Comic for Monday, May 30th, 2022
May31
Comic.
Mium is forced to expand his range of expectations from humans once more. Downwards, of course.
Polls
2024 Santa Hat Poll - Who will claim the Christmas Crown this year?
- Naomi Atarah (11%, 38 Votes)
- Fluffy (11%, 38 Votes)
- Kally Summers (11%, 38 Votes)
- Ila F-10 (9%, 31 Votes)
- The Consul (7%, 26 Votes)
- Miko (6%, 21 Votes)
- Avi Atarah (6%, 20 Votes)
- Kor's World Soldier (5%, 16 Votes)
- Mari Kepler (3%, 11 Votes)
- Dr. MIR (3%, 10 Votes)
- Rovak Stas (3%, 9 Votes)
- Camilla Canthi (2%, 8 Votes)
- Magnolia Dai (2%, 8 Votes)
- Nathan Summers (2%, 7 Votes)
- Lisa (2%, 6 Votes)
- Arron Kepler (2%, 6 Votes)
- Dr. Martin (2%, 6 Votes)
- Tyler Weber (2%, 6 Votes)
- Saria (1%, 5 Votes)
- Vium (1%, 5 Votes)
- Amy Selah (1%, 5 Votes)
- Kyle Kepler (1%, 4 Votes)
- Maia Ethi (1%, 4 Votes)
- Arkady Arduni (1%, 3 Votes)
- Elizabeth (1%, 3 Votes)
- Ryn Koko (1%, 3 Votes)
- Ashvalt Ardunni (1%, 2 Votes)
- Control (1%, 2 Votes)
- Tamara (1%, 2 Votes)
- Artem Arduni (0%, 1 Votes)
- Alex Fairway (0%, 1 Votes)
- Ashley Thomas (0%, 1 Votes)
- Lucy Harper (0%, 1 Votes)
- Biana Beyer (0%, 1 Votes)
- Gate (0%, 1 Votes)
- Jayce Myer (0%, 0 Votes)
- Ikirium Avon (0%, 0 Votes)
- David (0%, 0 Votes)
- Nick Otte (0%, 0 Votes)
- Joid (0%, 0 Votes)
- Yoav Cao (0%, 0 Votes)
- Varilem (0%, 0 Votes)
- Gelon Level (0%, 0 Votes)
- Marc Idunni (0%, 0 Votes)
- Blake Shoreman (0%, 0 Votes)
- Regin Enkari (0%, 0 Votes)
- Nelson Otte (0%, 0 Votes)
- Toshe (0%, 0 Votes)
- Frank Marsh (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 115
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I guess the comic’s running late.
You can really tell that Mium is Peter’s kid. The way they insist on bending the definitions of personal pronouns is a distinctive family trait.
I hadn’t even thought of their relationship from that perspective.
It makes so much sense though!
In a flashback we saw Query informing Peter that it’s not normal to break into people’s houses late at night, then just wake them up.
In some ways, just like all families, they are influenced by each other. Like the “No military hardware” restriction that Mium flagrantly gets around all the time. Keplers will follow the rules right until the rules stop them. Really surprised they haven’t just removed thag one at this point.
Might be a constraint from one of the entities Mium has merged with, whereupon attempting to remove that restraint might result in de-integration of that entity, inhibiting capabilities more than relaxing the restraint is worth (even to Mium himself).
Personally, I think the “no military hardware” exception was placed there for operational safety. Team Peter doesn’t want to be getting the sort of attention that they’d be getting if they were packing all the military hardware they could. I mean, if Peter wore a suit of I.D.S. armor every day to class, people would notice. But since he doesn’t, most of his classmates probably don’t even pay him any attention. Most of those who’ve even noticed him just think he’s a bit odd.
Ok, now that he’s the head of the M.S.B., probably more of his classmates have noticed him. But not nearly as many as would notice him if they thought he was really worthy of being the head of any Malsan Bureau. Most of his classmates who are aware of him probably just think he got that position because he hung out with Tyler and virtually everyone who hung out with Tyler were registered mages, so who was really left to fill those shoes? Amy would be the obvious choice, but without the firepower the M.S.B. used on its missions, any acting head was basically doomed to failure. So she’d want to pawn it off on some patsy. Enter Peter.
Since the restriction is just there to keep them from getting too much attention, Peter’s always interested to know how Mium explains how his latest toy isn’t military hardware, because he may need to explain it, too.
Probably the reason why Peter doesn’t always have to explain it is it’s better for other parties to not even know Team Peter was there at all. Like when a tank blew up in a parking garage, who knew that anyone associated with Peter was even involved? There was so much crap going down due to Atter’s minions, probably nobody was paying attention to that particular area.
I wouldn’t say that’s bending the definition of “you”. English “you” already includes that definition. Mium was just being precise about exactly what he was saying. If he’d just said, “Y’all”, then people might just think he was from Texas, and in Texas, that’s second person singular. If he said, “All y’alls”, … Well, that *is* the proper Texan second person plural, but a lot of people seem to think it’s kind of ridiculous.
When you reach the planetary core, you are technically no longer able to go downwards any more…
Dis anyone else notice ILA’s sugar, high wide open eyes in panel 5? A definite improvement on the angry Sith Lord eyes a few comics ago. Someone must have gotten her some tasty food for sure.
In the last few panels, Mium shuts down several magic users simultaneously. Note the jaw dropping expressions on the mana users faces when the magic evaporates suddenly. Waiting anxiously for their complete responses in the next comic. Reminds me of reactions when Ashvalt gave the vile green haired hag the chop.
Also, in a manner of speaking, Mium and Peter sometimes have a similar manner of speaking.
As long as we’re noting details, note that Peter and Kally always stand close to each other? It subtly conveys an emotional connection.
What I noticed most about their reactions was “A Kardus” looking noticeably worried/scared/nervous about “A M.Y.M.” showing up.
Guess he has an idea about how this is going to go. And really, really hopes he doesn’t end up in as many pieces as last time. Still, good on him on being in this few pieces again!
Rovak is the Orish War Mage in this comic. Kardus was one of Rovak’s minions that died after ending up in pieces. Rovak mentioned he couldn’t put Kardus back together. It was a combo of Mium and ILA that blasted Kardus.
All the baddies are shocked since they have all been unexpectedly “disarmed” at once by Mium. Rovak has been on the losing end against Mium and ILA before. ILA has also killed Rovak before. He was shocked when ILA used six calculation circles and knew it was bad even before ILA blasted him. Rovak’s clothes were destroyed but he regenerated. He was concerned about being naked in front of the “child” ILA. Rovak/Mium/ILA interactions can be complex. Rovak even healed ILA on one occasion!
Hey, you forgot where they went on a little trip together to capture a foreign head of state. Illa even left him her ice cream after they anticipated his betrayal and left him to deal with the “rescue” force that refused to accept everyone was on the same side.
Personally, I don’t thing it’s fear we’re seeing, and more surprise. Probably a “this is more interesting now” kind of surprise too.
I’d agree. Prior to this, Null Casters have been a very targetted thing. One null caster can shut down one mage.
There was one known[1] exception, but she wasn’t actually a null caster, she was a void caster. She didn’t disrupt the calculation, she just removed ones ability to power it.
Mium more or less just confirmed that he’s related to she who calculates six spells at once. We already knew that, as he was able to shut down everything that Ila threw at him, and of course we’ve seen their friend circle interacting with less circumspection than they’ve had while Rovak’s been around. But now Rovak knows.
I’d guess Rovak is guessing that Mium’s limit is also six. I’m guessing that’s probably understating Mium’s abilities to disrupt magic, and even if he *is* limited to six spells at once, I’m pretty sure he’s fast enough at it that he could disrupt dozens if not hundreds of mages quickly enough they’d think it was all at once. Also, if you get hundreds of mages all casting within Mium’s disruption range, they’re probably going to be interfering with each other’s effects enough that it’s probably just going to be more entertaining to see what happens if they’re actually able to get what they think is their spell to “work” for whatever value of work they do…
1. At least, known to the people of Palindra, which could include Rovak. But maybe he didn’t even know about that apparent exception.
Pretty sure there’s two Orish here. Rovak, and “A Kardus”. He’s uhh…*search search search* the guy from around Sept 2018 I’m pretty sure. “Kardus Velzor”? He’s even in a gray button-up shirt and everything, just like last time.
Anyway, Rovak does imply (Nov 15th, 2018) that he can’t properly bring him back, but that seems mostly related to information regarding his death. As for putting him back together physically, he describes it closer to “a bit tricky even for me”. Either way, it looks like he’s back, with red construct bits in place of part of his face, similar to Martin….who also shows up in the same scene. (Well, not his face, but you get the idea.)
Panel 3, “As for Daivd” … I don’t know how many times I read this before I noticed it did not read “David” …
%p
I’m reasonably sure Past does that deliberately. I haven’t started to save images from day to day to see if he _really_ introduces new things for us to find. But I strongly suspect it.
The guy is a mastermind of website engagement.
Not just humans!
I don’t *think* Rovak is human, is he?
Kardus is an immortal Orrish war mage. I don’t think Mium has classified Rovak as non-human … yet. Mium re-classified poor Kardus (a Rovak minion) from “a human” to “a Kardus” when Mium was occupying ILA’s body. He left a rock in ILA’s hand when she got her body back. That was a clear message to ILA that she could kill Kardus, something he could not do due to programming restrictions.
I’m still of the opinion that the reclassification was an attempt to circumvent the no kill restriction. It was unsuccessful, so he let Ila take care of it.
Given the debate on the comic from the last page, I suppose we could hazard a guess that Rovak is a Kor’s World descendant. However I think all of that, Orish war mage, Kor’s World, Central, Palindra, I think they all still count as human.
Admittedly the Orish war mage is perhaps the most dubious outlier.
Perhaps without the reclassification, Mium would have been unable to set up Kardus for execution. Mium virtually loaded the “gun”, cocked it, took off the safety and pointed it at Kardus before handing it off to ILA.
Let’s not forget Atter. I think he was more demon than human before Fluffy toasted him. I wonder if all the Orish have red eyes or just the war mages.
PS – In case any is wondering why I capitalize ILA, on my computer ILA cannot be distinguished from IIA or LLA since upper case I and lower case L appear the same.
At least for me, the font used in comments, the L in lower case is slightly taller than the uppercase I. It is moot because the comic is all in uppercase.
Are you serious?? The comic is always all lowercase for me! It drives me nuts!
Yes, the comic is upper case. This old man got confused when bouncing back fron the Character Wiki. Past changed the font sometime between first seeing ILS’s name and now. ILA states her name several comics after being introduced to the comic. The “I” has serif bars top and bottom. Hmmm …. as I type a reply, I see serif bars on the “I” but in posted comments, there are no serifs. Strange. Now I’m really confused. Maybe it is browser settings for default font.
ILA’s intro:
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-april-6th/
Trying again to reply. The system ate my previous attempt since a link to ILA’s first appearance in the comic was included.
This old man was/is confused. It isn’t upper/lower case that makes ILA’s name appear incorrectly. It is the font used in the comic. In the reply being typed, capital “I” has serif font bars. The comic does not.
ILA was introduced in the March 9, 2015 comic. She appears sitting in a chair with her back to the reader/viewer/audience. At that time, she had white hair and golden eyes. She gets deployed for a rescue. On April 1 she uses six calculation circles and amazes Rovak before blasting him down and out while destroying his clothes! On April 6 she states her name as “ILA F10”. The font used at that time had serif bars on the capital “I” and I perceive it okay.
Interesting idea about Rovak’s origins. I had been thinking he was an Orish war mage “enhanced” by Doctor Martin with an I-code. Of course, he is a bit nuts.
Depends on definition I guess.
Mium hasn’t redefined him yet, and I warmages appear to be humans bred or genetically engineered to have “special talents” – as a result, Rovak has an icode, which apparently means he can immediately repair damage (rather than preventing it.)
Mium by contrast with David, apparently *does* know how to kill him – by triggering his recovery process, disrupting it in the same manner he is disrupting the spells of mages here, and taking out Rovak’s brain before he can re-start the process. Equally though, Mium isn’t able to kill humans… and while Ila has no problems with that process, they don’t seem particularly invested in killing “Mr Zombie” either.
Really the sane result here would be Rovak wandering off with his reclaimed warmages, David and his minions under arrest for their earlier attempt on the life of the consul, and tasty food for Ila.
However, Rovak and sane are not even passing acquaintances so it could well all go pearshaped.
I was under the impression that icode was something added to Rovak after he had somehow proved himself to someone about his worth.
Also, according to what Rovak remembered from when he got the icode, there’s something of a bug in it – it’s not reentrant, meaning if you trigger it for something and then apply instantly lethal force while it’s still busy on the first bit, it won’t get to the second bit before one is beyond repair. As such, someone fast enough can do the job even without being a null caster.
It’s just, most of the time that doesn’t happen, because people think, “Oh, I killed him, I’m done.” and stop attacking. But anyone could take him out if they killed him twice in quick succession.
Note by ‘killed him’, I mean ‘actually kill him’, not ‘injure him badly enough “anyone” would die from it’. Someone with a magically-shielded assault rifle with magically-shielded bullets who unloaded a full clip in his center of mass would basically have no effect. But if they instead unloaded the full clip in his head, no more Rovak.
However, that vulnerability is not well known. It’s basically known to people who were given icode, people who could give icode, Mium, and presumably Peter. Since it requires going against conventional wisdom regarding how to kill someone, it’s unlikely to be discovered that often. Even someone who manages to do it probably won’t connect the dots entirely, and will come up with an overkill solution. “It takes the full 9 yards, spray it all over his body.” Or possibly even more.
Yeah, I’m aware I changed guns. I guess the assault rifle version would be “empty a full clip into him, replace the clip. Keep going until he stops moving.”
Panel 3: …That’s the most Peter way of screening calls i could possibly imagine. Panel 5: I’m going back. People might need help, and someone needs to stop whatever is going on in there. Keep Ila with you at all times until her brother shows up.
I don’t understand Panel 3, unless it has been corrected.
Panel 5, Bubble 2: Keep ILA with [you] at all times until her brother shows up.
Fixed. I think.