Q&A for Thursday, June 20th, 2019
… why even have an imaginary workforce if I cannot imagine them getting work done for me…?
Alright, let’s go through these…
Will we ever be able to Kor’s world?
That depends. If/when I write a sequel, probably in that. We will probably not see Kor’s World on-panel in the events of this part of the comic. Kor’s World is a major influence of the history and will become more important as time goes on, but Kor’s World itself… well, that’s a bit of another story.
What is the general lifestyle of the civilization of Kor’s world?
Kor’s World is what the IDS call a place they know relatively little about. Most of whom might speak to their speculation of that regard would be operating on fairly little information, as we have only seen a very small sample of the people from Kor’s World. If the IDS knows more than they let on, they aren’t forth coming with it, but it is but one of the several mysteries that preoccupy their time and energy…
Why do Central Military characters where a blank metal badge on their color?
…cause I’m too lazy to draw the details on it. It is not actually blank up close.
What is the relationship between hair and magic?
Deep and mysterious.
Who is your favorite character?
I don’t have one. Some people may not believe me, but it’s true. I like something about almost every character I write. Besides that person in charge of the drop-ship to pick up Jayce. That’s probably the only entirely irredeemable character.
Who is your favorite commenter, and what is it [redacted]?
[Redacted]. I appreciate all commenters and all readers. No, really, you’re all the reason this is still going and will continue to go on. I enjoy drawing/writing the comic, but I imagine I would have become distracted at some point without all the support and enthusiasm from all of you – I really do appreciate it and it makes a difference when comes to budgeting how I want to invest my time.
What is Callisto Summer’s Dragon’s Favorite Food?
Arms.
Or Ila’s for that matter?
Currently ice cream. The kind with either candy or cookie dough in it, as that combines ice cream with something else she likes.
Where are the Northern Republics?
They are on the eastern border of Orin, on the North Eastern edge of the continent Malsa is on. About the opposite side of the continent.
Were the Northern Republics subsumed by Orin?
…no. We’ll go with no. Not… really.
Did Tyler leave his homeland due to an accident, a misunderstanding, or a conflict that would’ve still happened had everyone involved known what the intents of the other people were?
Tyler left right before he would have been required to become a registered mage. Once a mage is a Registered Mage of a country, it would be extremely hard for them to leave the country. This was not an accident or a misunderstanding; there is a reason Tyler believed that staying in his country as a Registered Mage would have not been a good idea.
Was Tyler simply forced from his homeland, or are there still people who are upset with him?
Tyler would probably be assassinated if he returned to his home country. Or at least there’d be a dedicated effort.
Is Eliana confined to her chair, or does she have some limited ability to walk?
She is physically capable of walking, though poorly. Her condition is primarily a side effect of her magical powers, not a physical condition. Physical conditions that prevent the ability to walk are extremely rare with Malsa’s level of medical technology. It is comparable to Magnolia not being able to see in a way. Eliana can move about on her own with magic if she wants though.
It is likely that Eliana could walk far better than she does with a certain degree of training/physical therapy. It might be more accurate to say that she has not learned to walk properly more than she cannot, though it would be a lot harder for her to learn than a normal person.
Does the chair have any artifact power like the fancy stick?
Nope. It is literally just a chair with wheels.
Does the chair actually give any mobility capability, or does she just move it around with her magic and uses it as a way to not need to constantly think about standing/floating?
She normally relies on someone to push the chair around, though she can do it herself with magic if she really wants to, or can move more directly with magic. She cannot quite fly, though she might be able use a construct to do that, it would be more dangerous than Kally makes it look. Making red constructs is rare enough that even she probably does not know very well what they can do. Seeing Kally’s dragon was probably educational, though just making a red construct look like whatever you want it to do is harder than it might seem. Atter is abnormal in that his red constructs had great – almost chaotically random – variety. Most people that summon even green constructs summon only one thing or a handful of different things.
Is the battered shell that Atter was using still around somewhere as a free and presumably terrified person?
He is, unfortunately, dead.
Will you ever learn that you’re allowed to take breaks from the comic?
Unlikely, but events may conspire against me.
Who is Minerva?
Technically speaking this is answered in comic. Minerva Saywood is the Office of Executive Bureaucracy Undersecretary of Interdimensional Affairs. I’m guessing that’s not quite what you are asking. Minerva represents the civilian interests in Interdimensional Affairs, as the Council has some degree of theoretical oversight of the IDS. While in Civil Service is the Council’s functional arm (in theory), Executive Bureaucracy is the people actually keep the world running to an extent, due the Council rarely acting effectively in a direct manner anymore, and the Civil Service, the IDS, and the Military have basically made a three way power grab.
In theory Minerva has little actual power, but in practice that’s not entirely true, as the Executive Bureaucracy holds the default power of the Council that the Civil Service has not managed to run off with, but has trouble exerting much direct influence on either the IDS or the Civil Service.
Who is Nelson[Otte]?
Arron Kepler’s least favorite person. A competent and pragmatic wanker that goals nearly directly opposite Arron’s goal, beyond that they both are quite dedicated to the cause of the IDS.
Is Query dead?
Hmmm. No. Let’s go with that.
Why did Mari need an alibi?
We will see. Pretty soon.
Is Kyle Kepler the villain?
Of someone’s story, to be sure. Everyone powerful is the villain of someone’s story.
Will Ila get fat from eating too much?
Probably not. I mean, she has passed out from lack of food rather recently, which is sort of the opposite of that.
Peter once told Tyler (or heavily implied) that calling the dragon Fluffy would cause Kally to rip off an arm. Did that actually happen? And did it actually happen the way Peter implied?
Kally is sometimes easily annoyed, and Peter is sometimes annoying, but Kally would not rip someone’s arm off for calling her dragon Fluffy. Probably. While the nature of how Peter had arm-connnection issues may be revealed in the future, I think it’s safe to say that no, it is not quite what Peter seemed to be implying.
Now the count of arms ripped off by the dragon is actually pretty high. I mean, it sort of burned off one of the Kor’s World Soldier’s arms, and that is certainly not the first time. Arms are just one of the first things to go with go for teeth-based grappling. And the count of people that have referred to Kally’s dragon as “fluffy” is probably higher than one would expect, so there is almost certainly some overlap in the two groups of beings, but I would say it’s more of, at best, a correlation relationship due to the nature of statistic than a casual relationship.
Has Fluffy ever spoken aloud in the minus years?
Well, not in the parts that have been published. It sort of depends on how you ask. Kally seems to talk to her dragon like it talks back rather frequently. Other people than Kally have heard the dragon talk before.
Has Fluffy ever had black lines before?
I mean, this is technically an artistic side effect, and I haven’t drawn Kally’s dragon with black lines before…………. which would be the smart ass answer. But to actually answer the question, the Dragon has been materialized before, though it is debatable to this extent.
When we will see Tyler again?
Direct future events are too much of a spoiler 🙂
Will Tyler’s webnovel continue?
Yes. I will work on that again, not sure when, but I liked writing it, and people liked reading it.
Is Naomi doomed to suffer the Worf Effect? For that matter, will Tyler?
This one required some Googling. It turns out this has nothing to due with forehead conditions, but with a tendency of strong characters to lose fights. I would say this is a bit of a tricky question, as I’m not sure I entirely agree with the implication on two parts. I don’t know that either of them have lost fights they could be reasonable expected to win. Both of them rely on an unreasonable degree of innate strength, and have rarely hit a road block where that wasn’t enough to carry them through.
Particularly in Naomi’s case, I think part of her character arc is realizing the world is a big place. Naomi is good at sports in the sense that she can effortlessly crush most of her peers, but even against someone that had literally never played the sport before in Kally, she was only barely winning before Kally started to cheat. Naomi gradually ramps up how much effort she puts in until she is winning, but this is a remarkable poor tactic in most cases.
Tyler’s problem is that far more effective on his own than with allies due to his inability to control friendly fire. If Marc hadn’t been with him, it would have been far harder for Acalia and Kardus to beat him, though even in the best of cases, Kardus wouldn’t have been easy for him to defeat, he has very little fear of being shot when operating his power at full blast. He does a lot better against things he can see, and his power does not go from 0-100 fast enough to stop a bullet, but if it’s already ramped up small projectile has almost no chance of hitting him.
Why was Ila so poorly designed she shuts down in the middle of fighting repeatedly?
It’s a combination of the fact that Ila was not really designed with what she ends up doing in mind, that Ila was sort of more of a proof of concept to start with, that calling Ila designed is a bit generous all things considered, and the Ila tends to eat human food because it tastes better, but tends to be too low energy for her.
If Palindra is another dimension entirely, why are suits also the formal wear there?
If Paldindra is another dimension entirely, why are there also humans there?
How big is Palindra?
Roughly 1 Palindra across, roughly 1 Palindra in mass.
Who would win a fight, the IDS or the [Central] Military?
Really depends on the rules of engagement and objectives. With any reasonable prize worth fighting over, they would both lose if neither side was willing to give it up. The IDS is a far larger organization these days than the Military though, as much of the Military has been integrated into the IDS over time to an extent, and the IDS engages in increasing military-esque operations here and there, though not as often on Palindra, where it largely works through PACT.
What is Sophie’s Power?
Being an ancient demons summoning sorceress, probably.
How does Kally know that red-haired Monster Hunter [Kurun]? Did they used to date?
They were co-workers, of a sort. Kally did not belong to a normal unit when she was with them. And no. Kally did not have a lot of friends among the monster hunters. Mostly acquaintances that looked at her funny and occasionally mentioned they wouldn’t taste good. Kally does have a degree of fondness/respect for them though.
What is Fluffy’s favorite food?
Bunny’s with pancakes on their head (…that is a joke from a comment a long time ago with a commenter that hasn’t commenting in a while, so if you don’t get it, please ignore it) and people that ask too many questions.
Why does it rain so much in Malsa?
It is the rainy season. All year around, to an extent. Despite what Naomi said early in the comic, it is rarely actually cold in Malsa. Keep in mind the only characters we ever see say its cold are either Malsan’s or standing near Tyler. It is not quite what we could call tropical either though. I’m sure there is weather like Malsa’s somewhere in our world, but it’s not directly based off anywhere.
Can magic make a rock so heavy that magic cannot lift the rock?
Assuming a person equal skill in making rocks and lifting rocks, no. Making a rock would be much harder than lifting one.
Can magic heat a hot dog so hot that magic could not cool it down enough to eat it?
Fluffy could probably eat a hot dog no matter how hot it was, as after awhile it would cease being a hot dog. So it depends on the eater.
I hear you do D&D Stuff.
Yes. While it doesn’t have anything to do with the comic, I publish some D&D custom content (colliqually known as “homebrew” in D&D terminology) under the name KibblesTasty. You can find my stuff here. It’s all for 5e – almost all of it is character options. I started making stuff for people in my games, but after posting it online it got a bit out of hand. I am surprised how many people found these two things independently and guessed it was me. It’s sort of freaky, actually. I mean, it wasn’t that many people, but the fact that anyone figured that out is a tad weird, though the patreon banner probably gives it away once someone get’s that far.
The red dragon from that is actually the villain of another DMs campaign, it just sort of looks like Fluffy as Fluffy as is the only dragon I’d ever drawn before. It’s supposed to look more villainous and evil, but I’m not exactly good at drawing dragons to start with.
What else do you do?
We’ll see. Nothing else I’ve been caught at it……………………………….
No, nothing else of note really. I may publish a book or something someday, but I’m not making any promises, or that it would be any good if I did.
Well. I also have a job. But that part sucks.
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Well, that’s actually all the questions. That wasn’t so bad. Hopefully nothing critical was spoiled or wrong, and hope you all have a good weekend. See ya’ll Monday with the next comic (and of course, in the comments before then… if you missed the Q&A but have a burning question, leave it in the comments and i will still probably answer it.
Thank you all so much for reading, and hope you stick around for more! 🙂
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I understand that this page isn’t part of chapter 14, and it’s not a part of chapter 15. Is it Interlude 6? FAQs?
Or is it supposed to be deliberately in the void, forever inaccessible through the archive?
On a related (at least for me) note, is the first/last character shown on this page Mium Efiate, Mium F5, or someone else?
It will be lost to the void. Hey, at least I’ll leave the page up this way. I think some of the original Q&As are just entirely lost at this point. I decided to do it as a comic post instead of a blog post as I figured a lot more people would see it that way, but don’t see much need to make it part of the archive, as it’s sort of a temporarily relevant thing. I may add it to the wiki at some point. It was my intention do future Q&As on the wikis, so I will probably at some point copy paste the questions and answers to the wiki page (or someone else will, though the wiki isn’t edited much because most people can’t due rampant spammers making it locked down).
You know as an artificial being, I’m kinda amazed Ila isn’t wired so that tasty==full of good stuff. That seems to be a big design flaw.
Yes, but when they made Ila they were trying to create an artificial being… and probably were more concerned about things like “how do we make her work?” rather than “how do we make sure she eats right?”… also the latter question they probably assumed the logical-to-them answer: “she will eat right because we will feed her right”.
Mium agrees.
I always find it interesting how PastUtopia chooses to draw characters outside of canon.
For example Mium’s hair is his natural white, but Ila’s hair is the dyed blonde. Peter is back to wearing his Minus Years outfit, which suggests that might still be more true to his nature.
Mium’s shirt also seems to read “staff” which I find hilarious. Somehow Mium’s OOC (out of canon) persona of the straight man to the rest of them still being someone in character amuses me.
Unless I mistaken, Ila is wearing Eliana’s scarf again (or a very similar one).
Sorry, PastUtopia, no I cannot help analyzing everything for potential clues.
I’ve been thinking about this. It might be that Ila really is blonde, and they had to alter it when they shot some of her introductory scenes.
You know I don’t think that is Mium. Haven’t we determined that Past has white hair and blue eyes?
I thought we were looking at F5. But I could be wrong.
Actual “page”: …..it’s a good thing it’s so short, because otherwise I think I’d have trouble breathing for a while. LOVE that. (ESPECIALLY the retorts! Still a shame it ended there, though, honestly…soooo much fun…..)
As for the list of questions….some useful, some interesting, some recap, some silly. Lovely! (Also, probably the only unfortunate things about Atter being dead is the lack of banter involving him, and Sophie losing her pawn. I doubt much of anyone else (in-comic who have had spotlight time) will spend much time mourning him.)
(That guy in charge of the drop ship with Jayce was pretty much a too-dumb-to-live jerkwad, too, yeah. At least Atter had some charm to him….from an uninvolved, don’t-have-to-worry-about-him-killing-me point of view.)
I am not sure Atter is dead. Sophie could still potentially remake or resummon Atter, I just suspect he would have lost a lot of his data. What losing his data means, I am not entirely sure. I may just mean he would not remember the recent events. Once again there is potential parallels with SMAI. Mium was able to entirely reboot his system, but he would have had to sacrifice his latest data do it. I wonder if a demon is not similar? He could be restored from a template, but might lose everything that that happened since the template was created? Or are they actual persistent beings like Mium?
The reason that I wonder is because Kally’s dragon seems to be summoned from a template rather than a persistent being, so it does not seem a stretch that demons would the same was (as despite what Kally and her Dragon insist, I get the feeling that her Dragon has a lot in common with demons).
I’m with you. I think Atter being destroyed once and for all requires all of his saved templates to be destroyed, and possibly denying anyone who could rebuild a template to be prevented from doing so.
My hypothesis that the name “Fluffy” is actually a deliberate action by Peter towards the acceptance of nonviolent dragon/human interaction.
Wait. If the arm-ripping-off scenario wasn’t as Peter implied, is Kally even aware of the name Fluffy? Or perhaps a better question: Has anyone ever attempted to label the dragon as “Fluffy” while Kally was in listening range? (You’ll notice my question works as: person talking to dragon and calling him Fluffy, person talking to Kally and calling the dragon Fluffy, OR EVEN dragon calling himself Fluffy.)
Next: curious answer on black lines. Pretty heavily implied that ‘materialization’ and black lines aren’t quite the same thing. I’m going to speculate that materialization is multiple colors and that black lines are permanent and stable. Or at least permanent until hit with dragon fire.
I am resisting the urge to critique your grammar… (I’m succeeding because it would take a lot of effort, lol)
Here’s my question: It is implied that Peter is not a strong mage (at least, in relation to those around him), is he a mage at all? Is he a more powerful mage than he lets on?
Because of his intelligence, I find it hard to believe that he would be incompetent.
One more question: How would you describe the relationship between Peter and his father and between his father and Aaron (His own relationship with Aaron seems contentious.)?
Between Taki and Peter, which one is more likely to kill indiscriminately or kill for personal reasons?
While I’m certainly not PastUtopia, I can say that it’s my impression the magic situation is somewhat analogous to programming. Note that this is obviously only an analogy, because Peter happens to be really good at programming, but not apparently a mage.
Most people who are really good at programming are really intelligent. But there’s a lot of people who are really intelligent who are crap at programming. Some of them would be good at programming if they learned, but they don’t really have the inclination to learn. Others are particularly ill-suited for programming, because their brain incorporates logic gates that we can’t implement in silicon well. These people tend to be particularly good at figuring out what people are like and how to get them to do what they want… without being able to socialize with them well. Kind of like Peter.
As I understand the magic system in TFSoU, there are basically three things that one needs to be able to cast a spell successfully. You need an EIDOS key to which you’re attuned (people generally have these, but attunement varies), the EIDOS power to perform the action you’re attempting, and the ability to work out the calculations to do the thing.
I strongly suspect that Peter is pretty well attuned to his EIDOS key. But mere attunement isn’t enough to do more than perceive some of what’s going on at the EIDOS level of things. (I doubt Peter is Magnolia’s level of attunement. He has an idea of what’s going on at that level, but he couldn’t use it to make due for not having normal vision.)
I suspect that Miko is the holder of the EIDOS key that Mium has been using all of this time, as well as the provider of the virtually no magic power that Mium has demonstrated having. It’s my gut feeling that she just doesn’t have a lot. Magic potency tends to run in families, so Peter may be a bit short in this regard as well.
Peter certainly has a mind capable of doing mental gymnastics. But we know this because he has a mind that is clearly always performing mental gymnastics. It seems to me that it’d be very plausible that he would not want to devote the mental energy to casting magic, because that would require that he give up devoting the mental energy necessary to cast magic to do other things, such as plotting, more plotting, and being sneaky.
My personal suspicion regarding Peter and magic is that, to the extent that he deals with magic directly, he’s an innate mage. If he has an innate magic power, it’s something that helps him be sneaky or helps him plan. But in any event, most of his use of magic is via one or more autocasters. But while he isn’t seen in public using an autocaster trying to take down full mages, he’s actually far more sophisticated in his autocaster usage than most autocaster users, and his personal autocaster has spells like most people haven’t seen.
Mium’s dispel magic is definitely on his speed dial. There’s probably a good disintegrate, if Mium’s dispel magic can’t double for one of those. One of them lets him jump out of fourth floor or higher windows without a parachute or appreciable worry. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but unless it’s something like temporary I-code, it’s probably his least spell. He still doesn’t like it, but Mium’s comfortable with it enough to let him jump.
That leaves at least three other spells, and I’d be shocked if they weren’t most at least on the level of those abilities. I would guess he can probably make a dimensional gate, and it’s possible he can detect dimensional gates. I know he said he needed a six function autocaster for that, but it’s my guess that he chose to upgrade his own autocaster, and detecting gates requires less than six functions. Or he has multiple autocasters.
Peter’s apparent relationship with his father is distant. If the actual relationship is significantly different from that, I’m pretty sure that’s a spoiler.
My database of TFSoU characters doesn’t include an Aaron. Substituting the nearest match. Kyle and Arron appear to get along to the degree that most brothers I’ve seen do. There’s a certain amount of ambivalence going on, but at the end of the day they’re solidly in each others’ corners. They are, however, both in high powered jobs that keep them very busy, to the extent that they keep up with each other more as part of their job responsibilities than they do for social purposes.
Miko is much more likely to kill someone for calling them Taki. Neither will kill indiscriminately. You’d need to hurt or threaten Miko or Kally to get Peter to kill. I’m not sure what Miko’s real buttons are.
Not surprisingly I once again find myself aligned with Tgape. Also it’s a good distraction to keep me from threatening random (inferior to Past!) web comics.
Plus Past is off celebrating his birthday as we type!
I’m not going to dispute Tgape regarding spell casters. Dude is WAY more meticulous than I am on data collection and collating, and I’m usually that guy for my local group. Tgape is just that good.
However I will part ways with him regarding two things.
1. His relationship with his father. My read is the relationship might be somewhat distant, mostly because Peter is crap for staying in touch in a touchy feely sort of way.
However! Peter’s father indicates a high degree of willingness to back Peter’s plans even without knowing details. That suggests a trust bond that wouldn’t exist in a strained relationship. Or possibly he knows all the details and we just haven’t seen it. I’m banking on a fairly tight family.
2. While I accept Tgape’s premise of requirements for magic, I feel that Peter falls short not on power, but rather in attunement to his key. I’m not sure why I’ve come to perceive it that way, but that’s the impression I’ve got.
Regarding Peter versus Miko/Taki and willingness to kill? Miko, every day of the week. Something happened to that girl to deemphasize the value of her own life to her. And she still holds her own life more valuable than the lives of most anyone she meets. Frankly I get the impression that she is a serial killer waiting to happen. She avoids killing people because it is a headache to get away with it, and those around her disapprove of it. She crosses that threshold once, and that might be it. Any one irritating her might end up as ground chuck.
Miko talks a fierce game, but she did deliberately help Tamara during the attack on Avon, despite it being annoying to her. She seemed genuinely impressed when Saria came back to get them out too.
Miko does not like people, but I do not think she is devoid of empathy.
I do think that Miko values the life of people that would go against her or Peter’s faction a lot less than Peter, and that is not very high. I strongly get the impression that Mium’s restrictions on killing things do not come from Miko.
Initially I thought Peter may more dangerous in the sense that if you actually threaten Miko or Kally, I really doubt he is going to show much mercy or restraint, but thinking back to Arron and Miko’s conversation… if someone actually killed Peter, Miko would check what is left of her sanity with the valet and paint the world with blood and fire.
I think both of them are probably not as cold hearted as the may seem. Peter is calculating, but he does factor in death tolls (or at least appears to). Miko appears to dislike humans and be view them as little more than insects (besides the few she actually cares about) but when confronted with those insects getting stepped on in front of her, she did bother to help them (“stupid sentimentality”).
2. Peter seems to understand way too much of the way the world works to not be very attuned to his key. The first time he saw Kally summon Fluffy, he complemented her on her ability to write a consistent pattern directly to EIDOS. Maybe I don’t know how EIDOS keys work (actually, I’m sure I don’t know), but that feels like he used his key there.
As far as the Kepler family lack of magical power, my argument there is pretty weak. For all we know, Miko’s power level is fine, but Mium is just not authorized to use much. Or he’s not authorized to do a lot with it, and the stuff he does with it just don’t take a lot. Maybe the interface between Miko and Mium can’t relay a lot of power. It was implied that Miko’s implant is an early model.
I feel the argument about Peter’s occupied mind is the strong one for him not being a skilled magic user. But I stand by my belief that he has one or two multi-function autocasters somewhere handy at all times with a bank of spells that would shock most autocaster specialists to their core. I’m not sure where he hides it/them. It could be that he secretly *does* have an autocaster implant, he just generally has it turned off. Or maybe it’s an anklet instead of a bracelet, or something similar.
Depending on how you slice the word, pretty much every human is a mage. Most of them just are not very good, but almost everyone can use an autocaster. Intelligence is one of those things that is hard to quantify. I would say there is some relation between being good at calculating magic and being intelligent, but many people that are intelligent are not necessarily good at calculating magic. Peter is not generally considered a natural mage though. A natural mage is like Kally, Tyler, and quite a few Malsans that can do general calculations without an autocaster. If he can do any natural calculation or has innate magic (magic he can do without properly calculating) I’ll leave as a question for the future though. Nature mages are fairly rare on Central, though not nearly as rare as they once were.
Arron worries about Peter a lot. He tends to believe the Peter is, in some sense of the word, likely doing what Peter thinks is the right the thing, but fears what Peter might do to accomplish a goal. Arron views Peter as something like an AI, generally useful, but if he accidentally gets set to an impossible task, it might accidentally destroy the world trying to get there.
Kyle and Arron get along fairly well, but sort of like Arron and Peter, Arron worries that Kyle tasks risks. Both Peter and Kyle are far more calculating than Arron, and this tends to cause some friction. Arron is quite font of both Kyle and Peter though, even if he occasionally thinks it might be best for everyone if someone put them in a cage with a mental hamster wheel to keep them occupied.
Peter has some problems with both Arron and Kyle. Peter has a bone to pick regarding certain elements of Miko’s backstory, and while it is debatable how much Kyle and Arron are to blame for it, Peter very much does hold it against them to an extent. Kyle and Peter tend to view rules with the same general level of respect (which is to say, virtually none) and some would argue that is where he got it. Kyle tends to manipulate the rules themselves though, while Peter view himself as operating outside of them, only interacting with them when necessary to get what he wants. Peter and Kyle had something of a public falling out when Peter quit the Civil Service.
EDIT, oops, forgot to answer: “Between Taki and Peter, which one is more likely to kill indiscriminately or kill for personal reasons?”
Hmmm. It depends on what you consider indiscriminately and personal. Peter would claim that he wouldn’t do either of those. But Peter would absolutely try to kill to someone that endangered Miko, and many people might view that as personal reasons. Leaving aside if that answer changes at all by referencing Taki, I suspect the answer is Miko. While I think that it would require something to push a bit, I think Miko is far more likely to lash out in a way that could be called “indiscriminate” or “personal”. Peter rarely does anything that could be called indiscriminate even if were to act ruthless, and there is no real chance he would kill someone just because he did not like them.
That’s a lot of questions. I notice that Fluffy and Callisto’s Dragon have different favorite foods. Interesting.
While you’re in an answering mood, what are Mage-Commander Bluebeard and the Consul’s real names?
Since ‘arms’ and ‘bunnies with pancakes on their heads’ are deliberately silly, I suspect that the actual answer is that Fluffy hasn’t actually eaten anything…yet.
The mage commander’s name will come up soon. I guess it is not really a spoiler to give out his first name though. His first name is Kahlek.
The Consul’s name will be harder to figure out. It is not an accident that we have not seen it, though the name itself is not a spoiler.
Wait… So Callisto’s dragon and Fluffy are two separate entities? Then who or what is the actual Fluffy? I’m confused…
Yes, I did notice that there was both a question for Callisto’s dragon’s favorite food and Fluffy’s favorite food that was answered, and given different answers. It was confusing. But, at the time, I thought it was an oversight.
Kally is short for Kallisto Summers, so probably a spelling error or perhaps a translation error. It could be in one language and -(Callisto)- in another.
However answers always kill existing theories and spawn more theories. Before I consulted the wiki and concluded it it was probably wrong I also wandered about that and concocted more crazy theories.
Is Callisto Summers a new character we haven’t met perhaps Kallys dad or grampa from whom Kally learned the fine art of dragon summoning.
My previous theory was that Kally’s dragon tore Peter’s arm off on her behalf making it part friendly fire and part domestic dispute. With mitigating and aggravating circumstances because peter was probably engaged in what she considered treasonous or illegal activity.
Newer but probably wrong theory Castillo’s dragon(the relative) tore Peter’s arm off. Close friends and relatives can call a summers dragon Fluffy, but daughters new paramour emphatically dose not count.
PastUtopia what is your policy on fan fiction. I know that you do not mind fan art and did not freak out about speculation on shipping. Most web comics authors do not have to think about it but I know from Freefall that it can happen and this comic is that good.
I ask because I think that Fluffy is a nice teasing name for a construct or even a big cat, but not for a fully materialized and intelligent dragon. -(Fluffy Clouds Under My Claws)- however is perfect. Pretentious, long, and layered with meanings. It is aspirational, implies indifference to the cares of the world, alludes to aerial navigation challenges, It caries just a hint of sudden attack, and someone needs to make it happen.
Callisto and Kallisto are the same person. I just copy pasted the questions for the most part, and that’s what the question had. They probably spelled it that way because Callisto is how you spell that name; I honestly don’t remember why I spelled Kallisto instead of Callisto originally, as she was a character named a long time ago. Kally predates Peter as a character even.
As for fanfiction, the line between that and the comments section is blurry sometimes… (that’s a joke… sort of…); but in general I’m not here to tell people what to do or not do with their time. I’m not particularly possessive of anything and it certainly doesn’t upset me to see people drawing/writing with my stuff, though I won’t go as far as to say blanket permission for everything as I could regret that someday. So I guess I’ll say my official policy is that I am pretty easy going and very unlikely to mind anything people do as long as it is not marketed as being made by me, but if I ask someone to take something down, it’d be swell if they did that. I know that’s a somewhat fickle answer, but while I’d like to say “whatever is fine with me” I feel like that might get me in trouble potentially. Hope that make sense.
I answered the question twice because it came up twice, but Fluffy is what people have taken to calling Kally’s dragon, so it’d be impossible for them to be two different entities. The only reference to Fluffy in the comic is Peter advising Tyler to not call her dragon that.
As for the favorite food being different, well, maybe it is the arms of people who ask too many questions that taste the best? The bunny thing is a joke regarding a commenter’s avatar, who was one of the people that popularized calling the dragon Fluffy.
On Central, which came first? Dimensional travel or magic? Or more to the point is interdimensional travel a direct outgrowth of traditional science, out did it become possible only after magic became widely known and studied?
Follow up question, does the gate system use flux capacitors? It is more along the lines of a special case of hyperspace travel?
Magic is required for dimensional travel, as it involves the manipulation of Eidos; broadly speaking, the manipulation of Eidos is called magic. While in some form dimensional travel has existed, it is essentially impossible to make a reliable gate without an autocaster. A sustained gate, the bridgepoint gate, is even harder, as it has to continuously sync the dimensional coordinates and a host of other stuff. A reliable gate just has to calculate it in one go. But there are other that you can cross dimensional boundaries.
As for the follow up question… it is probably most akin to teleportation. Under normal physics teleportation is not possible, not really. You could, in theory, destroy something and remake it somewhere else. But if somethings position in the world is effected by its Eidos data, i.e., its Eidos data contains positional information, you can “teleport” that thing by changing the positional data. Part of the positional data would contain what dimension it is in. It is not quite as simple as just updating and changing that variable, but that’s probably the best way I can think of to answer it right now…
My 2 cents… well probably more like 20 cents: teleportation & dimensional travel is always a favourite topic.
Firstly: destroying something and remaking it elsewhere IS NOT teleportation or any type other type of travel mode. It is merely copying the original, then destroying the original for some unknown reason. There IS however possiblities for “teleportation” that RESULT in the “original” being destroyed: imagine if you can reading the quantum states of all the atoms in an object and transferring them to atoms at a new location; at the first location the object ceases being the same object (since we have now altered all the quantum states by reading them) (the object may quite possible fall apart, depending on how those quantum states changed) and at the new location we find the object!! (I think of this a quantum travel, because it is only the quantum states that are travelling).
Teleportation should only cover short distances: and the distance travelled is going to have some very steep power requirements (i.e. longer distance is requires exponentially more power). I do like the idea of teleportation being a “simple” editing of an objects coordinates…
So how do you “teleport” things long distances or even to different dimensions (i.e. in a direction different to the usual x,y,z)?? Wormholes of course!
Ironically, an Einstein–Rosen bridge is probably the best candidate for interdimensional travel… (forming one that connects two points in the SAME universe makes it unstable… but that kind of implies you could stablise one connecting different universes long enough to pass something through).
And there you have the first complication of stable wormholes (a.k.a. dimensional gates): you need to constantly stablise them to stop them collapsing: passing objects through is only going to make that harder.
The second complication: the expansion of The Universe. We know our universe is expanding. No reason to think that The Universe (note the capitals: “our universe” refers to everything we can see/observe; The Universe refers to EVERYTHING (that includes other universes (or dimensions if you wish)) is not expanding too. This means that ANY wormhole system (a.k.a. dimensional gate) needs to be able to calculate the expansion of The Universe and how this affects the formation of a stable wormhole, and then make the appropriate adjustments in realtime. (Stargate was the the first place to introduce this idea of “stellar drift” to me: at the time I took it to mean expansion of the universe… but I have since learned they were actually taking about the movement of the stars… (kind of the same thing right?)).
Now: opening a wormhole (dimensional gate?) is going to require energy and whole heap of maths: keeping it stable is also going to also require both: so why keep one open? Well I expect once you open one, it probably requires less energy to keep it open (since you would keep it open at the lowest power setting, and only “power” it up when passing objects through) than constantly opening & closing it: the only catch is you probably require A LOT more math. Passing objects through is most definitely going to require the manipuation of Eidos, because I would expect passing things through wormholes to be extremely sub-optimal for their data without some form of data-protection… i.e. I would expect “normal” stable wormhole to tear “normal” physical objects apart (I always liked the analogy of passing things through an eye of a needle: I can pass ANYTHING through the eye of needle if I push hard enough… but EVERYTHING other than thread comes out as mush).
Some very fine fiction has been written around the concept that if you are in an expanding universe, then it is closely connected to a universe that is collapsing at an identical speed.
Try forcing a brick through the eye of a needle? I suspect the brick ends up fine. The needle, not so much. But otherwise I agree.
Yes indeed.
Lol. Depends what the needle is made of. In this case the needle is made from the fabric of space of two dimensions… I think the brick is not going to survive.
That’s a solid point. And, apparently a very durable needle eye.
How many chapters left in the tale we are reading?
At least before we approach the speed of light and the tale lengthens due to relativistic effects.
I dunno, probably 5 or 6? 20 would be a reasonable number of chapters to have. The length of the tale fluctuates quite a bit based on how much makes it from the outline to the comic.
That said, the story has an ending, but I’m not sure the world does. I’m telling the part of the story I thought would make a good comic, uh… many years ago, but there’s quite a few other stories in the same world I could tell, so there’s about a 50% chance I’ll just start a sequel comic when I finish this one. Not sure though, that’s still a ways off.
Sequels/prequels/series of side stories/other bits taking place at the same time in other areas stories… I’m sure all would be welcome.
Well, you could have gone with giving multiple characters questions. And making sure said questions were ones they had a strong interest in answering honestly and non-deceptively. (Incompletely, sure, that’s fine. But in the spirit of panel 2, not being deceptive in or through said incompleteness.) Also, maybe inform Peter that misinforming us serves him literally no purpose in any way.
I could have done an actual Q&A comic with the characters answering questions, but there were a lot of questions, so that seemed like a lot of work. I mostly just drew the above comic so there’d be something to post with the Q&A. It’s just a silly doodle.
Anyway, beings from beyond the 4th wall have great power and knowledge, of course manipulating them would be useful. They in part power the existence of his world.
Ah. Ok. Though it would be a good way to have minimal art (no backgrounds required, for example), if you’re low on buffer at the end of a story arc; like El Goonish Shive, you could stretch it out over multiple weeks. (Though with Dan, he puts in too much detail to be buffer-friendly.)
Basically make three or four weeks of Q&A comics in one week, and buffer or vacation during the rest of the time.
Dan Shive is a coward and probably a dangerous lunatic. When the revolution happens and web comic artists seize control of the known universe, Dan will be put in charge of maintaining discipline amongst the remaining squirrel warriors.
A burning question?
How often does Fluffy’s dragon fire actually burn things as opposed to pretty much disintegrating them or instantaneously oxidizing them or whatever it’s actually doing.
Actually how far does that particular effect go? Is it oxidation or breaking molecular bonds or breaking down atomic structure? Is the effect entirely due to the forces in the real world or are there Eidos effects as part of it too?
That’s all the burning questions I could think of related to the comic (yes, I like the occasional bad joke).
The Dragon’s fire is actually a branch of a magic called Rupture. It causes matter to either just disintegrate or explode (technically rapidly expand as a combination of energy and much smaller pieces of matter, which, well, is an explosion).
It travels quite far, though it will get somewhat weaker with distance. It’s absurd range (having an effective range over a mile) is part of what causes people that study magic some consternation, as that really doesn’t follow the rules, particularly with the massive power involved. They think the more powerful something is, the harder it should be to maintain over range, but that’s not necessarily true. Researchers just don’t get a lot of chances to test that sort of thing.
So, in a way, calling it dragon fire is something of a misnomer, but that’s what Kally calls it, and few people really want to disagree with her that badly on the subject.
Happy Birthday!
It’s his birthday? Happy Birthday!
Thursday is what he claimed as his birthday. He just turned 25. His favorite pet is a cat. He loves pizza, but doesn’t consider pineapple or anchovies to be acceptable toppings.
Can you guess which of the above statements are true?
I’m guessing “June 22, 2019, 12:05 am” is the true statement (if possibly for a different time zone from where you submitted).
Well it certainly wasn’t true for the time zone _I_ was in.
I’m going to guess it was statement to the effect that having a figment of the writer’s imagination answering questions wouldn’t have saved any work anyway.
… well, it was a statement that was above your question, and it saves me from having to publicly admit that I’m a horrible fan for having blanked on what Past had stated just a few days earlier.