Comic for Sunday, July 21st, 2019
…okay, so this is pretty late Sunday. Next comic should not be this late, but will probably be end of day monday. This one ended up taking longer to finish than expected. A panel like panel 5 takes me almost as long as the rest of the comic to draw, for a few reasons. Part of it being it just takes longer to draw, and part of it as it means I have to check and double check what various characters we don’t see a lot actually look like, some of them haven’t appeared before, some of them haven’t appeared in… quite a while, etc.
And of course, a “free” weekend turned out to be a fairly busy weekend. I always overestimate how much free time is in a day where I don’t have anything planned because I have a hundred things I haven’t been doing at any given time while busy with other stuff. Anyway, that’s life.
We will just keep marching on.
I actually wasn’t sure if this would be an interlude page or a chapter page, but decided to do as an interlude page because of flow-of-time reasons, these things can be a little arbitrary. Ryn was originally more an interlude character anyway. There are a lot of things I wanted to do during this interlude…… not sure I will be able to get to all of them, as I don’t usually like to run the interlude for more than 2-3 weeks.
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Meanwhile, back in the lab… (last time we were there https:++pastutopia.com+comic+comic-for-friday-may-3rd-2019+).
IF Miko is a spark, then she’s on her 2nd breakthrough… the other researchers are all just regular sparks, and THEY WANT IN!!!!! They better hope Miko doesn’t fry them all!
Really it’s more like, Miko has technology that everyone wants. Helping her is the most pragmatic way of learning exactly what she has and how they might use it for themselves.
Don’t worry about the cost Ryn: Miko is advancing your research programs by years!
It won’t be Miko’s “chassis” on the table… (theoretically, that contains VIMium)… it’ll be a NEW chassis for VIMium. At least, that’s my guess.
Oh. Miko’s a Spark.
This explains so much.
(Except for how she manages to be the only Spark around, but eh, whatever.)
Still, so much of this is great. “I didn’t even know we had those people!” “I thought he was dead, I guess I should check he’s still getting paid.”
In what way is she the only Spark around? Sparks are mad geniuses, but not always in a proper inventor-ish way. Most of the major cast do things in ways that other people are like “it’s not supposed to work that way”
Sparks tend to get other people to help them out just by going “Hey, help out!” I think most of what we’ve seen is people helping out for money, not just crawling out of the woodwork to go “Oooohhhh!!!!” while helping.
Does that mean that Miko is trying to fill Dr. Martens’ shoes?
So what is Dr. Martin now? Could he be what lies “on the far side of Utopia”?
-Miko states that there’s “an empty world out there” before saying they’ve wondered “what’s on the far side of Utopia”.
-Peter implies that Kor’s World might actually have been running away from something.
-We know Kor’s World seems to have a problem with SMAIs and sentient red constructs (calling the latter an infestation).
-Dr. Martin seems to stand as evidence that there is a strong connection between AI, sentience, and red constructs.
I suspect that whatever lies on the far side of an otherwise empty world, whatever has Kor’s world scared, is likely some combination of sentient red construct/SMAI (demons?).
Corrolary: I’m pretty sure Kor’s World would not approve of what’s happening in Avon’s basement right now.
A scary thought that arises from this possibility is that, on an overall scale rather than just looking at this from a ‘protagonist-centered’ viewpoint, Kor’s World might really be “the good guys”…
The idea that Kor’s World might be the closest thing to the protagonist has been ventured before. As has the idea that Kor’s World is the villain of this story, and Central is the villain of the next story.
It occurs to me, the way Dr. Martin phrases things in the 2nd to last panel…
Did Mium get his nicknaming habit from Dr. Martin?
Probably. I’ve found that almost every little detail in PastUtopia’s writing or drawing is intentional.
The NIH did a study on this recently. Specifically regarding the level of detail, and the number of hours that seem to be needed to create it.
What they determined is that there is no actual human known as Past. Apparently “he” is actually a distributed network of offshore developers controlled by a collective intelligence of SMAIs.
It explains a lot of you think about it. Well, everything except that birthday weekend. THAT was just plain bizarre.
Minor details to point out (as some people always mention they are reading on phones):
1) There is mouse over text, it reads “Do we still pay Doctor Martin? Wait… does a ghost to get claim life insurance AND still draw their salary? -Ryn’s thoughts”
2) The neurosurgeon’s eyebrows are actually green, which would confirm he is a member of the families probably. This is interesting because the eyebrows are almost always drawn as a black line, but as he has no otherwise hair, I presume this was done on purpose as a clue.
3) There is someone that looks like a protoype (white hair or white hood) in the far back of the room, right in the middle.
4) Not a visual detail for this page, but Gate was seen either dead or unconscious in the background of the fight between the IDS squad leader and Mir during the raid of the other lab. While the art is updated, this look like the same person as previous. Gates’ eye color is very similar to Ila’s, which leads me to speculate his name is G-8, and he’s a different branch of prototype or something (probably a cyborg of some nature).
And from the dialog… the obvious. Saria is awfully knowledgeable about all of this. My suspicion (and likely Ryn’s) grows as that she may be more than just a very diligent secretary.
Ryn your in charge of mechanicsberg the town or in this case department filled with minions, minor sparks, & other abominations of science.
And i want to say that mouse-over text is an often overlooked treasure of an resource in the field of web-comics.
It’s not clear whether Miko’s meat sack is on the table or not.
Nice Girl Genius ref. …I should start reading that again.
Agreed. And same.
Last panel: muchthis -> much this
This looks like some proper mad science is being perpetrated. Morale will be high in the labs for the next month if they pull this off, I think…
Fixed, thanks 🙂
Things are only getting weirder…
Also: causality –> casualty
What are you saying? You don’t spontaneously resurrect if you’re dead and a massive leap in your field of science happens? Gosh, I feel bad for you.
Fixed, thanks 🙂
Wait so ONLY some people can see Dr. Martin?
That is very interesting, does that make him some sort of Ghost? Eidos imprint? And why can Rovak see him? OH MAN THE QUESTIONS.
One has to wonder if it’s …
Let me reiterate.
…
No, as I understand it, Ellipsis shrouds you as “someone who is supposed to be/allowed to be/is normally there”, based on Mium’s commentary seeing through Arron’s use of Ellipsis when he went to see Miko/Taki. Also, when … whatshisface, crowbar dude, that’s it, Tom!(maybe?) was sitting on a bench outside of somewhere pretending to be a bench-hobo or something.
Also, Ellipsis is apparently a skill known to very few people, and it’s one that I think Arron invented.
I do believe Dr. Martin is stuck in ellipses and can’t be seen unless certain conditions are met.
I think Dr. Martin isn’t the same Dr Martin that was around before. he seems to have been hit really hard in the head and maybe a red construct moved in. maybe that happened to push him into not quite this dimension.
That would explain the “is still alive” phrasing that MYM used.
Gate is G-8. we saw him before the RAID as well with his feet on a console. Eating tasty snacks. If he was collecting a salary then MIR was milking Avon for more money
I’m pretty sure it’s the same Dr Martin. More likely he “downloaded his consciousness” into a red construct that now inhabits his former body (which looks like he took a bullet to the head?). I’d wager he’s the equivalent of some form of demon now?