a bit underhanded, and people tend to let the guard down somewhat when they think they’ve killed you.
I’ve also noted that Eliana’s inconsistent speaking pattern is mostly a difference in how I render it. She always speaks. In a somewhat halting manner. Though. Sometimes more so. Than others. That said. The difference is not nearly. As big as I tend to render the difference. By just not including it. Sometimes. I think I will more consistently render it. Though. As otherwise. It is too confusing. That said. I’ve said that before. And didn’t. So I end up. Making this note. Each time. I just. Go back and forth. About how annoying. It is. To render it. This way.
Loading ...
PastUtopia,
Does Eliana have advanced COPD? That would cause shortness of breath effecting speech and being unable to walk. I think she did stand once in an earlier strip but I may be hallucinating.
Eliana’s problems are a little similar to that – she’ll get much worse when stressed or having to exert effort (part of the reason she tends to always lack affect, though only part of the reason there), but they aren’t specifically that condition. Her ailment is more in the control than physical restriction, though she is somewhat frail in health as a result.
Any clue why the wiki and character sections of the site are down? Everything else seems to work except those.
The character piece is on the wiki domain, and I think Past has run into issues again with ne’er do wells. As a side effect, I think that domain is currently off line.
That sucks. But at least it seems to be a known issue. Hopefully it isn’t too much a pain to fix.
Judging from person experience in similar issues, the first time is a pain. The second time too, but not so bad. The 3rd time you start to feel confident. By the 12th time, it’s always a pain. You know what to do, but it is a Sisyphus style torture.
She started stuttering.
I hope this means she is just distracted while doing something else important.
When i start stuttering it is usually because i am too distraught.
I’m… I’m amazed Mium couldn’t Null Saldur’s soul jumping or whatever.
I would assume the spirit jump would need to either be a truly instant spell, already cast, or it would be something cast once Saldur was an unbound spirit. The first of those is probably impossible to Null. The second may be hard to perceive well enough to Null. The last of those probably follows its own rules and Mium would need to learn how to Null it.
That said, he’s a quick study, so just by watching Eliana attempt to follow Saldur’s spirit, Mium has probably learned how to do it, and quickly enough to ensure that the attempt succeeds.
You’re assuming it’s a spell Saldur has to cast. Perhaps it is more like a law of physics: gravity means stuff falls downwards; inertia means stuff moving likes to keep moving (and stuff not moving likes to stay not moving); & an anchored ‘soul’ means the soul will return when unbound from whatever it is currently bound to.
So Saldur has worked out how to anchor his ‘soul’ to something from which he is capable of regrowing from?
I think that’s reasonable.
I’m thinking maybe it’s a frequent backup sort of thing. His death only needs to trigger the reinstantiation process.
The trick then is to discover where that backup (multiple backups?) are being stored. Next time destroy the backups and THEN destroy Saldur.
This reminds me a lot of the interaction with Rovak. Frankly Saldur’s ability reminds me a lot of Rovak. Saldur has been around a while. So has Rovak. I wonder how much there is in common at the fundamental levels of their respective immortalities.
Saldur being *literally* a lich would explain many things 😀
It’s a shame we don’t know if Past has any interest in D&D, and whether he may have drawn inspiration from… oh wait!
Presumably the spell to recreate Saldur from backup was cast previously and elsewhere, and thus only really needs is confirmation that Saldur is definitively dead, preferably it should also transfer memories from after last backup. Mium probably could null the last memories transfer. But if Saldur performed a save backup while they were in the elevator and had a short dead man time out, that would not accomplish much.
Mium chose instead to insert trace code into Eliana’s construct. Where with the knowledge that the spirits of old could do that, Eliana’s key could fix any holes in the trace programing.
That also explains what Saldur could do if he understood what he was facing. He could abort the last memories transfer portion of the spell and just lose memories of the battle and whatever time he felt appropriate to maintain as a timeout interval.
I wander if Mium and Eliana let Ila HVW Saldur’s respawn point.
I doubt it’s as simple as a “death confirmation”. I suspect it has something to do with Shinoji Project and/or the need for Eidos Keys.
Saldur would need to transfer his Eidos Key from his current body (now dead) to his new body… so maybe he keeps a factory full of cloned bodies (like Rei from Neon Genesis (that always creeped me out)): but they’re just blank shells without Eidos Key. The transferal of the Eidos Key probably carries his memories too. IF Saldur anchors his Eidos Key / memories (“soul”?) to his next body (using a spell!) then there is no need for death confirmation: the “soul” (Eidos Key, memories, etc) will go back to the anchor. This works nicely with the way Malsan’s talk about “spirits”. It’s only because of Mium that we think of save points and versioning: I doubt Malsans consider such things (their Magic is really awesome: the people with Magic and Technology are either from Central or Kors World).
Because Saldur LOOKS the same, I kind of jumped at the idea of regeneration/regrowing from something. But I kind of forgot about designer children… we don’t really know how they’re created! I did assume genetic selection at the embryonic stage… we can sort of do that for some genetic conditions already: but hey, maybe they’re grown in vat (like an alpha-plus in A Brave New World). Of course, a factory full of blank clones is rather difficult to conceal… a secret room (or cave) with a special pool of material to regrow from (sort of like The Flesh in Dr Who?) is probably easier to conceal.
Anyway, I’m totally rambling now: I very much look forward to the next page!
So he’s a lich then?
Maybe. He looked a bit too healthy to be a lich, but maybe he was just especially good with keeping up appearances.
In any event, there’s multiple ways to pull off the whole ‘dies and then is not dead’ trick. For example, the way Oasis of Sluggy Freelance did it. Only a few of them result in one being an ‘undead’ creature.
The main ones we’ve seen do it in this comic are Atter and Dr Martin — and Atter is a demon, Dr Martin is some sort of hybrid of human and red construct. It’s plausible to think Saldur is doing something similar (I see Past mentioned Atter). Speaking of Atter, dragons, and jealousy, Fluffy didn’t seem to have a lot of trouble tracking Atter, wonder if that’s similar to what the hound is doing.
I don’t know that we’ve ruled out Dr Martin having become a demon.
The theories of demonic origin haven’t been exhaustively explored. Perhaps a sufficiently advanced AI can become a demon. Perhaps a sufficiently advanced mage can become a demon. Or become an AI?
We don’t even have a definition of a demon and it’s possible there’s disagreement in-setting; the Kor’s world trooper called Fluffy a demon. My impression is that demons are Eidos constructs (possibly the Eidos equivalent of a SMAI) that were never human (but can be usefully anchored by a human).
Don’t lick the lich.
I think… James… T… Kirk… was her… speech coach. 😉
I sort of wonder how powerful Mium’s prototypes really are. Like if he set his mind to it, would other mages have any real chance against him?
Have you ever seen any of the DC comics where Batman has made a list of how all the members of the Justice League and Justice Society could be killed or rendered harmless if they ever became a threat to society. In one of them, Batman even stated that he had a plan to take himself down if the need arose. This would be by insuring that the other members of the Justice League had the weapons and knowledge required. In the Marvel Universe, Professor Xavier had written similar files for use against the X-men. Since Mium has developed plans for all contingencies, he probably has collected similar data for all of the characters we have seen so far.
According to a few comments in the stories, the only thing preventing Mium from wiping out a few cities and possibly continents is the set of rules written by Peter and Mium that are enforced by Mium upon himself. If Peter ever removed those rules, Mium might be capable of destroying the entire planet. Note that one of the rules is that Mium is not allowed to have military grade weapons.
Given his encyclopedic knowledge of everything, his ability to nullify magic, and his knowledge of weapons and how to obtain them, there are very few able to stop Mium. For those few he could not confront directly, he probably has plans that would trick hus enemies into destroying themselves.
It’s a bit of a complicated question. There’s a significant difference between one of Mium’s prototypes and the full undivided attention of his whole system.
Comparing the full undivided attention of his system to a single individual is a little unfair anyway though, it’d be hard to say his full system is an individual.
Mium’s prototypes operating on their own aren’t that dangerous in principle (compared to the very top end of mages) – they are just exceedingly good null casters with some extra tricks, but he has weak points. While Peter claims he lets Naomi win at sports on purpose, she is stronger and faster than his prototypes – a mage like Daelia would be too. That doesn’t necessarily mean he cannot win if he sets his mind to it though, as he has a near pathological aversion to the idea of fighting fair.
Panel 8: “Where he goes when HE dies…”
I assume that the disjoint comments about “The Hound of the Hunt” and its bite suggests that by its bite, it becomes able to track its prey, which would be a clever spirit, indeed!
A conversation between Eliana and Kirk could. be. annoying.
The bit of digital data attached to the lower jaw of the construct in panel 3 and the bit of blood red digital data visible in panel 4 indicate that if that was not the case then Mium added it in.
You always were the weirdest kid …