Comic for Saturday, May 25th, 2019
Sorry this so late. To space things out a bit, I’m going to post the next comic Tuesday, but I hope to get it down a bit before then, I just want to space things out a bit since that has pushed so close to Monday.
I sort of ended up redrawing a fair bit of this page for reasons, so it took a bit more time then expected, and ended up having less time than expected on Friday to finish it, combined with the page itself took awhile to draw and write, as I fiddled with the dialog a bit. I’m still not exactly happy with it, Atter is probably the character I struggle to write the dialog for the most… which is probably a good thing, really. The thing about Atter’s dialog is I think it relies too much on an inflection I struggle to render in text. I dunno, I probably over think these things.
Stabbing someone with an object you are controlling with magic does not necessarily bypass the effect of magical resistance, though it’s certainly easier than controlling their form directly. Kally is pretty good at the sort of “telekinetic” magic (just manipulating the location/movement data of stuff around here). It is probably her most used magic, though less notable than the whole Dragon bit (that part stands out a good bit more, and thus is the source of her moniker). Tyler is also quite good at it, and it’s not really a coincidence that both of them would be good at it. It’s a magic that heavily favors people with powerful zone of control (the amount of control they have the Eidos data around them), which both of them excel at, as well as people with very large amount of awareness and processing of data, which Kally also is good at, and Tyler has somewhat innately due to his innate magic effecting all the data around him. Tyler’s advantage there is he is far better at manipulating data he cannot see, while Kally is fairly dependent on vision. She struggles with controlling multiple magical effects at the same time, but at this point the dragon, while drawing an enormous amount of power, doesn’t really seem to need much active controlling.
As for non-comic relating rambling…
Things are looking up a bit on the front of work (not as much as if I actually quit, but hey…) but I’ve gotten a new long term project. Last week was the last week that I was booked to multiple projects at the same time, as of next week it’s just the new project and support hours for everything else. The downside is that that project is once again in what we call timezone hell which means they manage to frequently have meetings at both 5am and 11pm in my timezone, which, as I point out to them, makes sleeping a bit difficult, as that would leave me a maximum of 5 hours to sleep between their meetings, assuming I could magically fall asleep as soon as the meetings ended. But that project still seems to be an improvement, as the actual project itself is not a currently a dumpster that is currently on fire… more just annoying. This hopefully means that I will have more time to draw the comic, assuming I figure out when I am actually supposed to sleep. Maybe the offshore resources will be motivated, competent, and self driven and not end up needing my help frequently and I’ll be able to go back to a normal schedule- oh… I’ve fallen asleep and am dreaming, aren’t I? 😐
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Hmm. Are you trying to stop existing, Atter?
“Pathetic shell. And dead. How useless.”
So Atter CAN possess people. Yikes.
Given this page and the speculation from the previous page, I have to assume that both Summers are coming.
I think it is too soon to tell if Nathan is also coming for Sophie. I get the feeling Nathan is probably not the sort you would see coming unless he wanted you to.
I am still not sure what Dendrin was hired to do, my guess is that Nathan is tied up in that plot, whatever that plot is.
“You burn brightly, I will see how you burn out…”
That phrase, the sentiment especially within storytelling, is VERY common if you know where to look. It is always used by a creature who has lost something and/or managed to get along without that something. While some characters see this loss as something to be shared (either because mysery loves company or because they see that loss as good) the characters who use this phrase wish that they had the thing that they lost/lack and are using the deprivation of others to either learn about that loss/lack, such as what sustains once that loss has come or other aspects of the loss, or to reverse engineer it, often to try to get it or to learn what causes it.
Atter’s explanation is that important people cared for that “pathetic being”, after just asking “why not?” for killing someone without the power to oppose him. But that “why not?” question would/should apply to Kali Summers and Aaron Kepler as well, and Atter’s focus on the fact that it doesn’t is telling. The truth that Atter (and MIUM) have both found is that if you get rid of the unimportant people and ally with the important ones you can do anything you want without too many complications, assuming you correctly judge who has enough power to oppose you and work around those important people with whom you are not allied.
Just kill all “pathetic” obstacles and everything becomes simpler: Easy, except for that whole “empathy” thing. And THAT is the thing that Atter is missing, and in a broader sense it may be the main point of the whole MIUM experiment that Peter is running. Despite everything that seems important on Pallindra, and how all of it would fall apart if Peter was taken out, Miko STILL has a higher priority than he does (being MIUM’s “best friend”). Despite all the capability of Peter and Miko, Naomi (the self styled superhero with a fair number of friends, even ones who she knows are spies) has override priority over both of them (being the guide for MIUM’s continence).
If this is all true, and it very well might be, it changes the entire dynamic of the story. It means that fluffy may become a much more central character, possibly even more than Kalisto Summers even. It means that Kor’s World may be the good guys. The possible range of what this could mean for the story is immense.
I think what you are exploring here is just the complexity of the story. I recently reread the About page (due to another comment) and one thing sticks out to me in this context:
> “The Far Side of Utopia is a sprawling story of characters trying to save the world – with each of them having their own view of saving the world.”
Everyone thinks they are good guys. Sophie thought she was doing the right thing. Kor’s World thinks they are doing the right thing. Peter thinks he is doing the right thing. Characters are all the heroes of their own story, their stories are just in a collision course with each other.
Even Atter, who confessed to being a monster when talking to Peter, believes that he is serving his purpose which makes him better than Peter.
I am pretty confident that Kor’s World “has a point” even if they are not the “good guys”. Imagine what Fluffy would do if he was stable enough to remain in the world after Kally was killed? I am guessing he would go full ragnarok on the world. What would Mium actually do if Miko/Peter/Naomi were killed? That could happen in a nuclear bomb goes off in their city. An AI does not go rogue, but if you destroy everything he cares about, “ruthless” would be likely be a humanizing term for his response.
What if a demon is just a Red Construct/AI that has lost its originally owner and purpose? Maybe Atter was once something more akin to Fluffy that outlived his creator. He serves Sophie as a shallow imitation of his purpose, but mostly just hates everything?
Central has not had red constructs long enough to really understand how dangerous generations of immortal leftover guardians could be, but I could see something like that destroying a world.
I mean, even if Miko inherits MYM, things will probably go quite bad. Miko has more empathy than she claims (she did help Tamara and Saria) but she is clearly not mentally 100%, and freely admits she would use Mium to destroy whoever killed Peter whatever the cost, which is pretty terrifying.
Peter, I think, understands this probably better than most of us give him credit for. As you note, Naomi is the one with veto power despite (compared to Peter and Miko) being far less clever. Naomi has two properties we have seen so far: she has a “heroes sense of justice” and she is neigh indestructible. These both probably make her good candidates for Peter to rely on as a moral anchor to Mium, particularly because Mium proactively tries to avoid things that would make people he likes sad, so Naomi does not really have to be able to out-think Mium, just having Mium try to make Naomi happy is probably enough to stop him from nuking a city out of expedience.
All I can say is that I am so on board for the ride to watch it all unfold.
I think you missed the most basic and most evil motivation. It goes something like: “I will destroy the light in you because I hate the light.”
Was Atter someone who ‘burned brightly’ in the past? Maybe. But I disagree that he’s looking for sympathy or looking for a way to burn brightly again.
Fluffy would be GLAD to help him burn brightly…
^_^
*snerk* Yet another reason for Atter to hate the light
Fluffy is now officially bilingual. I think he at least deserves an entry on the cast page of the wiki.
Atters new host body has a hole in the side of its head, I wonder what that says about the revinant of Hadrin Martin. Dose a demon start out being ambivalent about a little professional murder and start downhill from there.
And why dose the uniforms of Malsans resemble those of central or is it the other way around did central model their observers uniforms after Palindra?
You know, I’m going to call the difference between a dragon and a demon is that one of goals. You know with one not being focused on murdering EVERYONE.
It’s interesting… Demons tend to act like they’re better than humans, but they generally talk more of wanting to murder humans than wanting to exterminate them.
Dragons, on the other hand, are almost never interested in murdering humans. Eating them, sure. But for them it’s not murder, because they understand that humans are lesser beings who simply have this quirk of being able to talk almost as if we’re intelligent. A bit like a parrot in that, except a bit more so.
I am going to assume Fluffy is the way they are because that is how Kally imagines a Dragon to be 🙂
I like this dragon. He is refreshingly straightforward.
“I am a dragon, foolish demon” indeed.
I look forward to the “watch me roar”. You know, the tactical weapon breath beam roar? ^.^
Given what you describe going on at work, I’m impressed that we have a comic update this weekend. Maybe it’s really early Sunday morning GMT instead of sometime on Friday, but it exists.
I’ve had days when I’ve needed to work at crazy hours of the night, too, but at least I’ve been blessed with management that understood that generally meant I wouldn’t be working much during the day if at all. Still, it can be very difficult to sleep in the hours between 6am and 6pm during the late spring and early summer period.
I have the feeling Atter is about to experience fire that can burn away its form again. It looks like it’s now conveniently in a small enough space to be entirely within a single blast of dragon fire.
It’s interesting that it needs form, really. I’m reminded of a recent discussion on either Arron William’s site or patreon or Dan Shive’s patreon, which talked about the relative amounts of magic needed to make a dangerous animated skeleton wielding a weapon and a flying magic weapon wielding itself…
I am terrible at napping. A lot of people tell me sleeping is the easiest thing in the world, but I suck at it. I’m not even good at falling asleep unless I’ve found time to go running or something that day. I suspect lack of sleep is one of those things that makes the other problems worse in life, as I think I’m still functional after sleeping 4 hours the night before, but in reality I’m probably just sucking at everything 50% more.
And they still want me to go into the office during the 9am-6pm timeframe because “that’s when everyone else is there” as they want to queue up at my desk with their questions. They can’t have everything though 😐
…anyway, ranting…
I wasn’t trying to suggest napping, but alternate sleep hours. I’m generally bad at napping, too, until I find myself suddenly napping without intent. Note that I only rarely find that happening, because I generally need to be very low on sleep or in excessively warm temperatures for it to happen.
Just to clarify: I do not recommend evoking heat exhaustion as a way to improve your napping capability. In my experience, heat exhaustion sleep is not good sleep.
I already understood your employers are insane in that particular manner, you didn’t have to remind me. That’s what I was talking about when I said I was blessed with management who weren’t like that.
> It’s interesting that it needs form, really. I’m reminded of a recent discussion on either Arron William’s site or patreon or Dan Shive’s patreon, which talked about the relative amounts of magic needed to make a dangerous animated skeleton wielding a weapon and a flying magic weapon wielding itself…
This really depends on the setting. In TFSoU, making a flying magic weapon would be way easier, as long as you were controlling it. If you wanted it to fight with intelligence, you would have to make something with intelligence to fight with it, which would be extremely hard either way. Animating an actual skeleton wouldn’t really help, as you’d have to manually puppet it, but you could make an ethereal construct of one that worked if you were good enough.
In D&D making a Skeleton is way easier but more dangerous due necromancy leveraging negative energy as an ongoing power source keeping the enchantment pseudo perpetual, and it being controlling the Skeleton that is the only hard part. You can transmute a flying sword without that much trouble, but it will stop being magical fairly quickly, while a Skeleton once raised is good to go until someone smashes it to pieces. Making a flying sword stay flying requires a continual power source, which is usually several levels up and would require some sort of magic component to focus and draw the energy form something.
…can’t really speak to other magic systems.
As for why Atter uses a body, it is stop his data from degrading without continuing to expend much mana, though this body wouldn’t have lasted particularly long even without Kally’s intervention here, having a material object makes existing a lot easier.
Due to being achored, Atter can reform even when completely shattered (which a normal red construct can not, as Nathan explained to Naomi – they can usually regenerate to an extent as long as they have mana, but if they get shattered they don’t have enough data left to rebuild it without external reference point), but if he were to try to reform a long way away from where he was shattered, he’d lose a ton of data in the process, to the point there wouldn’t really be enough data left to call it Atter, though how much could be recreated from scratch or pulled together by an external source would depend on a lot of factors. It is possible that even if a being like Atter lost too much data to reform, someone like Sophie could pull together enough of that data to forcible reform it if they had enough reference points to that data.
Existing purely within Eidos for a long period of time is more or less impossible, or at least reforming into a material world after doing so on your own would be too hard, you’d quickly lose any reference point to real data – the actual data may or may not continue to exist for awhile, no one is quite sure as there’d be no easy way to reference that data; Eidos and reality are fundamentally reflections of each other though, so most people assume that data that is not reflected in reality completely disperses fairly quickly. While not all Eidos data has an obvious expression in material reality – for example Nathan’s staff; Nathan can add the Eidos data of his staff to his own form casuing it no longer be expressed in reality, but if Nathan’s Eidos form was to break apart, the staff would either break apart with his form and vanish or survive and reappear in reality.
That said, things like the exact nature of Eidos is neither things people in the world really know, nor that I’d answer here, including if Eidos is actually a thing, or just a convenient way for Mages to view the world and magic that allows them to manipulate it – thought experiment of sorts. Its more like a theory that seems very consistent with evidence than something people could say with certainty exists, as even for people that can actually see Eidos data like Mione, what they visually perceive is more of a representation, as there is no way their mind could actually process Eidos data in terms of volume an detail, so what it actually is a representation of would be up for some debate.
… I am not going to pretend I quite understand the magic system in the comic, but I think part of why I like about it the comic is that I have confidence that you do.
That’s true about a lot of things in this comic. I am mostly in the “observer” category instead of the “theorist” category, but I just love how much like a world it feels due to the obvious depth behind everything.
>Eidos and reality are fundamentally reflections of each other though, so most people assume that data that is not reflected in reality completely disperses fairly quickly.
This sounds a lot like a memory leak. Lost the pointers needed to keep track of something? Ooops. Like when I had used linked lists to make a deck that shuffled itself, and accidentally included a bug that resulted in occasionally losing a card. Technically the card still existed, but the program no longer had anyway to find it.
Speaking of which: Does reality have a limit on memory? Maybe a clean up program to deal with lost data? Is it possible to make enough lost data to crash the entire program? (not actually expecting any answers 😉
With today’s computers, the OS blocks all memory leaks. And data remains in RAM even after the program is shut down. But that RAM is treated as empty. The computer doesn’t look in it to see what’s there. It just overwrites the ’empty’ RAM whenever it needs more.
So if Edios and reality did have an upper memory limit, it wouldn’t matter unless you somehow filled all the memory with active constructs. Which sounds a lot like trying to summon a lake of Tribbles….and then drowning in furballs.
Hmm. This means that fully realized red constructs have their own OS that is actively preventing their data from being overwritten. Which makes sense.
Wait! Does that mean that Nathan’s fancy stick has a mind of its own?
You’re forgetting that Reality.exe was executed some time before all of those updates. To implement those, it would need to be shut down and started all over again, which would be a really huge hassle.
– Blocking all memory leaks? No.
– Detecting memory leaks? If you’re lucky. And I mean that, but it could either be good or bad luck depending on which memory leak detection algorithm managed to catch it…
– Detecting that recently allocated memory was previously used? Sort of. There’s a structure there? Let’s use it!
– Detecting null pointer exceptions? Where’s the fun in that?
– Detecting our newly allocated memory is currently in use elsewhere? Seems complicated.
– Detecting that it’s run out of memory? I forget what we were talking about.
Just remember that 640 yobibytes are clearly all we’ll ever need. Oh, and don’t worry about software crashes, because those only ever happen because the hardware we’ve built since then is able to detect problems. Without that pesky detection business, reality keeps chugging right along.
Plato’s Cave?
I mean, the “About” page says that PastUtopia is a Philosophy Major that works in Software Engineering (almost exactly my background as well, as it happens)… I don’t think it is a stretch to see that reflected in the magic system.
Even the term “Eidos” itself is from Plato’s Theory of Forms (Form being another term that comes up a lot). If you combine Plato’s philosophy with how video game engines are programmed (PastUtopia’s previous job according the about page) I think you pretty much get the magic system.
I do want to say this isn’t a criticism. I fucking LOVE the magic system and the way it ties philosophy and programming together to something that is fantasy but also grounded in a certain plausibility, particular if we account for the possibility we are living in a simulation to start with. What can I say, I am a colossal pretentious nerd, so it just checks all the right boxes for me.
I think Atter’s best tactical move here would have been to reform in this corpse, and *then* flit away in a manner to preserve its data as best as it could.
But I think knowing when to run isn’t something Atter ever did.
I think that was Atters plan, the dragon sniffed him out. His curent plan is to take over the dragon. We do not know for sure why it is not working. But for the readers sake one of the reasons should be the input password(true name) is FluffyXXXXXXXXX(X’s are censoring). Another reason could be her will and magic is actively blocking it. Note the extra pieces of rubble floating around.
My thought is that might be why Fluffy is “more real” than usual. Atter probably cannot take over a living human. If the Dragon has crossed the line into “a living dragon” it might prevent Atter from taking it over.
Kally of all people probably knows what a Demon and Atter in particular can do. She was trained or something by Sophie and was the ace of the monster hunters, who do know what Demons are (they were speculating if Ila was one, which, while wrong, was not as far off as it might have seemed at the time).
But I suspect that doing that in front of Kally would be basically be impossible, as she in terms of raw power I do not think anyone else rivals her (Naomi and Tyler being the only potential candidates in her generation we have seen).
Atter can probably take over a living human. It complained about this one being dead.
It probably cannot take over a particularly willful human. Which means that most of the characters whose names we know are probably safe, along with all of the monster hunters.
I think it’s probably difficult to say whether Naomi and Tyler are more or less powerful than Kally. Kally’s been through a war with another world. From that experience, she can go from off to full power in a moment. Naomi and Tyler haven’t had that experience. Naomi *plays*. Tyler worries more about consequences of winning than losing. This is probably appropriate, given his power. But it still means we probably have not seen the top of his power.
Yep. Like I theorized on an earlier page: It seems apt to compare Atter with Agent Smith in the Matrix sequels in how he seems like a virus, able to infect and take over the bodies of other beings. At this point, from what we now know and what was said, I’d be surprised if he could not take over a living human.
Consider, too, how Atter had secretly “tagged” Arron Kepler with a magic “tracker” or some such thing. If it was merely a listening and/or tracking device, I question whether Arron would have had his arm amputated. But if there was a chance that Demon Atter could use it as an ‘anchor’ or actually take over Arron’s body, Agent Smith-like, then the fact that he would go so far as to amputate his arm makes a lot more sense.
I’m reading this as confirmation that the fanciest stick is a stable Edios construct.
Was this ever confirmed before? Or am I reading this wrong?
I don’t think we know if the fanciest stick started as a pure Eidos construct, or if it started as a literal stick that received a large number of enhancements.
I can see it working either way.
I’m trying to wrap my head around this.
Assuming a normal corporate meeting of only 2 hours, and given that one is at 5 am and the other at 11pm…. That means there are two sleep windows. A four hour window, and a sixteen hour window.
Now let’s add that up and make sure I didn’t miss anything… Carry the one… Total of 22 hours in a day, yup, nailed it.
Dan Shive eats peanut shells. Just saying.
I’m getting the impression that Atter truly is an infection of matter at the Eidos level. And rapidly approaching it’s end of life.
Fluffy on the other hand? Reality seems to be getting used to him hanging around.
It’s my understanding that Dan Shive is a somewhat variable being. When they’re a squirrel or coyote, I expect that they do eat a number of peanut shells. I mean, that just sort of happens when one is one of those. It’s not deliberate, but… nuts.
Re-reading your comment, it’s worded almost like it’s intended as an insult. But I can’t figure out on my own how it would be degrading to do that.
Most of my corporate meetings are 1 hour or less. As I work for corporate, all of my meetings are corporate meetings.
That said, Past didn’t say corporate, but overseas hell. My recollection of overseas hell meetings was they generally lasted for 2.5-3.5 hours, but felt like eternities.
JJ @ QC links to Dave Willis content with “Dave eats Diapers”. It was that sort of friendly insult that I was aiming for with D Shive. I’ve enjoyed his comics since you turned me on to them, but his politics, or lack thereof, prohibit me from actively complimenting him.
So yes, it was intended as an insult, but an insult that could be identified as tongue in cheek. Whose tongue and whose cheek, I’m not willing to speculate on.
I was also joking about re: two hour meetings. Past made it pretty clear that they were one hour meetings.
Incidentally I typically just hang up at the hour mark. No need to make it weird by saying goodbye. I also won’t usually join if they’re are more than 5 or 6 invitees. That’s a clear sign that the meeting isn’t very important.
So by some metrics I must be a terrible employee. I remain employed however, so my software must not completely suck.
I’ve been the off shore team jockey before as well. Pro tip: if you understand them just fine most times, but occasionally find yourself completely failing to understand the accents? Ask what sort of connection they’re on. In my case a single 5 mb data connection provided office internet AND all phone lines. Over compression of voice trumps accent every time.