Comic for Tuesday, May 28th, 2019
Naturally Kally’s story would… probably not line up with Peter’s story. Kally believes that Peter can control the weather, but Peter would believe (to keep Kally’s vaguely awkward metaphor) that it is the actions of people that make the weather, and the actions of people can be influenced. I had sort of thought we’d be further in Minus Years by this time, but that’s not been realistic to work on lately. I would also note that if you find the metaphor/story somewhat off… well, remember, this is Kally speaking. She does not do words good, per se. She is the person that not that long ago struggled to make it through a conversation that couldn’t be solved with saluting.
There is also an intentional dissonance between the sentiment in panel 5 and 11. Kally would like to believe in Peter’s schemes (well, some of them, anyway), but she also still worries, and therefor is not above smashing something she thinks will wreck them. I.e. she wants to believe the sky will clear because the optimistic meteorologist said it would, but when she sees a rain cloud lingering, well, she’s not above helping a prediction come to pass by her own methods for fear that the prediction she likes will be ruined by it.
I think Kally once believed that Peter had disappeared in order to abandon his plans, but is slowly shifting to believe that he disappeared as part of his plans. I doubt she will forgive him for disappearing in general, but, well, it’s complicated.
…That’s probably more context than I should give to a page, but I feel like we’ve seen less of Kally and Peter’s dynamic than I expected by now, so that it’s fair to say more about it.
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I actually really, really like Kally’s comment on why she trusts Peter. It is misplaced for the reason, but not misplaced for the results. And part of why Peter knows the rain will stop – part of how he controls the weather – is by telling those who can destroy rainclouds that they’ll succeed if they do it at the time he predicts.
My friend Chauncey Gardener tells me that there will be growth in the spring, while everyone else around me is talking about the end of the world. Now, I understand. I don’t think that he necessarily knows something the rest of them don’t.
But there will be growth in the spring. There will always be growth in the spring. It’s the way things are.
So remember, when getting drinking water from the spring, bring it to a hard boil, because whatever’s growing in that spring, it’s probably going to keep doing it once that water is in you if you don’t do something to prevent that. And it probably won’t be healthy for you.
I feel compelled to comment, but I’ve been at a loss for words.
OF COURSE you know Chauncey Gardener, because why wouldn’t you?
The dissonance between panels 5 and 11 seems mostly an indication that Kally’s thinking about the situation is more sophisticated than her analogy; it’s not that Peter is directly changing the weather, he’s trying to change the behavior that leads to the weather, and Kally is certainly one of the people whose behavior might alter the weather.
That’s actually a pretty cool story/analogy…..rather like it, honestly.
Also, she seems to be taking her dragon suddenly talking rather naturally. (Curious.)
(PS: One of your demon-speak bubbles (or whatever that language is) has a “_” in front, instead of a “-“.)
I mean, Kally seemed to hold two way conversations with the Dragon previously, so from her perspective, it talking may not actually be anything new. She might just find it a little weird that other people can hear it, but the only person so far that we know can hear it was Atter (and maybe the Kor’s World soldier) who are not exactly normal people.
It spoke Central to the Kor’s world soldier. It spoke Demon to Atter. Now it speaks Demon to Kally. Not sure what significance that may hold.
Fluffy is downloading languages from miss Summers as appropriate. They used central with the Kors world soldier because it is what they knew he understood. The language you are referring to as Demon is an old nearly extinct language used by central magic users, like Latin. Note that the demons question that Fluffy is responding to is in Palindra common. That means Fluffy is most likely tri-lingual by now but doesn’t switch mental gears rapidly.
rain clouds = kinetic strike platforms?
Personally I thought Kally’s story makes sense, and gives us insight into why she likes Peter so much in the first place. While Peter can be a dick, he’s the only one that would tell her she could be whatever she wanted to be, and not the red dragon witch that destroys everything (that is how I read it anyway).
Because Kally is so unsure of her spot in the world relying on structure and authority that she clearly has unwanted doubts about, she is drawn to the fact that Peter is utterly self assured that he knows what the right path forward is.
When he abandoned his confidence and fled (from her point of view) she was furious. Now she realizes that he was just such a dick he didn’t take her feelings into account and it was business as usual, which actually makes her feel better, because she already knew that Peter was a dick who doesn’t take human feelings into account.
Panel 4: “on *a* rainy day” and “one says that *the* rain will stop”?
Wait… is that it? Is Atter dead? That doesn’t feel right… (As in that doesn’t feel possible)
Considering that this is Kally doing the whole “making him dead” thing, it seems possible to me. . . .
I’m not sure Atter can be “dead” while Sophie is still anchoring him. Atter’s form is destroyed, but it is likely he can reform near Sophie, or that Sophie could reform.
Kally’s dragon disappears when she isn’t burning things, but I get the feeling it is the same dragon each time (at least according to Kally), but that gets in the questions if demons and red constructs and AI are considered “Alive” at all. Did Mium die when he briefly shut down?
Now Atter might actually have died here, as I get the feeling that unlike Fluffy (who was created by Kally) he wasn’t created by Sophie, so it is possible Sophie cannot recreate him if he is completely destroyed like this. The fact that Atter was trying to escape suggests this is at least highly inconvenient for him.
He might really be dead. If only because last coming he mentioned loosing data, and not remembering things. So, even if something is still anchored, without any of it’s memories is it the same creature or something new?
Also, Sophie is going to either be in custody or have most of two worlds after her. Because, remember, Mium just took control of all the gates that were forfeit due to the penalty provision of the treaty.
Imagine if someone just siezed a significant chunk of the world’s airplanes and ships legally. There would be rioting from everyone who not only lost their investment, but also who can no longer transport goods. All because of Sophie.
I suspect Atter is dead, or at least as dead as demons can get.
I question whether Sophie isn’t soon to follow. She seems the type where prison just isn’t a viable option. The Summers seem to think so.
Yup. Pretty sure Kally wouldn’t be moving on if she thought there was enough of Atter left to possess another body. Dragon based justice in action…
The point here is that Kally’s dragon is capable of doing things that shouldn’t be possible, like destroying Korish armor, so it’s not such a stretch that it could kill a demon, even if that shouldn’t be possible–there might even be a connection between the two feats. . . .
This topic was partially touched upon in the discussion in the last comic page. To the best of our knowledge, Kally is the original creator of Fluffy. So when Fluffy vanishes, does he die? Some possibilities:
1. Kally holds him in low-power mode. He’s invisible and (maybe) asleep, but doesn’t die.
2. Kally’s brain acts like a backup for Fluffy. He sort of dies, but doesn’t lose any memories.
3. Fluffy dies and loses his memories. But when Kally summons him back, she writes her memories of him back into his head.
4. Fluffy never had an independent will of his own until now, so never had memories to lose.
5. Some combination of 4 and 1 or 2 or 3.
6. Fluffy is actually a benevolent ‘demon’ who enjoys being Fluffy.
Pretty sure not #6, based on Atter’s conversation with Fluffy. My guess would be #1.
I would assume #7 which is sorta like #1 – Fluffy is like the Fanciest Stick; when their data is written to eidos, it becomes part of Kally’s pattern, and is pulled back out when she reads them back again.
My guess would be #1/#2. For something as complicated as Fluffy, Kally summons him suspiciously fast. Even for Kally, I cannot see creating him from scratch to be an easy thing. My guess is like Dave Howe says, Fluffy’s data is somehow stored and Kally just writes it to reality when she wants Fluffy to start kicking ass and taking names.
Remember that Kally is not an innate mage (according to PastUtopia), she is a natural mage. This means that Fluffy is not an innate ability, and would have to be cast. While we have seen mages summon Eidos constructs quickly, Kally summons her dragon with the same speed other mages summon a barrier, and if we think back to when Eliana (another confirmed tactical mage) summoned the red cube, the others were impressed. And that is a cube, not a dragon.
My theory would be that Kally probably “cast” the spell that summoned Fluffy a long time ago, and that Fluffy never entirely goes away, it is more of a question of how much he is formed into reality at any given moment. Of course, that is just speculation, I do not think we have enough information to be sure.
I think Fluffy is fast approaching or possibly past the point where he can be easily stuffed back into hammerspace.
Fixed, thanks. 🙂
Actually, I think the term “demon” in the context of magic and technology in the setting leans towards my personal explanation that atter is, no, was a edos construct that followed these three points:
1) the construct does not dissipate with time, ie, it is semipermanant.
2) has the ability to write in edos by way of proxy using another living bodies key
3) uses a body as a host shell by which it can interact with the world around it.
The theory can also be extrapolated and applied to mium efeight and the use of personal uploading like Miko and Dr m.i.r.
That is, if personality is just a complex edos algorithm that the biological hardware runs, then a demon is just a body snatching mind. Kinda like M.Y.M.
Just my thoughts
Meoi Lass
PS. Atter is dead. If you consider his blond haired body to be him, because that thing is gone. Now his data is dusted and any body nearby, so I think he is finally gone for good.
And everyone who is talking about fluffy…uh… maybe the above theory can be adapted to explain how fluffy’s memory works.
Or pastutoptia can just tell us someday.
On your point 2… would that mean by animating a dead body, which presumably no longer has a key, Atter’s abilities were notably weakened? Is that what it meant by useless?
Was this a situation where Atter respawned in the dead body more or less solely to flit away as soon as it could have managed it? By engaging it in conversation, Kally kept it sufficiently distracted from that task she was able to get most of the information she wanted without it getting away?
I’m not 100% certain the blond body is dead. It’s entirely possible that he was basically dead already, for most purposes that matter, or that Atter killed him as its first action in the spirit beast. But apart from those two possibilities, I would think the first thing the body would do on being freed, if he didn’t immediately fall unconscious, would be to run the other way like his life/sanity/sanity depended on it.
PastUtopia gave us some info in the comments of the last comic.
One of the benefits of anchoring is being able to effectively regenerate a physical construct body from nothing. If Mium were to grind Atter to powder, Atter could reform with little or no data loss.
But anchoring isn’t a perfect cheat. If Atter were to try to escape without a physical body, it would cost him data. Additionally, Atter got hit with dragonfire, which destroyed both the constructs AND the data behind them. Atter needed to escape. But trying to escape without a physical body would make him sacrifice even more data. Possibly even to the point where Atter would forget who he was or even be erased altogether. So Atter grabbed a physical body as fast as he could to prevent additional data loss. And he grabbed the body of a soldier to hopefully escape Kally and Fluffy’s notice.
Kally engaged Atter in conversation because that’s what the smart heroes always do. They try to figure out the master plan so they can then stop it.
Once Fluffy spotted him, Atter was never going to escape. The question now is: how much of Atter is Sophie going to be able to recover? Or perhaps: will Sophie even have the opportunity to recover Atter?
Why was the dead body useless to Atter? Not sure. The presumable lack of a key is a great idea. Myself, I was thinking that a dead body wouldn’t have memories to use or vital signs to hide his nature. Pretty sure this is the first time we’ve gotten confirmation that Atter has bodysnatching abilities, so we will have to see if PastUtopia gives us more info.
I considered hints of the body snatching before from his little braid thingy on his old body, which is a Malsan family political thing, IIRC (something like that, anyway – it was discussed re: Arkady at some point).
Since Atter isn’t Malsan, and doesn’t seem the type to care about fitting in, I took that to mean that he was doing some kind of mind control.
But confirmation nevertheless, I suppose.