THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Comic Discussion => ALICE GROVE => Topic started by: brasca on 31 May 2017, 07:06
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As much as I liked how things turned out in the battle between Alice and Church and really hope we'll get some much awaited exposition from Alice I can't help, but feel a shoe is going to drop and just when something important is about to revealed there will be an interruption.
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I wonder if the biggest problem the Praeses will have with Pate was bringing back the 'exiles', Ardent and Gavia. It turns out that the entire charade was a kind of judicial garbage disposal because they found the two space kids as annoying as Alice does. The Spaceborne are too civilised for capital punishment and didn't want anyone to 'make a scene', so they convinced Cupressceeae into tricking the two of them to voluntarily go to Earth and then shut off their comlinks.
Gavia's reaction will be... pretty much what you'd expect it to be.
FWIW, I expect that at least one of the Spaceborne will make a comment about Alice's face being 'messed up'. Alice's response will just be a look that she learned over the past 5 millennia that can make anyone shut up.
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I wonder if the biggest problem the Praeses will have with Pate was bringing back the 'exiles', Ardent and Gavia. It turns out that the entire charade was a kind of judicial garbage disposal because they found the two space kids as annoying as Alice does. The Spaceborne are too civilised for capital punishment and didn't want anyone to 'make a scene', so they convinced Cupressceeae into tricking the two of them to voluntarily go to Earth and then shut off their comlinks.
Gavia's reaction will be... pretty much what you'd expect it to be.
FWIW, I expect that at least one of the Spaceborne will make a comment about Alice's face being 'messed up'. Alice's response will just be a look that she learned over the past 5 millennia that can make anyone shut up.
I put option 5 in as a joke, but if your theory is true it could very well happen.
That being said I don't think Ardent and Gavia can be considered annoying based on Alice's assessment. I think everyone annoys Alice to some extent which is why she lives outside the town. Ardent has some problems with culture clash, but that can be said of anyone who's foreign. Aside from getting slapped for asking for sex he seems to get along well with everyone and from what I gather he has plenty of friends in the habitat including the one who teleported him to Earth in the first place. Gavia on the other hand has trouble making friends, but she seems like someone who obeyed the praeses without question so I don't see why they would dispense with the teacher's pet. She might be annoying to the other habitat dwellers, but if the higher ups like her then it really doesn't matter.
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The results are looking very skewed so far, but that's the largest number of clickable options I've seen in a poll in awhile. Even the joke one was a cool theory.
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I predict exposition
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Or explosions. Perhaps Exposilosions?
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I was a little more than half expecting an encounter with someone/something (like the Praeses) forcing Alice & Company into an awkward alliance with Jesper and Church, but that has the potential to run the story out for a couple of years at least. It doesn't sound like Jeph is planning to keep it going that long.
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I wouldn't mind hearing Church give a speech.
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Maybe Church can give a super-soldier's version of Shylock's famous "If you prick us..." speech. :-P :wink:
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"If you shoot us, do we not attack?......"
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"Are we not men? // We are evil // Are we not men?"
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We are Devo.
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New comic up and, like every murderous tyrant in history, Pate is claiming to be a liberator who is only acting out of the desire to help his people. The parallels with Lex Luthor just keep getting stronger!
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"Then the war happened". It just happened. It wasn't a thing humanity did, it was a thing that just passively happened. And the way he just blithely refers to a period of time that resulted in countless deaths and incalculable suffering as if it was an inconvenience. I've always thought Pate was an arrogant piece of trash, but he's cranking it up to 11. I'm seeing how he became someone Church would follow. He really is a vicious and nasty piece of work.
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...he just blithely refers to a period of time that resulted in countless deaths and incalculable suffering as if it was an inconvenience.
To be fair, isn't that rather how we tend to refer to the fall of the Roman empire, even though that was only about 1500 years ago, not 5,000?
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...liberator only acting out of the desire to help his people.
Well, bye and large, I guess they have to believe that if they want to sleep at night. Usually wrapped up in stuff about destiny and the good of the people. There's precious few who, if they
... cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, [are] determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
There's a lovely bit of comic satire of the whole attitude in CS Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet where the prospective interplanetary overlord, Weston, makes a high blown speech in english about destiny and the future of the human race, but it has to be translated by the hero Ransom, who has a limited vocabulary in the destination language, and it loses more than a little in the translation. If you're not familiar with the book its somehow on Canadian Gutenberg here, https://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-outofthesilentplanet/lewiscs-outofthesilentplanet-00-h.html , you want chapter 20 starting at "Speak to Ransom and he shall turn it into our speech"
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Ah but Jesper, if Gavia offs you and Church is masterless, and he may well fall in behind her as the #1 Bad-Ass.
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"Then the war happened". It just happened. It wasn't a thing humanity did, it was a thing that just passively happened. And the way he just blithely refers to a period of time that resulted in countless deaths and incalculable suffering as if it was an inconvenience. I've always thought Pate was an arrogant piece of trash, but he's cranking it up to 11. I'm seeing how he became someone Church would follow. He really is a vicious and nasty piece of work.
Well keep in mind Pate only knows what he knows from the resources available. Most of it's archaeological work and what Church probably told him, but if he was, "but a pawn in this great game of life" he wouldn't have much to contribute other than his brute strength. And hindsight is always 2020. We often look back at some of the great wars and comment on how foolish our ancestors were, but at the time they had their reasons for fighting and I suspect the humans of 5000 years ago.
I thought we'd be getting some exposition from Alice, but this works too because it reveals a lot about Pate's character. He blames Alice for doing nothing to further progress, but that doesn't mean she's been spending her endless lifetime suppressing it. If she had she probably would've confronted Church sooner. He also blames the space dwellers, but it's not like Ardent and Gavia had any say over how things are done and Alice suspects the Praeses are on the same page as Pate. And that could be a problem if they finally make an appearance after that speech. It reminds me of Londo Mollari's answer to Morden's question. If that's the answer they're looking for then they might finally introduce themselves.
It didn't take long for Pate to regain his bravado. They live as long as he lives and right now which is a short term solution until they leave wherever it is in the habitat.
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They could always dismember him a little bit.
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Pate does bring up an interesting point. We've been focused on the Praeses and what they could be scheming. since near beginning of this strip. Alice seems to think they want to conquer Earth, but even if that's the case and the planet has been off limits because of her the rest of their solar system is theirs for the taking. With the technology they possess they could have terraformed Venus and Mars by now as well as colonize worlds outside our solar system if interstellar travel is possible. They really wouldn't need Earth unless they're obsessed with having a complete set. Maybe they already have conquered this corner of the galaxy and people like Ardent and Gavia are ignorant of this, but it seems like the Praeses may be holding back humanity in their own way. Perhaps their disagreement with Alice is they want to breed out aggression and keep humanity content while she thinks struggle is good for the soul as long as it's kept low tech.
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It could always be that the Praeses don't want these people to leave Earth - because they might eff things up on a galactic scale if they go elsewhere...
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Ah but Jesper, if Gavia offs you and Church is masterless, and he may well fall in behind her as the #1 Bad-Ass.
Shit, that's actually a really good point. Unless he views killing everyone and continuing Pate's mission as his service even if his master is no longer alive.
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Ahhh but do remember what happened to both Mollari and the Centauri when he got his wish.. A sword cuts both ways brasco..
But Pate does have a point.
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He does. More excited than I've been in a while to know what happens next.
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Ignoring his motivations, which are made kind of clear by the rest of his monologue, Pate does have a point. Alice's idea of serving her town has included thinking about killing Ardent for no reason other than the fact that he might create competition over resources in some hypothetical future time. She *has*, in fact, kept her village in something like a less-than-ideal stasis.
Is he a monster? Probably. Would offing him leave Church free to act as he wished? Almost certainly not. Is Alice blameless here? Not in the least.
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OK, everything I'm about to type is just my opinion but:
I think Pate is just deluding himself.
He's got ONE millennia-old soldier in his pocket - is it likely Church is the only one? After all, we've already met Alice, another front-line soldier (though admittedly she isn't as powerful).
But Pate thinks that means he'll be able to just walk through any opposition? Just a bit naive.
The Praeses are supposedly the source of Ardent's weird tech-enhancing ability* - in which case, does Pate really think they don't know what it is capable of doing? They would probably expect someone to drop in...
*(Of course, the Praeses could have also been manipulated by some unknown power - the missing AIs perhaps?)
Pate really doesn't know what's going on - note his reference to 'magic space fairy' :D
Finally, he talks a high-and-mighty speech about the fate of humanity - but 'humanity' is the next person you meet.
Pate has proven that he is quite happy to kill the next person he meets...
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She *has*, in fact, kept her village in something like a less-than-ideal stasis.
What is less than ideal about it? They are safe and happy, seem to be healthy and they are living a environmentally friendly and sustainable lifestyle. Sounds pretty ideal to me.
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Finally, he talks a high-and-mighty speech about the fate of humanity - but 'humanity' is the next person you meet.
Pate has proven that he is quite happy to kill the next person he meets...
What Pate really wants are the comforts and power of his ancestors. It probably galls him to think of the wonders and delights pre-Blink people used to enjoy and he can only dream of, stuck in his pre-industrial world. He may envision himself being hailed as the "saviour" of mankind when he restores advanced technology to Earth and being promptly declared ruler of the world or some other megalomaniac fantasy. I doubt he truly cares about the welfare of mankind beyond what benefits him in some way, and is certainly willing to do anything to get his way.
On Earth, Church made him practically invincible, but I do think he's made a miscalculation in thinking the same will be true up there in space, with the unknown element of the Praeses and possibly even more powerful entities playing a role. He has only a vague idea of what he's getting himself into yet he rushed blindly into it just the same.
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>What is less than ideal about it?
Yes, they do seem to be healthy and safe in a sustainable economy.
It's a scarcity economy. Alice might argue that it's ideal. I'm not convinced, and I pity the children of the village who look up at the stars at night and long to go there.
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Ahhh but do remember what happened to both Mollari and the Centauri when he got his wish.. A sword cuts both ways brasco..
But Pate does have a point.
Yes wish is why if an emissary shows up next to make a deal with Pate I don't see it ending well for him.
OK, everything I'm about to type is just my opinion but:
I think Pate is just deluding himself.
He's got ONE millennia-old soldier in his pocket - is it likely Church is the only one? After all, we've already met Alice, another front-line soldier (though admittedly she isn't as powerful).
But Pate thinks that means he'll be able to just walk through any opposition? Just a bit naive.
The Praeses are supposedly the source of Ardent's weird tech-enhancing ability* - in which case, does Pate really think they don't know what it is capable of doing? They would probably expect someone to drop in...
*(Of course, the Praeses could have also been manipulated by some unknown power - the missing AIs perhaps?)
Pate really doesn't know what's going on - note his reference to 'magic space fairy' :D
Finally, he talks a high-and-mighty speech about the fate of humanity - but 'humanity' is the next person you meet.
Pate has proven that he is quite happy to kill the next person he meets...
Interesting theory, but I think Pate is willing to make that gamble. Where else can he go in life. He is the master of a super soldier and quite possibly a small nation, but that's about it. Even with Church and presumably an army of regular soldiers at his command his reach is limited as is his ability to reverse engineer technology into something that can benefit his kingdom. He sought an audience with the praeses to obtain advanced technology and may still get it despite Gavia just turning the tables on him. If she obeys the praeses and they are willing to form an alliance with Pate then he'll get what he wants because the situation is perfect for the praeses to take over Earth. Alice is in check and Church answers to Pate. However, we may find out that whoever caused the Blink, let's call it Blinky instructed the praeses to never interfere with Earth and they've adhered to this agreement. Blinky may be the real power behind everything and someone neither Pate nor the Praeses can defy.
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It didn't take long for Pate to regain his bravado. They live as long as he lives and right now which is a short term solution until they leave wherever it is in the habitat.
What Pate seems to have missed is that as far as we know Gavia is a fairly typical inhabitant of the space habitats, so probably a significant number of them can apply the same leverage.
I'm wondering why Gavia and Ardent are apparently yet to attempt to contact the Praeses or even other inhabitants.
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I'm wondering why Gavia and Ardent are apparently yet to attempt to contact the Praeses or even other inhabitants.
Neutralising Church and making sure Alice doesn't need emergency aid probably are more significant issues to them; they'll likely think about contacting 'the authorities' when they have five minutes to draw breath and think about their next move.
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Seeing as how they are in the outermost layer of the habitat there might be a maintenance passage and if there isn't Gavia can order Church to make one.
I also had a thought that maybe Pate's speech is more for Church's benefit than anyone else's. Church has a compulsion to serve, but there may be limits. If the master he chooses is a capricious fool wallowing in the benefits of their position he might abandon them because they aren't serving the greater good. It might not be all about choosing the most ruthless, but the most responsible. Perhaps if it was revealed that Pate would let the world burn if he could be king of the ashes he would abandon him because he betrayed his duty.
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I'm wondering why Gavia and Ardent are apparently yet to attempt to contact the Praeses or even other inhabitants.
Ardent's planet-side "vacation" wasn't authorized, nor was Gavia's apparentlly self-assigned sibling recovery mission. Neither one of them was supposed to have gone down to the surface - at least that was the official position - and both would just as soon sneak back into the dorm or whatever unnoticed. They're still kids and haven't worked out how to respond to being used as pawns.
But they will. Whatever else the series is, it's a coming of age story with Ardent and Gavia as the protagonists. We're already watching Gavia go from a bossy what? 17 year old? to a young adult with some planning and leadership ability. Those who have read Joseph Campbell will recognize the hero's journey she's been on.
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We might as well ask why shoot the moon with nanotech.
Well any past conflict that hasn't been experienced by those who came later has pretty much been lost to memory emotionally. Plus what remains of the tales is colored by those who succeeded, and many times (especially given the types of records from hundreds or thousands of years ago) the PR of the side that won puts the truth second if at all. But mostly, if nobody remembers something from experience, how much can they feel happy or sad about some facts about people who aren't around any more.
Pate seems honestly angry that humans don't have more currently. Not happy that things are like they are, blaming others for keeping it like this. Opportunity squandered, not reaching true potential. Yet the hubris that he's the one to do it, his easy dismissal of the fact that the more almost lead to humanity's total downfall, and his egotism that somehow this is a terrible state to be in (and clearly no matter what, unpreferable to another state, and in the ways he says).... he could be correct. Parts of what he says about striving and becoming better are, even if the way he carries them out is bad evil horrible. Or maybe that's the only way such things get done.
Perhaps Alice and those like her are unduly afraid or unrepairably mentally scarred. Or maybe he's a megalomaniac that has no idea how even more horrible the results would be if things had gone that way. How many like him have their been in the last 50 generations all over the habitated parts of the planet? How many others have tried and apparently failed. Or given themselves a king's life and been happy with just pretending there were bigger plans. I suppose we could say that at least Pate is taking action.
We rather need to find out if there are others with motives pushing what's been going on. Who is driving it if there are.
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Just an observation about Pate - he doesn't go in for the trappings of power.
His digs (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/148839923804/i-hope-to-get-back-to-2-updates-a-week-soon-thank) aren't any more imposing than any good size town's city hall (note the cityscape out the window behind his desk), and he certainly doesn't go in for luxurious clothing, just the Amish looking uniform that everyone we've seen in his little city state wears. He's not focused on his title (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/150545067644/hey-he-does-seem-nice) and his underlings just call him "sir" instead of "Your Excellency" or "Your Majesty" or what ever. So far his carriage (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/151526306659/maybe-he-wants-to-be-friends) is the swankiest thing we've seen associated with him.
All in all, Jesper is the most modest megalomaniac I've seen in quite a while.
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He is the very model of a modest meg'lomaniac.
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Those who have read Joseph Campbell will recognize the hero's journey she's been on.
Ding Ding Ding We have a winner here.
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I'm wondering why Gavia and Ardent are apparently yet to attempt to contact the Praeses or even other inhabitants.
Ardent's planet-side "vacation" wasn't authorized, nor was Gavia's apparentlly self-assigned sibling recovery mission. Neither one of them was supposed to have gone down to the surface - at least that was the official position - and both would just as soon sneak back into the dorm or whatever unnoticed. They're still kids and haven't worked out how to respond to being used as pawns.
Ardent wasn't authorized since he got there by asking one of the transport volunteers to hack the console, but Gavia asked the Praeses and if they preside over the space habitat then it might as well be an authorized exception. http://www.alicegrove.com/post/107925637899/exposition-finally (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/107925637899/exposition-finally)
Besides they had other priorities like turning the tables on Pate. I'm not sure if Gavia can multitask communicating to the Praeses and keep an energy dagger pointed at Pate and Ardent was too concerned with saving Alice to probably try communicating if he has a radio imbedded in him.
>What is less than ideal about it?
Yes, they do seem to be healthy and safe in a sustainable economy.
It's a scarcity economy. Alice might argue that it's ideal. I'm not convinced, and I pity the children of the village who look up at the stars at night and long to go there.
I don't think the children of the village care about something they don't know much about. It seems like people living in orbit is common knowledge since no one was too shocked by Ardent's presence, but unless it happened off panel there wasn't an endless line of townspeople asking him and Gavia what life is like in space. Not everyone believes the grass is greener on the other side and want to venture over to live there.
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Ardent wasn't authorized since he got there by asking one of the transport volunteers to hack the console, but Gavia asked the Praeses and if they preside over the space habitat then it might as well be an authorized exception. http://www.alicegrove.com/post/107925637899/exposition-finally (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/107925637899/exposition-finally)
Alice calls bullshit in the last panel and I share her scepticism. And Ardent looks like my dog when I come in and call him out for being on the couch while I'm gone. (He thinks he's sly when he hears the car pull in and gets down before I get in the door, but he leaves a warm spot.)
. . . Ardent was too concerned with saving Alice to probably try communicating if he has a radio imbedded in him.
If Jeph has introduced Ardent having an embedded radio, I missed it.
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Take Alice, Church, Sedna. They lived the past, but have been living planetside in the now. Pate is (aside from having not experienced the past directly, and his lack of "immortality" etc) more like them in being here on the planet. He's less than fond of those who keep things this way planetside, although he appears the only one (maybe Church, Alice seems noncomittal, Senda not seeming to care). Alice doesn't like The Praeses sure, just for other reasons than Pate. OTOH, the two from offplanet. They've been living more the way it used to be, only recently going planetside and interacting, out of their element. One of them is perhaps a mole, on a lark, the other more focused, up for conflict. Gavia is more like Alice, Ardent more like Senda. Then of course the alliance of Church and Pate, unlike the other four in attitude, but more akin to how Gavia and Alice think of a number of things. So, there are a number of ways to mix the groups, although clearly for now it's the four aligned against the two.
Perhaps the story is not so much about the human-seeming things from the past but more about these people of the present. Although it could be the differences between what we might could see as three groups of two. Maybe things will change as the story progresses, other alliances for other reasons. More groups to contend with. However it's counted for these six now, it seems like it's building up to some confrontation with one or more groups and others, perhaps a revealing of plans, maybe a bigger picture. Yet and still. Such as The Nightwalker's actions could have little to no larger meaning. It might be The Praeses have not directly orchestrated most any of this.
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Ya know, if Gavia can materialize an energy blade, she can probably do the same thing with a small clamp or two. Internally. Around something sensitive like a ureter or a bile duct, or even a vas deferens.
How much pain can Jesper tolerate? Could Church survive his jugulars being pinched off?
But then, it's not hard for her to make sure she's got the location of the blade right when it's sticking out of Pate's chest. Unless she's really up on human anatomy, the internal bits would be trickier. Other habitat occupants probably do have those skills, though.
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Gavia has been enhanced, but I think you're forgetting just how strong Church is. After all, Alice punched through Gavia's nano before.
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Sounds pretty ideal to me.
Better throw your IT away then to make a start [grin] I can see that in a world with heavily depleted energy and mineral resources the low input low output low population society probably best meets the Benthamite model, but I sure as hell wouldn't fancy living in it.
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Ardent wasn't authorized since he got there by asking one of the transport volunteers to hack the console, but Gavia asked the Praeses and if they preside over the space habitat then it might as well be an authorized exception. http://www.alicegrove.com/post/107925637899/exposition-finally (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/107925637899/exposition-finally)
Alice calls bullshit in the last panel and I share her scepticism. And Ardent looks like my dog when I come in and call him out for being on the couch while I'm gone. (He thinks he's sly when he hears the car pull in and gets down before I get in the door, but he leaves a warm spot.)
Well considering what we've learned since then they seem to be very special snowflakes indeed. Ardent can upgrade technology and while Gavia's abilities may be commonplace on the space habitat her merger with the Night Walker was extraordinary and may have more repercussions than putting another crater on the moon. Ardent looks guilty because he knows he broke the rules and just got caught, but there is no reason to believe he's not telling the truth. He tends to be reckless and impulsive. As for Gavia I have no reason to believe she'd be lying because who else would grant her passage? She doesn't have any friends who would do her a favor.
. . . Ardent was too concerned with saving Alice to probably try communicating if he has a radio imbedded in him.
If Jeph has introduced Ardent having an embedded radio, I missed it.
Just because Ardent shuns technology doesn't mean he wouldn't leave the space habitat without some means of communication. How else would he get back home?
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Just because Ardent shuns technology doesn't mean he wouldn't leave the space habitat without some means of communication. How else would he get back home?
Just a hearken back to the beginning where they tried to contact them and there was no answer, ego, they had a way of communicating such a distance or at least thought they did.
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Pate has unknowingly caught himself in some speciesism...Alice's exact words were "I serve everyone", which he (laughingly) interpreted as "all Earthbound humanity". Which is, not too unreasonably, "everyone" to him. What if she literally meant she served EVERYONE, human, AI, Praeses, hypothetical space aliens, etc.?
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I don't think it would have made any difference to his speech.
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Just because Ardent shuns technology doesn't mean he wouldn't leave the space habitat without some means of communication. How else would he get back home?
Just a hearken back to the beginning where they tried to contact them and there was no answer, ego, they had a way of communicating such a distance or at least thought they did.
Gavia had a radio built into her among other things, but Ardent couldn't have known she would follow him to Earth to bring him back so he had to have some means of communicating with the Praeses once he was ready to return.
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She *has*, in fact, kept her village in something like a less-than-ideal stasis.
What is less than ideal about it? They are safe and happy, seem to be healthy and they are living a environmentally friendly and sustainable lifestyle. Sounds pretty ideal to me.
Safe, yes. Happy? We don't know -- all we've seen is life as Alice has shown it to us. As to "environmentally friendly and sustainable lifestyle," though? There are two major modern innovations which ameliorate the human condition more than almost any others: running water to wash your hands in, and vaccines to make your kids live past their fifth birthday. (Running water gets them past their first.) You can't have the second without the first, and Alice's town doesn't have it.
What does that mean? 60% of all children die before their first birthdays.
That's less than ideal.
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There are two major modern innovations which ameliorate the human condition more than almost any others: running water to wash your hands in, and vaccines to make your kids live past their fifth birthday. (Running water gets them past their first.) You can't have the second without the first, and Alice's town doesn't have it.
What does that mean? 60% of all children die before their first birthdays.
That's less than ideal.
Given the size and sophistication of the hospital, I think that you're making several unjustified assumptions there.
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Imagine that.
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Wasn't a major plot point Ardent "upgrading" the water pump? That means running water to some degree. And we haven't seen any evidence for or against them having vaccines.
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Well the indirect evidence on the child health front is family size. Societies with a high mortality rate tended to have more children resulting in larger families. From what we have seen we can infer that with only one or two siblings that overall mortality is quite low. We also do not know how robust the base humans are with respect to disease and injury in comparison to our own.
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There are two major modern innovations which ameliorate the human condition more than almost any others: running water to wash your hands in, and vaccines to make your kids live past their fifth birthday. (Running water gets them past their first.) You can't have the second without the first, and Alice's town doesn't have it.
What does that mean? 60% of all children die before their first birthdays.
That's less than ideal.
Given the size and sophistication of the hospital, I think that you're making several unjustified assumptions there.
Indeed. Even though Ardent and Gavia are more augmented than baseline humans the people of Earth are the products of genetic engineering too. They might not be on the level of their ancestors 5000 years ago, but quite possibly they are still immune to most serious diseases and illnesses and without modern technology have a lifespan comparable to our own.
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Hmm. Five thousand years is plenty of time for new pathogens to evolve especially with livestock as incubators.
One possibility is that humans were genetically engineered for maximum resistance to arbitrary and new pathogens -- but then evolution has been doing just that all along and today's humans may represent the best possible.
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Well the indirect evidence on the child health front is family size. Societies with a high mortality rate tended to have more children resulting in larger families. From what we have seen we can infer that with only one or two siblings that overall mortality is quite low. We also do not know how robust the base humans are with respect to disease and injury in comparison to our own.
No.
In a society with high infant mortality, the number of *infants* is high. The number of children who survive to adulthood? Not so much.
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New comic is up!
I'm going to be sad when AG wraps up; I've enjoyed it. :(
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Re: infant mortality
"The infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of deaths of infants under one year old per 1,000 live births," so we are on the same page.
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New Comic Up
Okay... Now that is very much a strong Mass Effect allusion. The Praeses are like the Thorian? If so, then everyone is in more trouble than I imagined and it might be that Ardent and Gavia might be fully independent in thought for the first time in their lives.
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Not quite a praeses, but at least Laridia is an emissary connected with them and a new character.
While I will be sad for this story to conclude perhaps it will be open ended enough to begin again.
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Clifhanger!!!!!
And it's going to be interesting to see just how much Pate has underestimated the Praeses
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I dunno, y'all. I can't think of a single interaction that began with "PLTHBPF" or "PLLRPP" that's ended well. And don't even get me started on "SPLORP."
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I dunno, y'all. I can't think of a single interaction that began with "PLTHBPF" or "PLLRPP" that's ended well. And don't even get me started on "SPLORP."
PLTHBPF
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However it's counted for these six now, it seems like it's building up to some confrontation with one or more groups and others, perhaps a revealing of plans, maybe a bigger picture. Yet and still. Such as The Nightwalker's actions could have little to no larger meaning. It might be The Praeses have not directly orchestrated most any of this.
I agree. There's way too much going on here to wrap things up anytime soon. The Nightwalker had a purpose, and it (I hope) was not related to the Praesides. The Praesides have a purpose, and I don't think they were the ones who made the AIs disappear.
And it seems to me that Church could be convinced to follow Gavia instead of Pate, considering that she's obviously tougher and more ruthless than he is. But Gavia's motivations, as ruthlessly as she follows them, are very conservative. It's not a good ending.
We need to find out the Blinker and whoever the Nightwalker signalled (maybe the same guy) and it's not the Praesides.
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Hmm. Five thousand years is plenty of time for new pathogens to evolve especially with livestock as incubators.
One possibility is that humans were genetically engineered for maximum resistance to arbitrary and new pathogens -- but then evolution has been doing just that all along and today's humans may represent the best possible.
Well the livestock from the past may also have been genetically enhanced too so diseases related to animal husbandry may not be a factor in this world.
This notion that Alice has been purposely keeping these people in the dark was raised by Gavia before and she got defensive about it. Perhaps Alice tried to elevate humanity back to the level it once was after things normalized post blink, but this ended catastrophically and one of the reasons she can't forgive herself about the past. As such she's tried to make the people's lives as comfortable as possible in a world bereft of many of its natural resources.
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Errrf. I knew her name before she had even finished forming, and it wasn't Laridia.
It was Amber.
And now I'm going to have to look at her, every time she's drawn, and it'll take me a confused moment to remember she's answering to the wrong name.
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I dunno, y'all. I can't think of a single interaction that began with "PLTHBPF" or "PLLRPP" that's ended well. And don't even get me started on "SPLORP."
PLTHBPF
Don't get me started on Swedish PLOPP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plopp
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Hmm. Five thousand years is plenty of time for new pathogens to evolve especially with livestock as incubators.
One possibility is that humans were genetically engineered for maximum resistance to arbitrary and new pathogens -- but then evolution has been doing just that all along and today's humans may represent the best possible.
They might indeed. The immune system could easily get stronger, but when it does it tends to go autoimmune and start attacking things we like, like pancreases and organs and skin. There's also a fine balance between immune activity and cancer. Just cranking the immune system stronger can kill as easily as cure.
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Personally, I believe anything that starts with 'GLOOOPL' can go either way
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Strange that Gavia is still so loyal to the Praeses, considering they abandoned her.
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Probably deep denial, but if the Praeses have been listening this whole time they cannot question her loyalty.
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Pretty sure the Praeses don't give a rat's ass about Gavia's loyalty.
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It might not be loyalty to the Praeses but not wanting to sacrifice all the people in the habitats that they apparently are.
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However it's counted for these six now, it seems like it's building up to some confrontation with one or more groups and others, perhaps a revealing of plans, maybe a bigger picture. Yet and still. Such as The Nightwalker's actions could have little to no larger meaning. It might be The Praeses have not directly orchestrated most any of this.
I agree. There's way too much going on here to wrap things up anytime soon. The Nightwalker had a purpose, and it (I hope) was not related to the Praesides. The Praesides have a purpose, and I don't think they were the ones who made the AIs disappear.
And it seems to me that Church could be convinced to follow Gavia instead of Pate, considering that she's obviously tougher and more ruthless than he is. But Gavia's motivations, as ruthlessly as she follows them, are very conservative. It's not a good ending.
We need to find out the Blinker and whoever the Nightwalker signalled (maybe the same guy) and it's not the Praesides.
We've only seen a glimpse of what Pate is capable of so I doubt Gavia is more ruthless than he is, however, Church could abandon him if he perceives Pate as serving only his own interests instead of humanity's. Gavia has demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice her life to save her leaders and to an extension her people so Church might just change his allegiance if he perceives her as a strong leader who serves the greater good.
Pretty sure the Praeses don't give a rat's ass about Gavia's loyalty.
We don't know that for a fact, but will probably find out when chapter 7 begins. While it seems like they have used Ardent and Gavia as pawns in some elaborate scheme it's possible that another player, possibly the AIs have been working behind the scenes all this time.
It might not be loyalty to the Praeses but not wanting to sacrifice all the people in the habitats that they apparently are.
She said she was willing to sacrifice everyone if she thought Pate was a threat to the Praeses so unless all of her people are some kind of collective she's protecting her leaders.
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She said she was willing so sacrifice 'all of us' not 'all of my people'. Us in this case I think clearly represents the people here. Herself, Ardent, Alice and Sedna. The Praeses is not a being or a collective. They are the actual, living trees themselves that make up the colonies that the spaceborn live in/on. So yes, sacrificing four people to keep Pate from being a threat to her entire nation is a valid thing.
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I'm curious to know if Ardent or Gavia know Laridia.
Might be amusing if Gavia greets Laridia the same way Seinfeld greets Newman.
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I got the impression from her introduction that "Laridia" has just been created as a sort of avatar for the Praeses so it can communicate with our protagonists. So Ardent and Gavia won't know her - she didn't exist as such before.
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Probably, but we're almost halfway through this hiatus so I'm trying to think of things to keep the discussion going.
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Best not get cocky, Jesper. You may be in for a rude surprise. The Praeses have had 5000 years to come up with something 'way more badass that Church.
Speaking of Church, what's his first name? Probably something he really hates, like Elmer or Cecil. That awful name is why he volunteered to biomodification and augmentation into a super-soldier.
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Speaking of Church, what's his first name? Probably something he really hates, like Elmer or Cecil. That awful name is why he volunteered to biomodification and augmentation into a super-soldier.
I doubt that he has a first name any more than Alice and Sedna have family names. They are just AG-053, SD-101 and CH-045. Their makers never needed them to have anything else.
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It's been bugging me for days, but I think Laridia means "parley" rather than "parlay", or is this a difference in American English?
Parlay:
verb (used with object)
1. To bet or gamble (an original amount and its winnings) on a subsequent race, contest, etc.
2. Informal. to use (one's money, talent, or other assets) to achieve a desired objective, as spectacular wealth or success: He parlayed a modest inheritance into a fortune.
Parley:
verb (used without object), parleyed, parleying.
3. To hold an informal conference with an enemy under a truce, as between active hostilities.
4. To speak, talk, or confer.
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Oh, well spotted! I think you're correct.
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Best not get cocky, Jesper. You may be in for a rude surprise. The Praeses have had 5000 years to come up with something 'way more badass that Church.
So far everyone's capabilities are (annoyingly imo) undefined, but based on the fact that the upgraded Valkyrie was able to teleport the superhumans I'd guess Church could probably be held at bay indefinitely even if they couldn't pierce his hide.
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Or drop Church in the nearest convenient Black Hole
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Low solar orbit, if they really want to be sure about it.
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There are definitely a lot of ways Church could be dealt with, and I would find it very satisfying if the standoff between Gavia and Church ended with Laridia teleporting his head into Pate's hands. But that seems too abrupt, even if we are close to the end.
Re: Parlay. I wonder if Jeph is making a joke on the parlay/parley homophone so Pate thinks there's going to be a negotiation, when really Laridia means she's going use Pate and the superhumans appearance (the winnings of their previous gamble in sending Ardent to Earth) to make another gamble by upsetting the status quo between Earth and Sky. Probably just a typo though.
Old thought that I had months ago and don't necessarily want to resurrect the old thread for: if this was all building to a Praeses invasion of Earth by moving the superhumans to space, was Gavia sent as a lure to neutralize the Night Walker (assuming it's dead/burned out and not just dissipated)?
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That seems like a distinct possibility. There really aren't many reasons to send her since she was no match for Alice and couldn't return with Ardent no matter how much she wanted. The Night Walker first appeared before they knew anything about Ardent's upgrade ability so she may have been sent as as a target so it would attack her first instead of Ardent who wouldn't be the same threat to the status quo if he lost his then unknown ability. What remains to be seen is if firing at the moon was something the Night Walker was programmed to do or if Gavia was also carrying some secret programming that she knew nothing about.
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Hmm. So is Laridia playing dumb (or created with imperfect knowledge of the Praeses' plans) or does this confirm that everything has been put in motion by a third party looking to stir up trouble between Space and Surface? It seems late to introduce another faction with the technology and savvy to pull this off.
Knowing that Jeph loves Iain Banks I wonder if there's going to be a crazy twist/reveal, but I haven't read much of his other Sci-Fi influences and no mangas at all so maybe he's going in a wildly different direction.
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No great surprise: Gavia and Ardent have become 'contaminated' by going to Earth and are exiled for life. All for daring to be something other than what the Praeses have decided for them (ironically, in Gavia's case, to protect them).
I'm not surprised that the super-soldiers are forbidden to enter. However, what I find interesting is that Pate wasn't even mentioned. Welcome to the real world, Pate. You're just a sub-evolved monkey to them; you're not even worth the mentioning. I think that you can forget about your 'upgrades' right now.
What is really interesting? The Praeses are denying responsibility for Ardent's 'upgrade' special ability. This is either a lie or, as Daniel suggests, evidence of a third party who has been manipulating events for their own agenda. I'm pointing a finger at the synthetic AIs, by the way. They've been in hiding since The Blink and I have predicted before that they are still semi-actively involved with events involving the humans and post-humans alike.
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Hmm. So is Laridia playing dumb (or created with imperfect knowledge of the Praeses' plans) or does this confirm that everything has been put in motion by a third party looking to stir up trouble between Space and Surface? It seems late to introduce another faction with the technology and savvy to pull this off.
Knowing that Jeph loves Iain Banks I wonder if there's going to be a crazy twist/reveal, but I haven't read much of his other Sci-Fi influences and no mangas at all so maybe he's going in a wildly different direction.
I've considered third party interference a possibility since Alice first suspected the Praeses and although it would be late in the story to introduce the AIs we have enough background on their difference that it wouldn't feel tacked on. Of course Laridia may be playing dumb, but if Cupressaceae has them where it wants it seems unnecessary and it's already been done before with Pate. We only have Arden't side of the story as to how he was sent to Earth so Cupressaceae still doesn't know. What remains to be seen is if Cupressaceae is equally ignorant of sending Gavia to Earth to bring Ardent back.
No great surprise: Gavia and Ardent have become 'contaminated' by going to Earth and are exiled for life. All for daring to be something other than what the Praeses have decided for them (ironically, in Gavia's case, to protect them).
Well it looks like Ardent has some explaining to do, but if Gavia's nanotech could be removed before it can be removed again and so could whatever nanotech is within Ardent that gives him the ability to upgrade so it seems premature to declare they are exiled for life.
I'm not surprised that the super-soldiers are forbidden to enter. However, what I find interesting is that Pate wasn't even mentioned. Welcome to the real world, Pate. You're just a sub-evolved monkey to them; you're not even worth the mentioning. I think that you can forget about your 'upgrades' right now.
I doubt this would bother Pate because right now being a baseline human is the only reason he could be permitted inside. Of course he may not want to risk entering without his bodyguard, but I think Pate has the wherewithal to know that without Church he's just an above average intelligent human.
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So it looks like there are plans within plans here
Trouble in paradise methinks??
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Trouble in paradise methinks??
No such thing as paradise, mate.
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Jeph commented, "She seems nice".
THERE'S a good reason to get nervous...
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Indeed. Thanks to Jeph, I will never again hear that phrase without twitching.
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"Ardent! Good to have you back! You may not come inside ..."
Also interesting how Cuprawhatsitsface rates their respective dangerousness ...
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And I think this may finally answer what Alice/Sedna/Church are too. "Radically engineered ancient humaniforms" sounds a lot like they're biological.
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Do you think so? Doesn't "humaniform" simply mean human in appearance? I don't feel like the question has been answered.
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"Ardent! Good to have you back! You may not come inside ..."
Also interesting how Cuprawhatsitsface rates their respective dangerousness ...
Yes Laridia seems more concerned about the foreign elements than their known strengths. She knows that Alice, Church, and Sedna are radically strong, but doesn't consider them a likely threat. With Gavia she's more concerned with Earth nanomachines within her body. And Ardent's upgrade ability is the cause of it and what concerns her the most.
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Jeph commented, "She seems nice".
THERE'S a good reason to get nervous...
It's right up there with "How hard can it be?"
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With Gavia she's more concerned with Earth nanomachines within her body.
Gavia came with nanomachines. This is the first time we've been told there is a significant difference between Earth nanomachines and her original ones.
Maybe there is a link between nanomachines and AI which is handled differently in the two forms.
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It was only ever Alice' supposition that Ardent got his upgrade capability from the Praeses. Maybe it is earth originated?
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It was only ever Alice' supposition that Ardent got his upgrade capability from the Praeses. Maybe it is earth originated?
If you want to be technical, everything is Earth-originated as they are all descended from Earth stock and anything that they have must be descended from Earth's pre-Blink tech base.
That said, I'm definitely smelling the intervention of the synthetic AIs or whatever they evolved into over the past 5,000 years.
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No great surprise: Gavia and Ardent have become 'contaminated' by going to Earth and are exiled for life. All for daring to be something other than what the Praeses have decided for them (ironically, in Gavia's case, to protect them).
In a relatively closed system like a space habitat, unknown foreign elements are a legitimate risk to the entire system. It isn't a matter of prejudice or arbitrary authority, it is a serious security concern.
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No great surprise: Gavia and Ardent have become 'contaminated' by going to Earth and are exiled for life. All for daring to be something other than what the Praeses have decided for them (ironically, in Gavia's case, to protect them).
In a relatively closed system like a space habitat, unknown foreign elements are a legitimate risk to the entire system. It isn't a matter of prejudice or arbitrary authority, it is a serious security concern.
Yes too many sci-fi series gloss over quarantines which would be a necessary procedure when traveling to worlds with potentially dangerous microbes, diseases, and viruses. Hopefully the decontamination process isn't too painful.
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Easy fix, one line of dialogue. Thank god they invented the, you know, Whatever Device.
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I do like that the only member of the party not listed as a potential danger is Pate.
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If you want to be technical, everything is Earth-originated as they are all descended from Earth stock
Yeah, yeah, first prize for pedantry and all that, but back in August 2015 Alice was considering the Praeses responsible for Ardents capability. Laridia is implying they are not. A previously unknown 3rd party, or a splinter group in the giant trees?
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There may be a classic science fiction theme here. Great power sets up an attempt at an ideal society. The society is stable for thousands or millions of years. Then an outside force, or constructive sabotage by a dissident at the construction phase, jolts it onto a new path.
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No great surprise: Gavia and Ardent have become 'contaminated' by going to Earth and are exiled for life. All for daring to be something other than what the Praeses have decided for them (ironically, in Gavia's case, to protect them).
In a relatively closed system like a space habitat, unknown foreign elements are a legitimate risk to the entire system. It isn't a matter of prejudice or arbitrary authority, it is a serious security concern.
Yes too many sci-fi series gloss over quarantines which would be a necessary procedure when traveling to worlds with potentially dangerous microbes, diseases, and viruses. Hopefully the decontamination process isn't too painful.
Everything would have been fine in Alien if the crew had listened to Ripley and just followed quarantine protocol and not let the alien on board.
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I think Kane would have disagreed with that assessment.... And I'm sure Ash would have found a way to get it on board anyway.
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No great surprise: Gavia and Ardent have become 'contaminated' by going to Earth and are exiled for life. All for daring to be something other than what the Praeses have decided for them (ironically, in Gavia's case, to protect them).
In a relatively closed system like a space habitat, unknown foreign elements are a legitimate risk to the entire system. It isn't a matter of prejudice or arbitrary authority, it is a serious security concern.
Yes too many sci-fi series gloss over quarantines which would be a necessary procedure when traveling to worlds with potentially dangerous microbes, diseases, and viruses. Hopefully the decontamination process isn't too painful.
There's a nice variation on that idea in one of the The Expanse-novels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cibola_Burn) - though the first actual alien/human 'infection' is a water-based microbe (smth. like an Euglena (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena)) discovering its penchant for the glassy body of the human eye, rendering the human in question blind in the process due to refraction off the bodies of the microbes, so it's less an actual infection than merely a physical intrusion (the microbe doesn't do anything to the tissues in the eye, it just multiplies happily & exponentially in an environment sans predators). An alien biosphere is unlikely to run on terrestrial DNA (so it wouldn't know how to use us as replicators), unlikely even to use the same chemistry - but at the same time, if an alien microbe can tolerate the environment in our bodies, from its POV we're large, pristine habitats without any of selection pressures that normally keep it in check.
The idea is that most likely, infecting us would be like trying to eat tar, or a brick of frozen gasoline - but some form of life is certain to discover a use for almost anything. Maybe we'd end up being the fuel for the barbecue rather than the steak.
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So summing up:
1. The Praesides have security concerns, they know what the humaniforms are and are not stupid
2. They DON'T know (or admit to knowing) how Ardent got his 'upgrade' mojo, or how he got sent to Earth, but they certainly know about it.
I'm going to assume the Praesides are being honest here, and they really don't know. Which means Alice is wrong about them, and I'm right about there being another player who hasn't announced himself yet. I'm still guessing he's the AI (or group of them) who caused the Blink. Bob. And things won't proceed much further until we know who and why.
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Discontinuity is an interesting word to use for Ardent's upgrade capability isn't it? I wonder what's behind that.
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Discontinuity is an interesting word to use for Ardent's upgrade capability isn't it? I wonder what's behind that.
Space magic?
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Discontinuity is an interesting word to use for Ardent's upgrade capability isn't it? I wonder what's behind that.
Since Laridia calls the interior of Cupressaceae a network and they emphasize stasis and sustainability as a lifestyle, the Praeses probably view all threats that throw off the careful tuning of the system in those terms. Or it could just mean foreign AI programming they can't understand.
I wonder what would happen if Ardent touched Laridia or other integrated Praeses-tech with malicious intent, like if she tries to kick them out. So far the ability has reflected his intentionality, maybe he could touch Church and imagine him made of marshmallow or something and his super-nanobots could overcome his nanobot resistance, or he could imagine his armor hardening to the point of immobility and trapping him inside it forever. Too many unanswered questions about how any of this works...
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Discontinuity is an interesting word to use for Ardent's upgrade capability isn't it? I wonder what's behind that.
Since Laridia calls the interior of Cupressaceae a network and they emphasize stasis and sustainability as a lifestyle, the Praeses probably view all threats that throw off the careful tuning of the system in those terms. Or it could just mean foreign AI programming they can't understand.
I wonder what would happen if Ardent touched Laridia or other integrated Praeses-tech with malicious intent, like if she tries to kick them out. So far the ability has reflected his intentionality, maybe he could touch Church and imagine him made of marshmallow or something and his super-nanobots could overcome his nanobot resistance, or he could imagine his armor hardening to the point of immobility and trapping him inside it forever. Too many unanswered questions about how any of this works...
There are at least eight other Praeses (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/109265187514/hello-is-it-me-youre-looking-for) in addition to Cupressaceae, yet that's where the Valkyrie-on-steroids delivers them when Ardent asks it to set a course to the nearest one (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/157196848344/makes-sense-to-me). The best odds are one in nine and it goes down from there if there are more Praeses than the ones Gavia named. Interesting indeed.
Note also that asking someone a question when you already know the answer is a time honored interrogation method. We shouldn't let the Praeses off the hook eliminate the Praeses as suspects yet.
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There are at least eight other Praeses (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/109265187514/hello-is-it-me-youre-looking-for) in addition to Cupressaceae,
They're listed in the next strip, here (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/109551157994/thats-the-end-of-chapter-one-alice-grove-will-be).
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There are at least eight other Praeses (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/109265187514/hello-is-it-me-youre-looking-for) in addition to Cupressaceae,
They're listed in the next strip, here (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/109551157994/thats-the-end-of-chapter-one-alice-grove-will-be).
ACK!!! That's the one I meant to link to. Mea culpa. At any rate, we don't know if that's the entire roster, or if Gavia just gave up after that many non-responses.
It also raises another question - if going to the surface of the Earth is verboten, did she have any reason to believe just speaking aloud to a Praeses would work from there, or did she just expect it to work because it always had before, from inside the habitat? They may not have responded because they didn't hear her.
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Not the nine?>
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There are only eight Divines, you Nord scum! Talos is a false god!
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There are only eight Divines, you Nord scum! Talos is a false god!
Are the Stormcloaks going to make Skyrim great again? #SecretTalosSupportingImperial
Back to the topic on hand.
We know that there are 9 Praeses that have been named, but that's all. There could be more, we don't know. We also don't know what the Praeses are anymore, 5000 years is plenty of time for change to happen.
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There are only eight Divines, you Nord scum! Talos is a false god!
Zathras thinks you miss Zathras' humorous reference.
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There may be a classic science fiction theme here. Great power sets up an attempt at an ideal society. The society is stable for thousands or millions of years. Then an outside force, or constructive sabotage by a dissident at the construction phase, jolts it onto a new path.
Dune. Lord of the Rings. Any others?