Comic for Monday, September 22nd, 2019
Buffer isn’t quite to three, as the new page isn’t up yet, but it’s pretty close to 3 at this point. I know the process hasn’t been fast, but at least the posting times are regular, and generally (despite the fact that I am admittedly still copping out on backgrounds half the time) things are getting a little better as far as the art and layout (at least in my own little world where strange things bother me). We are going to keep the current pace for now. Work has stablized a little but, I can see the wolves circling with some spectacularly bad ideas ready to top the precarious tower I’ve built where everything works. We’ll see, but I have low expectations that they will manage to keep it together and not muck it up next week.
I cheated a bit with Peter’s little diatribe and decided to use only characters we have seen and been had named, thought I stuck to ones that would make sense of as much as possible. I didn’t want to drop a bunch of new names without much context. I prefer to add new names with some context.
I will tell you that I hand writing on the white board is both my actual handwriting. I had actually planned to get someone else to do Amy’s handwriting to make it clearly distinct, but the person I had in mind was busy and I never got a chance to get them to do it, and no one else I new had handwriting that passed muster as plausible as Amy’s, so it just ended up being PastUtopia imitating neat handwriting… which turns out to be beyond my skill, but I reckon its passable enough for the context… until the end where I clear just started phoning it in and slipping back into my normal handwriting anyway.
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Is Whiteboard Amy saying “nay nay” or “nag nag”?Either could fit depending on whether she reject’s Kally’s call for bureaucracy or plans to give Peter an earful.
I think it says “nag nag”. I am pretty sure the green and blue pens are both Peter and the red pen is Amy. I think it was Amy who vandalized Peter’s whiteboard last time. Peter probably wrote the first message. Amy “corrected” it and wrote the agenda items. Peter annotated the agenda hits with a chibi of Amy saying what he heard from the meeting (“nag nag”).
Amy seemed to be the bureaucratic minder of Tyler who was way way more by the book and responsible than Peter is, so I imagine being Peter’s second in command (and self appointed watch dog) is driving her insane.
Peter is a surprisingly good chibi artist. It looks almost like a doodle that would be made by a webcomic artist. /s
It says “nag nag”.
Green is Peter, red is Amy. I’m guessing blue is also Peter, but it could be another member of Team Peter.
I can’t recall if Naomi and Amy have an antagonistic relationship. Doesn’t really sound like Mium’s style, but he is very adaptable. I’m not sure if Ila possesses that level of subtly yet or not. Probably Peter then?
I initially read the blue as Amy also as in “I’m going to nag you until you fill out the form” but Peter is more likely.
Well, Peter might not be able to stop him from going back to Central, but…Mium already took control of the gates, there’s still a bit of a civil war going on, and maybe a loose Kor’s World soldier. Can he get back to Central?
…also, what does Peter even need hostages for?
(Heh. Panel six is great. I mean, pages here are usually great, but I think that one’s my favorite for the page. The part where it sounds like after a beat Arron immediately tries to take him up on that helps, too….Peter also looks amused in panel 5, though a bit less so in 6, and mildly unamused in the last panel….is the IDS’ inability to act due to the myriad of cross-purposes of everyone in it is funny to him now?)
(Edit: Wait, I actually got first? Huh. Cool.)
Who doesn’t need hostages???
Me.
I like that Peter lists himself as the first IDS embodiment to consider. He never left his job, despite the attempt to fire him. Presumably due to the fact that the terminate order came from a part of IDS that he felt was the real problem… and is probably trying to terminate him simply because he’s identified themselves as the worst criminal element to investigate.
I think this is an interesting discussion, especially since he probably knows where Mium Efaite is, who has probably already “leaked” the offer that Peter told Arron about. Though I wouldn’t call it leaking, considering that he’s conveyed it directly to one of the authorities who is most interested, rather than releasing it into the rumor mill. Wait, no… before would be a much better term than ‘rather than’.
As far as what Peter needs 40,000 hostages? To ensure that in excess of 5% of the IDS will rise to oppose the criminal faction that Peter is gunning for, when that criminal faction attempts to attack his allies and position.
Arron is currently keenly aware that they’re in a warzone. But he seems to have forgotten for the moment that the war is with the IDS. While it currently appears like they’ve killed off the Consul, that didn’t actually happen. They did hospitalize Camilla and Tyler. That having been said, Camilla got better, and Tyler’s most likely just waiting for Past to decide on his next form and whether that’ll be his final form or not. Also note that the IDS didn’t hospitalize Tyler, that was technically done by a couple of members of the Malsan Exiled Families. (That is, I doubt she could’ve pulled it off had Tyler felt free in going full ice lord, but Marc was there to keep him from it. Even if Tyler did decide to go full ice lord at the end, Marc’s interference field was almost certainly interfering.)
So, in terms of reasons why Malsa would be at war with the IDS that have been thus far depicted, it’s because the IDS let a demon loose in the streets of Malsa, who then killed someone from the IDS and also a forged persona that hadn’t really been used for anything. Later, the IDS performed an unlicensed light show for the entire capital city’s viewing pleasure. Also a whole bunch of smuggling that the IDS had put itself in the position of policing but then did more of it rather than preventing it.
That list doesn’t sound like a reason for Malsa to go to war. But it is a reason for them to want some assurances of the IDS’s future good behavior, which is where the 40,000 expatriots come in. Note that Malsa is probably specifically wanting expatriots, so if any of those 40,000 choose to emigrate instead, the Consul will want to shelter more Centralians whose habitats are failing. And it sounds like due to the IDS being the IDS that Peter described, that will likely happen frequently enough for Malsa’s purposes.
I think there are two things to consider with the 40,000. By Malsa standards, IDS people are probably high skill workers. I doubt that Malsa would have any real complaints about people from Central emigrating.
While we have not gotten a clear picture of the tech on Central, I think it is safe to say it is significantly more advanced than Malsa, and from we have seen, they seem to be running some sort of massive education program for these would be migrants. Remember that Peter’s sister was not teaching IDS trainees, just that one of them wanted to be an IDS trainee. I would guess she was teaching what is supposed to be this wave of migrants that will be offloaded as soon as the IDS/Central can find a place to put them.
Also, I think one of the benefits of having them would be mitigating the Skyhammer threat. Peter rigged the cards pretty hard to stop it from working previously, but if someone was able to fire a HVW at him he was not already aware of, it would be pretty dangerous. Even Mium cannot 100% stop them without without knowing the firing trajectory. The political will to fire weapons of mass destruction would drop rapidly if there were 40,000 Central citizens on the ground.
I think the question if Peter left the IDS is an interesting one. But we have to wonder… did Peter ever really join the IDS from his point of view. In Minus Years we saw Peter working for the IDS, but he was definitely more… odd. Peter these days is a smug and manipulative bastard, but Peter had sort of a detached and socially incompetent air in Minus Years.
He mentions he knew Emmi longer than Kally, but did not seem to really view her as a friend. The only friend he seems to have from that time is Kally. He clearly has some soft spot for Arron, but he also has more than a little friction there.
To complicate this further, Peter was supposed to join the Civil Service. This was mentioned a few times, but something happened, and it seems pretty bad. Peter got thrown into prison sometime around this time, but was already Peter-enough that was going to to take. They ended up repurposing him to the IDS to keep him out of trouble, but that obviously did not work.
But we do not really know why or how Peter left the Civil Service, or if Peter really did. Half of the people in the comic seem to think this all might be a long con by Kyle and Peter to mysterious ends that no one can guess, and I think that is a possibility worth considering.
Peter was planning something as early as the first time he left for Palindra, as he gave his sister a copy of Query.
I think, from Peter’s point of view, he never joined the IDS because he grew up as part of it. There was a war going on, and every useful hand was needed, including that of small boys who had a freakish ability to figure out how to make use of Kor’s World technological bits and little girls who had a dragon for her best friend. (I don’t think Kally could actually *summon* Fluffy at that time, but the concept of Fluffy was probably already in her head, and it helped shape who she became and what she could do.)
Considering Emmi’s first appearance in the comic, I don’t think it’s that odd that Peter didn’t seem to view her as a friend. I don’t mean that he would’ve felt betrayed by that. Just that, if he had a better relationship with her, she likely wouldn’t have been a part of staking out his dummy address.
Yes, I know, Kally went to visit that address, too. But note that she rang the doorbell, rather than trying to be sneaky about things.
I don’t really feel like I have a good understanding of Peter’s timeline prior to chapter 0. Did he get arrested before he was part of Criminal Investigations or after? It always feels to me like after would make more sense. That his disappearance would start right after the jail break. I mean, just because he left the jail doesn’t mean they couldn’t just arrest him again if he spent time at a known location.
I don’t think a contingency planner would’ve needed to have a very defined plan to feel like giving one of his most trusted allies a copy of his ace in the hole, especially right before going into the unknown.
If Peter still thinks of himself as a part of IDS, then the IDS’ fractious nature is only amusing to him during his saner moments, which are the times when he thinks he’s going crazy.
But that having been said, the IDS’ fractious nature is basically guaranteed, considering that they are basically the authority organization for a country that is the remains of the varied peoples of a diverse planet which only united due to facing an enemy that would’ve wiped them out if they hadn’t. To some extent, one can be amazed that the splinter groups are as large as 5%. Admittedly, Peter didn’t say that there are exactly 20 factions, each comprising 5%. It’s probably more like the most powerful organizations can come close to wielding 5% of the IDS’ focused might. But I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the only organization we’ve seen that can pull off something close to 5% is the Civil Service. They can manage that, because they’re comprised of 90% of the most altruistic Central citizens, and the other 80-99% of of the civil service are really impressed by that.
(My numbers do work out: The most altruistic citizens are a very tiny percentage of the overall population of the country. While most of the Civil Service branch are more altruistic than most of the rest of world, for the vast majority of them, at the end of the day, it’s a job they want to go home from. There are very few who wear the yellow overalls who are as married to their jobs as Kyle. I’m not certain that even Kyle manages to qualify for membership in “the most altruistic”, however, as I’m pretty sure he has some selfish goals he hopes will be served by his current job. From the sounds of things, he is in line for a fair amount of the authority that the council is leaking by their continued non-performance.)
Also note that probably a large portion of the people who really want a system that works are probably in the Civil Service, because given the gridlock and ineptness everywhere else, it seems like the place to get things done.
I would definitely like to know more about the Civil Service before I slot them into the “good guy” category. Particularly Kyle. Someone did try to assassinate Kyle under the impression that Kyle is not the good guy, so the Civil Service is not universally popular.
Kyle plays the act of the Roman Dictator reluctantly accepting power to guide his people through these trying times, but Kyle is a politician and more related to Peter than Arron is by a mile (in more than just blood).
There is also some degree of factionalism between the Civil Service, the IDS, and the Military, so I am not sure that Civil Service could mobilize 5% of the IDS (though that seems plausible enough), but how much power the Civil Service itself has is likely to be significant. There is just such a dizzying array of factions though it is clear why anyone would have trouble really getting any sort of plurality.
Even before you get into internal disputes, there is the Council, the Executive Bureaucracy that nominally serves it, but clearly operates somewhat autonomously, the Civil Service, the Military, and the IDS, and then the IDS has at least half a dozen branches, which are likely not even internally united like let alone united between the branches.
Right now, the game seems to be trying to get Council seats before the next time the Council meets. Biana seems to be a candidate, but I am going to guess has lost her shot after this shit show went down. Kyle is a candidate, but seems to be avoiding it, likely meaning he already wields comparable power to sitting on the Council. We can only guess who else is mucking about this pot though.
I typed up a response to most of your response, but I decided it was too wordy.
As far as the assassination attempt, the assassin’s words seemed to be those of somebody who doesn’t think through things all that thoroughly. It seems highly likely that he simply equated Kyle’s position as being responsible for everything the Civil Service did, and possibly even misconstrued who did in the people as being attributable to the wrong department. It’s also likely, given the situation on Central, that there are a certain number of people who die each day due to homeworld conditions, and many people likely blame the Civil Service for not doing more about that situation. There’s likely little that Kyle can do about this. There’s a lot of people who’ve filed a lot of paperwork to request better situations for themselves, and that takes time to process. If it takes too long, someone dies, and someone close to them could see it as the fault of the government dragging their feet.
Peter’s negotiation for the acquisition of 40,000 hostages (at least according to Arron’s views) could help alleviate a lot of those issues. It’s unclear exactly how much influence Kyle had on those negotiations, but he’s certainly in a better position to be the governmental good guy than Peter.
Panel 6 is priceless but panels 8 & 9 are hilarious. Aaron asking Peter if he is going to try to stop him as if there is some question about whether or not he can, followed by Peter saying he can’t when all he has to do is give Mium a directive….not a tough call.
F&F means Mium can’t stop Arron.
(I was at first confused at to how Arron could get back to Central while the gates were seized, but then I remembered – duh! – it’s the gates in Malsa that have been seized – there are other gates elsewhere on Palindra.)
Translation: Peter wants Arron to go back to Central and help stir up the things he’s stirring up there. If he told Arron he wanted Arron back in Central, Arron would not go. So we get this instead.
Friends & Family means that Mium is not going to hurt Arron, and will do what he can to keep him healthy and free. But as far as we know, it doesn’t mean that Mium would unlock gates that have been locked per the Consul for Arron.
As far as how helpful Arron going back to Central to rally 5% of the IDS to his cause will be for Peter seems questionable. However, I suspect that the effect will likely be the portion of the IDS that Arron rallies to his cause will draw off the portion of the IDS that Sophie is going to be rallying to her cause from blocking the portion that Councilman Dan is going to use to give Peter his hostages.
Calling the refuges/settlers “hostages” is Aron’s call Peter went with it because it is not wrong. I think Peter’s primary motive was more likely a bribe for IDS headquarters but whatever motive they will also be potential hostages against indiscriminate military action. And if/when he needs to justify his action to the Council he can say that an IDS military commander regards them as hostages.