Comic for Thursday, November 22nd, 2018
Just a reminder, there will be no page on Monday – I’m sorry about that, but that’s what it is… I’m a long ways away from my drawing tablet right now and it’s not finished. Obviously I could have/should have split this page in a two, and I was originally going to do that, but I didn’t really like the split page… I really don’t like splitting ‘action’ pages as it makes me just try to draw smaller, ha.
For patrons, Tyler’s Story Part 1 has gone up on Patreon as some sort of pictureless webcomic, and there is an attached poll where you can tell me if you hate it 🙂
I do think Thursdays comic is still up in the air, as that’s a pretty tight schedule from when I land back home and have to get it out, but lets aim for optimism here.
Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to those where that applies.
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Correct me if I got this quote wrong
“Naomi has two states, smiling and punching. She wasn’t smiling.”
Although she did start smiling when the punching started.
I’m not convinced that those two states are mutually exclusive.
Not only is there no exclusivity indicated of those two states, we have also seen evidence that it is not true. Chapter 1, pages 6-9. Chapter 1, pages 34 and 37. Chapter 3 page 17. Chapter 4, page 51 (last page of the chapter). Chapter 5, most of the tennis match. Chapter 6, page 22. That’s all the farther I’ve gone through her 139 appearances. I just stopped because that’s clearly overwhelming evidence by that point.
In fact, I would say it’s more common for her to be smiling while she’s punching than when she’s not punching.
That having been said, I think the only times she starts punching while she’s already smiling are limited to those times when she’s only smiling in anticipation of punching. As such, while Amy appeared to be wrong about Naomi’s states, the overall advice seems useful: to ensure Naomi does not start punching you, attempt to ensure that Naomi is smiling for reasons other than the thought of punching you.
Love Naomi’s dialogue here!
Yeah, that cracked me up. Sometimes it is the simple things said clever that are the best.
On the one hand, Kor’s world guys are supposed to just drop out of the sky and flatten whatever they feel like before they wander off.
On the other hand, he better hope the combat stuff he’s opening up is enough.
Enough against Naomi? Or enough if Mium manages to get his internal conflicts sorted and joins in?
I wonder if Mium post internal conflicts will actually be more powerful? We don’t have a good gauge, but Mium in the F-10 was ridiculously powerful – will he still be that powerful with the new interface integrated, or was that due to the F-10 prototype being more powerful? I guess is it the ghost or the shell that matters for magic?
It’s my distinct impression that Mium has virtually no mana to speak of. I have the feeling that his magic is the result of Eidos cards + Miko’s Eidos key. However, she’s not a mage and more to the point does not have mage level power.
Ila, on the other hand, has her own key and generates an insane amount of mana. It’s my impression she is one of the top tier for mana generation, and possibly is the top tier by herself.
I don’t believe that Mium knows how to use that mana to cast spells – I think that’s the bizarre unintelligible control interface that he complained about on page 19, panel 3 of this chapter. But he was certainly able to make use of that power, to the point where the effects he produced switched from light blue all the way up to purple (as demonstrated on page 20, also of this chapter), which appears to be past red.
I find it interesting how this Kor’s World soldier remains perfectly calm throughout and no amount of thrashing or bashing can even interrupt his dialog. This suggests that he is unemotional or has nerves of steel.
If he was human, then he should have had the wind knocked out of him, especially in panel 8 with the body throw – even despite padded armor and even if he took no damage. No human could continue to talk like that to mission control or whatever under those circumstances.
I take this as further evidence that these Kor’s World soldiers are either androids or organic humanoids with a lot of military-grade cybernetic implants. If he is near-human, then he must have artificial lungs that allow him to talk normally even during the impact of wrestling moves like a body slam.
Actually, he gets very nervous. He switches from “going to” to “need to” when referring to the activating the combat interface. I suspect the armor is taking all the damage for him right now, so he’s physically unharmed. But he’s still losing, badly.
He doesn’t switch thoughts mid sentence; His line of ‘Control, the native lifeform is more troublesome than expected. Going to need to initiate combat interface’ is one clear thought spread out across multiple panels of combat. Which gives a sense of how face Naomi is. She goddamn looped him and kicked him into a wall in that time.
I agree: It was very impressive. Naomi can really kick a**! But I disagree that those are his thought bubbles. By the shape of them, they are speech bubbles. Heck, in the first panel he is addressing Naomi. And in almost all of the other panels he is addressing Control.
I don’t remember the last time we saw thought bubbles in this comic. I’m not even sure if PastUtopia uses them. Instead, I think the intention was to tell the story entirely through dialog and actions.
There are thought bubbles on the last page actually, but that is just a weird coincidence as they are pretty rare. @PastUtopia has stated somewhere he does not like them, but I do not remember where. I think he only uses them where he cannot have the character logically speaking to themselves.
There was also Peter’s thought bubbles a few weeks ago at the start of his conversation with Uriah.
But yes, these are not though bubbles. Thought bubbles are square in this comic (at least that is how I have always read it).
The panel 8 impact made the soldier stop speaking for a panel and a half.
“More troublesome…” *crunch* *sits up* “…than expected.”
Stops speaking for a panel and a half? I just don’t see it that way. The only panels with the soldier in them that I see where he is not saying anything are panels 3 and 4, which is where Naomi first started pummeling him and before he starts to address Control.
It depends on how you read the panels. I read it the same way you did, but I can see what Gurst is saying too – it is hard. Basically he could have said “troublesome” before hitting the ground, then if you count the panel of red construct ribbon breaking as happening sequentially instead of simultaneously, you could read it as a pause.
I more get the feeling that he was talking straight through and did not really react to the pummeling he is taking – either his armor is somehow dampening blunt force very well or the person inside is very tough (or, like Mium, just treats “pain” as a data point).
There is plenty of precedent for people speaking while they’re off-panel, especially in action sequences. That his dialog stopped for panels even when he wasn’t in them suggests that he’s not completely unfazed. My reading on his formalized speech in the face of Naomi’s assault is that his native language is a very formal one, in which one cannot simply drop unimportant words without changing the meaning of ones words. It’s also possible that his commanding officers are asshats who won’t give approval to initiate combat mode unless the person making the request shows them proper respect by speaking correctly.
Even if there is a precedent for characters speaking off-panel in action sequences in comic books or other webcomics, the real question is if there is a precedent for that in this webcomic and in a rapid, tight combat situation similar to this.
The problem with this theory – that the lack of dialog balloons in two panels (9 & 13) indicates that he actually paused his dialog – is that the two panels in question are very tiny compared to the rest of the panels. Panel 13, in particular, is such that even a small dialog balloon with one or two words would cover up a good percentage of the panel.
Panel 9 just shows Naomi breaking the red magic ribbon, which shouldn’t even take half a second.
Panel 13… I can’t even figure out what it shows, aside from some sort of electrical/magical discharge around some rubble. I suppose it could indicate either that the soldier’s armor has taken damage or that it used magic to lessen the impact.
I’m the guy who’s been putting comic transcripts on the wiki for this comic. There is a significant amount of precedent for it in this comic. chapter 13, page 11, panel 8, chapter 13, page 18, panels 4 and 5, and chapter 13, page 24, panel 2. Sorry about no transcript for the last one; work has been exceedingly work-like lately.
I saw this response coming a mile away.
Well done. 😉
A lot depends on how you interpret how the armor is working. Since we know powered armor can stop things like super-extra-fast 50 calibrer rounds, the simplest explaination is to assume that it must dissipate the force (with magic!): so while the armor & wearer is being thrown around & hit, the person on the inside only feels a much reduced force. So wearer hitting the ground, they won’t really feel; wearer being punched, doesn’t feel much; BUT if you spin the wearer around, then they’ll get dizzy. (So the solidier would have felt the rush of being flung over Naomi’s head, but doesn’t get the OUCH from hitting the ground at the end of the arc).
Honestly I am impressed by both of them in this panel. I was not really expecting Naomi to do “this well”. She is showing that in her area of expertise, she definitely can make a Kor’s World soldier regret his life choices, power armor or no. But on the other hand, it is clearly not having any real effect besides tossing him around like a rag doll. While that feels good to see, it does not seem to be doing anything, which reaffirms that these guys a neigh indestructible and therefor certified scary bastards.
I’m with you in that I am impressed by both of them and that I did not expect either to do quite this well. However, I have to disagree with you on the “clearly not having any real effect” on the Kor’s World soldier.
Granted, this soldier remains perfectly calm throughout and no amount of thrashing or bashing can even interrupt his dialog. But being unemotional or having nerves of steel doesn’t necessarily mean that Naomi hasn’t done any damage to him.
Consider the “Crunch” sound effect in panel 3 (kidney punch) and again in panel 8 (body slam). Also, there was a “Crump” on the previous page. That kind of sound effect is usually pretty self explanatory. Almost without exception, it means that something has begun to give, crumble or get broken. Though, I suppose in panel 8 the body slam might only indicate the concrete floor cracking… maybe…
Perhaps the humanoid or android inside the power armor has yet to receive real damage. But I bet the power armor itself is starting to crumple or crack a bit. Whether or not this power armor has the ability to self-heal, that’s another matter.
Don’t forget, we’ve seen power armor (the IDS version) in a combat situation previously. Naomi punches someone wearing it (“CRUMP”) after she realises it can take a 50 caliber round shot by Ila, and subsequently Ila shoots someone else wearing power armor with the 50 calibre sniper rifle, at least 3 times, at a range close enough for her to then be in the hand-to-hand vicinity soon afterwards (i.e. standing next to Naomi, who was doing the hand-to-hand thing). Link is here https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-wednesday-december-7th/.
The rifle is the XFI 54940 PB Type 50 Caliber Sniper Rifle Mium liberated from Mika (Rovak’s team) who had liberated from Kon (IDS). Link here https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-friday-april-10th/. If you were paying attention, then you will know that when Ila fires it, she uses magic to accelerate the round to an even more amazing speed…
So Naomi hits at least as hard as being hit by a super-extra-fast 50 calibrer round (probably harder, because of the whole pounds per square inch comparison (i.e. her fist vs a 50 caliber round))! And the Kor’s World powered armor protects the wearer from such damage and remains functional!!
Note: As far as I can tell, the Kor’s World armor has suffered NO damage from Naomi punching it… as opposed to previously vs IDS powered armor where we could see damage to the armor.
Panel 2: Best! Naomi! Face! Ever!
I have to admit I am one of those people that votes for Naomi in all the polls. What can I say? She is cute as helland badass… what more can a guy ask for?
Personally, I’d prefer a woman who chooses to think (Naomi *can*, but she usually doesn’t bother) and is more inclined to choose her own way and possibly lead others. But then I’m the sort of guy who likes a woman who wants to take charge.
This is why I always try to push for a “Naomi And _____” option on all the polls since I know that Naomi is such a central and memorable figure that she is pretty much guaranteed to win.
Leason learned: Don’t try to tie yourself to Naomi in a situation where punching may commence.
I’m going to learn a different lesson from this: Don’t be on Naomi’s bad side in a situation where punching may commence. This includes not being tied to her fist, as that’s her bad side regardless of how she feels about you personally. 😉
One wonders whether combat interface is going to make as much of a difference as this foot soldier seems to think it will.
Have a great remainder of your trip and we will see the next page when we see it!
As I said last panel, I have a theory that this combat interface might be related in type to the implant Miko has. If that is the case, his magic might be about tied into the full power of Kor’s World SMAI.
I would say Naomi is trouble, besides the fact that I expect an SMAI that is currently laying in the hallway outside to enter this fight before the curtains close on it. Things might get a little out of hand.