Comic for Monday, June 6th, 2022
Jun07
on June 7, 2022
at 7:31 am
Comic! Pretty sure it’s Monday somewhere, so I’m counting it.
Polls
2023 Santa Hat Poll - Who will claim the Christmas Crown this year?
- Kally Summers (9%, 32 Votes)
- Ila (8%, 28 Votes)
- Naomi Atarah (8%, 28 Votes)
- Miko (6%, 22 Votes)
- Fluffy (6%, 22 Votes)
- Miko's Avatar (6%, 19 Votes)
- The Consul (5%, 18 Votes)
- Avi Atarah (5%, 16 Votes)
- Mari Kepler (4%, 14 Votes)
- Doctor Mir (3%, 11 Votes)
- Mium (2%, 8 Votes)
- Peter Kepler (2%, 8 Votes)
- Lisa (2%, 7 Votes)
- Rovak Stas (2%, 7 Votes)
- Arron Kepler (2%, 6 Votes)
- Kyle Kepler (2%, 6 Votes)
- Camilla Canthi (2%, 6 Votes)
- Amy Selah (1%, 5 Votes)
- Magnolia Dai (1%, 5 Votes)
- Tamara (1%, 5 Votes)
- Nathan (1%, 5 Votes)
- Shitty Demon (1%, 5 Votes)
- Maia Ethi (1%, 4 Votes)
- Ashvalt Ardunni (1%, 4 Votes)
- Saria (1%, 4 Votes)
- Ashley Thomas (1%, 4 Votes)
- Artem Arduni (1%, 4 Votes)
- Alex (1%, 3 Votes)
- Arkady Arduni (1%, 3 Votes)
- Tyler Weber (1%, 3 Votes)
- Atter (1%, 3 Votes)
- Elizabeth (1%, 3 Votes)
- Ryn Koko (1%, 3 Votes)
- Toshe (1%, 2 Votes)
- Doctor Martin (1%, 2 Votes)
- Ricci (1%, 2 Votes)
- Frank (1%, 2 Votes)
- Nelson Otte (0%, 1 Votes)
- Regin Enkari (0%, 1 Votes)
- Gate (0%, 1 Votes)
- Jayce Myer (0%, 1 Votes)
- Ikirium Avon (0%, 1 Votes)
- David (0%, 1 Votes)
- Nick Otte (0%, 1 Votes)
- Joid (0%, 1 Votes)
- Yoav Cao (0%, 1 Votes)
- Biana Beyer (0%, 1 Votes)
- Vairlem (0%, 1 Votes)
- Gelon Level (0%, 1 Votes)
- Marc Idunni (0%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 81
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Page will almost certainly be late this week.
Hey Folks – unfortunately I think it’ll be delayed to next week.
As ever, taking care of yourself has to (ought to!) come ahead of any given week’s comic.
We’ll look forward to our next installment in roughly a week. Take care!
Besides, the torches-and-pitchfork thing is a fixture here now…
Was hoping to get it done tonight, but not going happen. Will aim to get the page up tomorrow, but will probably be in the afternoon/evening. I don’t want to miss 2 weeks in a row, so pretty sure it’ll be up.
*puts fresh torches back in the barn for the time being*
Thank you for the update!
My mind went to the wraith twins in Matrix Reloaded. I can hear him say those last two lines in that same detached monotone
“I believe I am annoyed. How curious.”
Ha! That’s a very Data or Spock thing to say. It shows that he does not often experience feelings like annoyance very often.
But does he love scanning for precious little lifeforms?
Mium has a “friends and family” rule. He used it once before to protect his own “sister”, resulting in a mostly offscreen battle where Avon “got smoked”, but Peter said that wasn’t what the family rule was for. By implication, it’s for protecting Peter’s and Naomi’s families.
That might be a deliberate thing, both in and out of universe.
Out of universe, it can create questions and build intrigue as to the mystery behind it.
In-universe, I wouldn’t be surprised if the workings behind Ellipses were a very closely guarded secret taught to only a few individuals (it’s possible that Aaron, Peter and Tom are the *only* users of Ellipses). After all, the more information that got out around this stealth technique, the less effective it would be as people developed intentional counter-measures around it. The only people we’ve seen that have definitely seen past it (with Aaron’s ability to do so being debatable as he could have been bluffing) are Mium, whose is very good at predicting people and is virtually omniscient when it comes to his immediate proximity, and Naomi, who essentially brute-forced it by uber-enhancing her sense after a gut feeling about Tom’s presence.
I just love their naming convention:
An ellipsis (plural: ellipses) is a punctuation mark consisting of three dots. Use an ellipsis when omitting a word, phrase, line, paragraph, or more from a quoted passage. Ellipses save space or remove material that is less relevant.
…like the presence of the person following you.
Difficult to tell.
We know when Arron uses Ellipses, observers are fully aware that someone is there, they are just unable to process who or why in any meaningful fashion. When used on Mium, they are given the belief that Arron is someone else who is supposed to be there; when used on the consul’s guards, the same thing seems to have happened (in that they let Arron just walk right past all of them) and when used on Tom, he resorted to telling anyone who passed to go away, because he couldn’t tell which individual would be Arron.
that said though, Tom himself was tailing Naomi, but she only knew he was there because of his interference field, so possibly not everyone uses Ellipses in the same way, or Tom was using something else?
I think the best hint at how Ellipses works is in this exchange between Peter and Arron: https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-tuesday-june-16th-2019/
… of course, since Peter was letting Arron fill in the blank, he didn’t spell it out … but did Arron start doing just that?
😉
I suspect Naomi was only able to piece together her gut feeling because Peter told Naomi about Ellipses. I also suspect that while it is a fairly closely-held secret, it’s known by a few more people in Criminal Investigations than just those you listed. Emmi was one of them, but unfortunately Atter was likely another person who was able to circumvent it. I could even see his nature possibly making it so that people using Ellipses stood out rather than being harder to see.
Atter might not be able to pierce it normally. Arron had his other arm at that point, which Atter had somehow left a piece of Eidos code or some sort of magical tracker in. It’s worth noting Atter has not seemed to be able to track Arron since he cut his own arm.
Naomi has probably (not) witnessed Peter using ellipsis before.
You know, Mium may not be able to know *all* of his code, but it sounds to me like he suspects that there are hidden triggers that break normal restraints when it comes to protecting some people (if needed). “Mr. IDS Director” possibly being one of those hypothetical people.
I think he’s saying he *MAY* be given permission to kill David if our director here is under serious enough threat. But he doesn’t know for sure.
Mium already has a workaround for his “defect” of not being able to kill. All he needs to do is hand ILA a rock and point to someone. He left a rock in ILA’s hand when fighting Kardus using her body. When ILA repossessed her body she understood Mium’s intentions. ILA blew Kardus to pieces with a hyper velocity rock. Rovak commented there wasn’t enough left of Kardus to put him back together.
Yeah, but the Ila work-around isn’t an option here, because Ila isn’t here. She’s nearby, of course. But deliberately involving her to work around his limitation is more likely to be in breach of his limitations than simply leaving a rock in his hand without really thoroughly investigating the likely consequences.
It’s also probable that leaving a rock in Ila’s hand was a one time exploit. I mean, he’s not going to be inhabiting the F-10 any time soon and it could now be so obvious how that would play out that simply not investigating the probable consequences would be insufficient to allow it.
I do think the Friends & Family exception would probably let Mium kill someone if David wanted to push it hard enough. We might find out in the next few pages.
Agreed. Mium isn’t sure what his limitations would be but he thinks an exception might be made since he states he “I can ‘probably’ kill you.” Any sane person would not challenge Mium in this situation. However, it appears that Rovak is saner then David in this respect since he was already withdrawing from the scene. I wonder if David knows that Mium can de-res his armor?
As with all Keplers, (Peter is no exception.) Arron is an amazing ally, a formidable foe, and batshit crazy in doing what he perceives to be the “right” thing. [Quite easily calculable, by Mium and most semi-sentient rocks.]
[As a sidenote: We should mention Mium directed Rovak Stas to deal with David Otte. From this, one might conclude: Mium is the origin of stupidity. Hence, his current annoyance is like most of ours: Self-inflicted.]
I love this comic.
I don’t think David is an Otte. Nick Otte was last seen in Central while David was in Central, so they aren’t the same people, and Nelson Otte seems to be in the background pulling strings rather than getting his hands dirty.
I believe Mium is fully aware of all their restrictions, and takes opportunities to learn how to work around them (possibly manufacturing such opportunities deliberately just so they can test stuff out; turns out reclassifying a Kardus doesn’t work)
I am with you on this, friends and family allows Mium to kill to protect Arron, the ambiguity is if that is necessary to foil the attack.
Rovack has a pretty good but not exact idea of Mium’s capabilities due to his earlier fight with EF8, the examination of the aftermath of the Kardus fight, and talking to the remnant of Dr. Martin.
Rovak is not very sane but he dose look after his minions, thus is unlikely to challenge Mium/EF5 w them present especially without a contract.
Rovak abusing his instructions to attempt killing David is why Mium is disappointed and annoyed with Rovak as well as with David.
David has no clue to anyone’s capability, thus the danger he is in.
Rovak was not able to resurrect Kardus for questioning not because he was blown in half but because his brain had gotten mushy with decay.
So it’s been unclear to me whether Ellipses is a magical/caster thing (pass without trace, disguise self) or a physical/technique thing (expertise in hide, deception, or performance.)
We see it from Mium’s perspective back when Aaron goes to visit Ila.
If anyone is curious, it’s the Thursday, March 22nd, 2018 comic
Just to add, he was visiting Miko (his nephew and Peter’s cousin), not Ila (Mium’s “sister”). Ila and Miko are both short grumpy people, so it’s an easy mistake to make.
Whoops, sorry. Yes, Miko. I used the picture at the top of the cast page to select the name, and picked the wrong short one.
Also, I was pretty sure, and the wiki has confirmed, that Miko is a girl.
My theory is that it is a mixture of both. So out of the magician’s trick box but enhanced by magic. I think that there is some magic involved because if IRC Arron does not show up on surveillance cameras either.
My theory is that it is a mixture of both. So out of the magician’s trick box but enhanced by magic. I think that there is some magic involved because if IRC Arron does not show up on surveillance cameras either when he uses ellipses.
“find myself exploring decision trees where very few of you survive… I believe I am annoyed.”
this was always a good tell that my monthly was coming, i would find myself fantasizing reasons to be righteously indignant at people…
‘I’m supposed to avoid killing, so please stop lopping branches the tree that have you leaving alive’ is probably one of the scariest things Mium could be saying. Even if its a threat, the fact that he is having to calculate the probability that this will end with David dead says a lot about the seriousness of this situation.
And it gets a lot scarier when you remember that M.Y.M. isn’t supposed to be able to feel emotion. Flee in terror David, you just accidentally caused the SMAI to evolve its processes.
I don’t know about that. He’s generally not very emotional, but we’ve seen several instances where he does show emotion. Neither Peter or Naomi are surprised by this.
For example, when Atter said he’d kill everyone, Mium gave Peter a look until he took back his statement that no one would agree with Mium’s risk reduction plan. That alone implies emotion.
Mium is treated as a person by almost the entire main cast. Even the Kor’s world soldier used “Virus Person.” So, the idea of him having emotions is not surprising.
Yes, but this is the first time he has ever expressed an emotional state.
Before now he would inform people that he had not yet attained the capacity for emotion. Sometimes he would inform them of how fortunate they were that he hadn’t.
This time he is outright telling them that he is feeling annoyed. So flee in terror David, M.Y.M. has just evolved its processes.
Technically speaking, he indicated that he hadn’t yet attained the capacity for a specific emotion, not just emotions in general. To wit,
Chapter 6, page 46: I’ve not yet gained the capacity for hate, Doctor.
I’m not recalling any other such declaration, though my memory of the strip is hardly infallible, and I think it’s been years at this point since I’ve had the time for a proper re-read. But there’s also a counter point suggesting that Mium might have at least some emotion.
Chapter 12 page 28: … and I do not particularly like you. … I can not like things that cause problems to things that I like, …
Also of note, on chapter 10 page 9, Naomi states she thinks Mium actually likes Miss Kallisto. While I admit she’s not necessarily a completely reliable authority on Mium’s emotional states or lack thereof, she does know him pretty well.
Ah, indeed. Specific emotions.
And in the same vein, from chapter 13: “Are you …” “I’m incapable of being angry, Miko.” Note also that he recognized what she was about to ask: He appeared quite capable of recognizing when anger is an appropriate response.
David seems particularly poor at taking responsibility for his own decisions and actions, let alone their consequences. He strikes me as the type to refuse to accept the truth of what Mr. IDS Director has just told him because it goes against what he *wants* to believe.
Mium is probably right about Mr. Zombie’s take on things, though given the latter’s taste for mayhem the chance to watch fireworks involving Mium and David would be tempting just to stay and watch.
My guess, though, is that David will stand down, against character, and Ila won’t be turned loose and neither will Naomi, who will perhaps be disappointed.
It almost seems that David has a death wish. He tries to kill the Consul. Fails. Tries to kidnap Kally. Fails with loss of a few goons taken out by ILA. He then tries to kidnap Artem. Fails with one goon punched through a wall, several goons stomped by Fluffy and a rogue Family head getting chopped by Ashvalt. Now David has attempted to kidnap Artem again. Before his plan even starts to execute, several of his goons are “punched out” by Naomi and several more are literally “disarmed” by ILA. Rovak appears and reclaims his Orish mages from assisting David. David is unsuccessful in killing Rovak. Mium shows up and “eats” all the mana. Aaron shows up. Idiot David is still wanting to fight. Sigh … Mama always said stupid is as David does. (Sorry for the misquote, Forrest)
Too be fair, this last plan wasn’t David’s, he just went along with it because it was likely to accomplish some objective. Like it needs to be stated again, that Rovak, incarnate of explosions and chaos, did not feel that the amount of chaos this would result in was worth the expenditure of the Orish Mages. The Rogue Family man messed up something fierce in the planning stage.
If Mium learning how to be angry is midnight on the doomsday clock, Mium learning to be annoyed is probably not great news.
Teaching/programming Mium to care about people (in this case Ila and/or Naomi) may have given him a reason not to kill all humans, but gives him a very good reason to want to some humans when they plan to kill them.
I’m just realizing that Mium probably heard this conversation with the “feel free to kill that one” referring to Naomi. Pretty sure that rogue family agent is going to have a bad life if he’s not already dead in the explosion.
Past,
It is still Monday, June 6th at about 9:15PM on Howland Island in the Pacific ocean.
Panel 6: Bubble 3: “When I get back to Central, I’ll have you tried for treason-!”
While the additional “have” gives a very stuttery, angry feeling to David’s commentary, it seems hardly necessary.
Family and Friends exception for Arron, useful. Now all them “humans” have no protection.
Panel 6: have you have tried -> have you tried
Isn’t Arron underdressed for confronting unstable people in power armor?
Even if he has Kally waiting in the wings, it’s a bit reckless.
Then again, batman gambits seem to run in the family…
Arron was probably not planning on walking into a magic brawl. He seems to have just been tailing Mium probably using Ellipses (which does not seem to work fully on Mium).
Arron is probably not a slouch himself. He is a war hero and all that, and seems pretty comfortable with going out in the field. He seemed scared of Atter, but Atter is probably one of the more the dangerous people out there (even Mium implied it would take drastic measures for him to kill Atter… when shooting him with a tank and then blowing up a parking garage were apparently not drastic measures, mind you).
He also may assume Mium would protect him, though it is not clear if he knows how powerful Mium is (Mium was able to easily defeat someone in power armor before when he saved Mir… not to mention the business with Kardus and the tank, but it’s not clear if being Ila’s prototype made him stronger or weaker).
My guess on what Mium sees as drastic action might have been Skyhammer, considering how secretive and powerful it’s seen.
My guess is Sky Hammer would certainly inconvenience Atter, but it wouldn’t *kill* Atter unless Sky Hammer were directed at Sophie rather than Atter. It’s really hard to kill a properly anchored construct, and Sophie’s particularly good at it.
Quite some time ago Atter battled with Kally and Fluffy. Atter mentioned losing some of himself every time he was killed. Didn’t Fluffy burn Atter completely dead once Kally learned of that?
Followup from my trip down memory lane…
In the comic for Tuesday, May 28th, 2019 is where Fluffy blasted Atter to nothingness. Does anyone recall seeing Atter after that?
He has been seen since yes. Though not at the same level of cognitive ability.
I suspect its more likely an overload on the null than anything as clumsy as a Skyhammer strike. After all, Atter functionally is just a very complex, intelligent spell, and we’ve seen how those fair around Mium when he doesn’t care for them.
Arron should know by now that Mium will protect him to the best of his ability because Peter ordered him to do so. Additionally, Arron arresting David fits Peter’s plans – Peter asked Arron to take care of the internal I.D.S. problems posed by Biana. The way Mium stopped both Rovak and David plus their respective minions should warrant optimism when it comes to Mium providing backup against David’s side alone. Also, Arron probably has a card up his sleeve he hasn’t shown yet.
Hopefully it isn’t up the sleeve without an arm. Although a gun shaped like a fake arm could be in Aaron’s future.
Hmm, here’s an option which hasn’t been mentioned yet for why Mium is annoyed. He doesn’t like Arron, but Arron being there let’s him do things he otherwise is not allowed to do and is helping.
I mean, Mium has no problem with murder from a moral standpoint. Naomi even mentioned that they don’t let him go too far down that route, and we’ve seen his “risk reduction plan” is the same type of plan Atter went with.
Mium is such an interesting character because he is not human.