Just as an FYI, I’m not going to unlock the Wiki yet as I’ll be traveling for work, and occurs to me those are two events that should not overlap (I know I said I was going to, but than I realized that was a stupid idea). Monday will update as expected, Thursday probably will be on time, but may be late, depends on if I schedule it to post head of time or just decide that everything will work out.
That said, hopefully all this travel means that Tyler’s story will get updated soon, and maybe even the wiki, though saying I’ll have more time because I am traveling for work is… well, probably ambitious. Poor Tyler has been falling behind on his panel count.
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“Drive faster. I need a nap and you need to not get shot down.”
I love those chairs. They have built in hot and cold running water. But that would make the yellow and gray cables…waste cables. Hmm. This military is so serious about war, you’re not allowed bathroom breaks.
(yes, I’m being silly. I just always see red and blue cables together as hot and cold water.)
Oh, hmm. I also just noticed that the commander doesn’t have anything up on the 3 overhead displays. That seems odd. Is he so confident in his data analysts that he doesn’t need any POV snapshots or realtime overwatch diagrams?
How about oxygen and acetylene? . . .
That’s cool if you want to pipe acetylene to your chair, but please, not to mine. Especially not if someone has also piped oxygen to it.
P.S. Please remind me to stay far away from your chair. Thank you, and have a nice day.
II understand there are people who know how to use that stuff, but everyone I know who seems to be competent at using it likes to keep it secured and separate from any oxygen supplies when they’re not wanting to actively use it for some reason. I get the feeling that it’s a good reason, and I’d like to go along with that. Having it out when one is actively wanting to use it, fine. Having it hooked up just in case? OMG no.)
Finally, a military commander who’s got a brain. For this comic, that’s rather rare…
I wouldn’t really say that. The Arpon generals were advising their president against this whole plan, Colonel Ricci seems like he’s pretty sane, and Arron is a military commander technically (he is Major Arron Kepler when he uses his rank).
It is generally the bureaucrats that command them and the special ops people that display suicidal overconfidence in their abilities. Mr. Visor from last panel was probably some form of special unit/mage from his uniform as that is the same sort of uniform we saw on the people that went into Resh after Kokato (his personal guard dogs).
Karov isn’t too bad, either. I don’t think we’ve actually seen what his rank is exactly, but he isn’t stupid – he just knows enough to be terrified of Sophie, Arron, and presumably many others. But he did, at least, take his leave of absence knowing that the person his duties would fall on would make the right choices.
Unless I very much miss my guess, this guy is a member of the Families, and almost certainly a powerful natural mage in addition to being a military commander.
Many of the people we see are Mages-via-Autocaster, or rely on troops that use Autocasters. It is my observation that Autocasters tend to make people greatly overestimate their ability. This makes sense. It is an enormous new power at their finger tips. They can see themselves doing what only powerful Natural Mages could do previously. But very few of the seem to really understand that what they have in their Autocaster is the tip of the iceburg. They do not really understand understand that the ceiling over their head is not the same one that real mages have.
They are people that once had power from a gun, and view magic as a better gun. They are not wrong, but they think their new better gun puts them on the same level as a real mage because it is using their magic. They might be right some of the time, but when they are up against someone the lives magic like Ila, Kally or Tyler, they are completely out of their league.
A member of the Families, however, very likely knows how high the ceiling goes. While an Autocaster mage hears a report of someone “swatting down drones with contemptuous ease” would think “that cannot be right”, this guy probably realizes what he is actually seeing: An improbably powerful mage, not an impossibly powerful mage.
Most of the more cocky individuals that make bad decisions either have political ambitious that are the driving force behind their mistakes (Kokato, Biana), are legitimately insane (Rovak, Atter, debatably Sophie), or are middle managers/petty ranks that are out of their league (David, Nick, Mr. Visor from last page).
Anyone that is in their position for reasons of merit (Ricci, likely Arpon’s actual generals, likely this guy, Arron), do not typically make the same level of brash assumptions. Even the people back in Central have the common sense to mostly keep their hands clear of the fire, they are mostly just guilty of inaction in not reigning in Biana in, but from their perspective she is less of a problem in Malsa than she would be back home.
I got the impression Nick isn’t even management. He was, of course, raised with the expectation that he would be management. But he’s basically a very talented youngster (though older than the in school cast) who has been rewarded for his past performance with the authority to ‘borrow’ people for particular missions. He’s a team lead who gets to pick his teams, but he doesn’t know his people like an actual manager should, and he doesn’t seem to grasp the importance of that. Of course, most actual managers don’t know their people like managers should, either, but it probably matters more when you’re taking said people into combat.
I think the big issue with how Biana is handled is basically the issue with how the UK handled the problem officers they exiled to India with full privileges: they really do believe that the problem people are less of a problem when placed in places that are less within their purview. But they’re really not less of a problem; they’re just less apparent.
In the situation here, that behavior is even more short-sighted, considering that they were hoping to move a bunch of people to Malsa and elsewhere on Palindra. As such, they’ve basically moved Biana to where she is less able to be reined in, but can cause as much or more long term harm.
“…swatting them down with contemptuous ease…” I can think of no phrase which better encapsulates Ila than that one. ^^
“while going on about tasty food.”
Just sayin’.
I think Ila might finally be hitting a limit: FATIGUE.
I think she’s out of energy and needs food. Problem is, all they have available are military rations, and “tasty food” that ain’t. ^^
That’s the world that we know, at least.
In a world where nobles have a reputation to maintain for providing tasty food? It may not necessarily be the case. We shall see, however.
I would think, in any event, Arkady’s personal reserves of tasty food on hand would probably be fairly limited, however.
During WWII, the US Army commissioned a survival bar. It had to have so many calories, be so small, and “taste slightly better than a boiled potato.” Unappetizing was PART of the requirements, as the Command didn’t want the troops to snack on the things, but instead keep them on hand for when they were truly needed.
I read a book, by John Ringo, that goes into this in greater detail, for a hypothetical little ice age – slash – pandemic – slash – really stupid elected officials. The army goes ahead and makes the bile colored, unpleasant tasting, survival bar, anyway, using modern food production methods, ignoring the command from On High to use Politically Correct food preparation methods, (no GMO, no fertilizer, no insecticide, grown by political lackeys who never set hand to a plow before the disaster, etc.)
The WWII confection.
https://www.history.com/news/d-day-rations-how-chocolate-helped-win-the-war
Brown Ila Needs Food Badly?
Less memetically, it’s interesting how…protective…Ash is of Ila. Despite also being terrified of her.
That this is Arkday. Ash has pink hair, while this hair is distinctly salmon (that is a joke, based on Ila and Mium arguing about salmon being a color). The only time we saw Ash and Ila was at the hospital.
It’s the color of the fish that he wears on his head.
Seriously though they probably have some MREs handy and I don’t know of a soldier that doesn’t carry some little tidbit of tasty something on their person at all times anyways. My favorite was Energy Chews. Unfortunately because they’re jellied and are super sweet they are basically a legal form of candy crack. Eating -only- one is very hard.
I’ve known plenty of ex military who did not *always* carry some little tidbit of tasty goodness. Sometimes they ate it. Generally, they would then immediately embark on a reconnaissance mission to acquire more tasty tidbits, but for a brief period of time they would be out.
I’d guess, in that light, Arkady probably has something on his person at least – eating the tasty tidbit right before engaging the enemy was generally considered ill-advised behavior. This is why they always ate their tasty tidbits *after* status meetings, rather than before. While it’s possible that Arkady consumed his in the window between meeting up with the kardus that nearly killed him and now, I would guess that is unlikely, as I doubt he has considered any of that time to be ‘after action’ time.
Ila can eat Mium food, compared to which I imagine MREs are delicious. I suspect like most cats, how fussy she is about her Fancy Feast goes down the hungrier she gets.
That said, if Arkady does not get her ice cream before the day is over, I can only assume he is a monster.