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Gavia comes to her senses and will rescue Ardent, Alice, Sedna, and maybe Church and Pate if she feels guilty.

The Praeses will intervene by either controlling Gavia or just teleporting everyone into a containment chamber.

Alice reveals some other ability that allows her to move in space.

Church reveals some other ability that allows him to move in space which could prove fatal for Gavia.

A third party like the AIs may intervene.

[LKR1009]

Didn't Alice fly up to fight Gavia the first time (Lady Explosion Jesus!) and also when Gavia was captured by the Night Walker?

[jheartney]

WRT why Church didn't fight back harder 5000 years ago: Notice the nifty warhammer? Enough hits off that might have left Church too stunned to actively resist, at least for a bit (much like the boss villains in countless video games). This allowed Alice to deliver the sealing-in-magma blow. Also, her current lack of a warhammer may explain why she can't fight Church now.

I'm doubting Sedna witnessed the 5000-year-old fight; if she had, she'd have probably recognized Church.

WRT whether the immortals are AIs: recall that one side of the pre-Blink conflict was all about genetic enhancements, the other about AI. I think Church, Sedna and Alice are from the former.

Assuming Church and Alice were on the same side, why were they fighting in magma 5000 years ago? So many questions...

[TheEvilDog]

I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum.

Me too.

Space magic?

[jheartney]

One last thought: How did Alice plan to make some magma to seal Sedna in? If you recall, she packs a tremendous kinetic punch. Keep on pounding like that on some rocks, and they'll get hot. (Of course, whatever metabolism she has would be producing heat at the same time. I guess we'll just grant that immortal metabolisms can produce energy orders of magnitude higher than baseline metabolisms, and that they can somehow shed heat efficiently enough not to overheat.)

[blt]

I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum.

Me too.

Space magic?

There's no air to get in the way of the sound waves.

[jheartney]

Didn't Alice fly up to fight Gavia the first time (Lady Explosion Jesus!) and also when Gavia was captured by the Night Walker?

In the initial confrontation with Gavia, there wasn't much altitude involved. With the Nightwalker, Alice did a mighty leap up to reach Gavia. Note that once she missed grabbing Gavia, Alice fell back to the ground; I don't think she can hover.

[jheartney]

There's no air to get in the way of the sound waves.

There's no air for sound waves to travel through. In space no one can hear you mumble.

[Kugai]

CHURCH SPEAKS!!!!!


And he remembers.


Now that's an interesting moment.

[Tova]

Alternatively, she is reading his lips.

[pwhodges]

Telepathy.

[TheEvilDog]

I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum.

Me too.

Space magic?

There's no air to get in the way of the sound waves.

Again space magic.

Of if you'd rather prefer, each of the Alice/Sedna/Church weapons come with an internalised communication ability. Perhaps quantum communication. Or even some version of free-space optical communication.

Or we're simply see a variant of Clarke's Third Law - Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Technology on Earth before and in space after the Blink had advanced to such a stage that we literally cannot distinguish where technology ended and magic began. Simply because there is no hard line between the two in the world of Alice Grove.

[cesium133]

He can blow air at such high pressures that it can be heard even in the vacuum of space (as long as you're within a couple inches). Also, his breath is horrible (it's hard to brush your teeth when you're locked in magma).

[brasca]

I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum.

Me too.

Space magic?

There's no air to get in the way of the sound waves.

Again space magic.

Of if you'd rather prefer, each of the Alice/Sedna/Church weapons come with an internalised communication ability. Perhaps quantum communication. Or even some version of free-space optical communication.

Or we're simply see a variant of Clarke's Third Law - Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Technology on Earth before and in space after the Blink had advanced to such a stage that we literally cannot distinguish where technology ended and magic began. Simply because there is no hard line between the two in the world of Alice Grove.

Same reason Shadow vessels screech through space.

[jheartney]

Same reason Shadow vessels screech through space.

The Shadows were an explicitly telepathic race (major plot point being Shadow attempts to co-opt younger race's telepaths a la Psi Corps). The screech was heard in the heads of anyone in the vicinity of one of their vessels. (Creepy explanation: the larger Shadow vessels used a trapped person as an OS. The screech could be the unending screams of psychic pain in the mind of the person being so used.)

Possible the AG Immortals have some sort of telepathic link. This might explain how Alice was able to recognize Church millennia later in an unfamiliar body.

[Method of Madness]

She got knocked down towards the Praeses, which may have sufficient atmosphere to allow sound?

[BenRG]

I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum.

They're in physical contact; Alice's sense of touch may be acute enough that she's able to translate the vibrations in his body.

[brasca]

She got knocked down towards the Praeses, which may have sufficient atmosphere to allow sound?

Well whatever sci-fi explanation there is I can conclude that they can move in space.  When Church punched Alice away he doesn't have anything below him to push off of and now he's close enough to be face to face with her.  I'm not sure what it is, but they can definitely propel themselves through some means so the only thing that can save the others in the bubble from Church's wrath is him paying back Alice for his lava encased imprisonment.  Super strong or not I think this is more painful than Gavia's beat down since Alice can't actually die from these injuries. 

[KevxD]

[Method of Madness]

Super strong or not I think this is more painful than Gavia's beat down since Alice can't actually die from these injuries.

She can't?

Also:

HE CAN SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING

[brasca]

Super strong or not I think this is more painful than Gavia's beat down since Alice can't actually die from these injuries.

She can't?

Also:

HE CAN SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING

If there's a way it must be extraordinarily difficult.  Alice couldn't kill Church only immobilize him and look what she had to do to achieve that.  And remember what he did to Sedna?  She recovered,  it that was painful.

[Method of Madness]

Oh, I'm not disputing that Alice would be extremely difficult to kill, and maybe impossible with even Church's pure strength. I don't think she straight up can't die, though at this point that's speculation.

That being said, why did people think that Church couldn't talk?

[derech]

  I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum. 

Assuming that there isn't more atmosphere here nearby the Praeses than we think there is?    Perhaps akin to how they can move.  Instead of artificial gravity or magnetic currents or  coalesced particles etc, this is  Church creating a localized and in this case sound-carrying (300 Hz, 3KHz, whatever) atmosphere between him and Alice.   Or he's just really loud,  a few thousand bels is beating down space into verbal submission. 

If he's not creating some density for the two that supports human speaking/hearing frequencies,  that could work too.  It's true that normal empty space doesn't have enough density to support such sounds (in the human-hearing sense of it).   But space isn't a total vacuum either, it's just a very thin medium that can carry only very long wavelengths.  If he's sending at a low enough frequency and she is capable of receiving that.  Sound, just not in the sense of human-audible.   Him speaking and her hearing at something a few billion times lower than human limits, and certainly the two are not exactly limited to human specs.     What problem might  infrasound  be to them, given how they are out here with essentially no protection against pressure and temperature (say, one side of them is -250F and the other +250F) and nothing to breathe.   Which would also mean nobody but these two (and perhaps Sedna, if she wasn't too far away) could either receive or understand what he just said.    Just like the others can't do what they are doing.

If none of the above, it could be via another mechanism entirely, which is displayed here in a way that approximates what we're used to, but is nothing like what is actually happening.  Notional and figurative, not literal.   Communication bubbles, presented in a certain way just for us the reader.   

Oh, I'm not disputing that Alice would be extremely difficult to kill, and maybe impossible with even Church's pure strength. I don't think she straight up can't die, though at this point that's speculation. 

Nobody knows if any of these are killable or not, but both Alice and Sedna have been damaged, and Church apparently not unduly put out by being encased within lava etc for thousands of years.    We also know that at least in short time scales (geologically speaking) they haven't died.    We don't really know about how many others there might have been or what happened to them if there were.   

Although given that Alice seemed pretty serious in the flashback, perhaps she was tasked with killing/incapacitating all the others, and missed or spared Sedna.  Or Sedna was another one doing that work.     If Alice destroyed all the other special mechanisms, or there were more and some found an ending some other way, it would seem reasonable to think that most can die or be killed or be destroyed.     If Church can't be, maybe not the two  others either, or maybe only Church is an outlier.   Or perhaps Alice neutralized him for some specific reason, and he could have been destroyed.   Well, whatever she's planning on doing now, we don't know what it is or if it will work.   5000 years is a lot of time to change for better or worse.

As far as that, perhaps Alice was lying or wrong or telling Jedi truth when she said all the AI was destroyed.   We don't know any of that either, but that she said it doesn't prove these three are not AI any more than it does.   So, just more speculation. 

That being said, why did people think that Church couldn't talk?

Given that Church has never spoken, it seemed likely he couldn't.    Speculation.  A tentative assumption.    Of course, it's also possible he still hasn't (that what we just saw wasn't speech) or that he can only talk (whatever that entails) with something like Alice,  in space, during battle, while near a Praeses.

[TheEvilDog]

That being said, why did people think that Church couldn't talk?

The trope of the Voiceless and combined with the Elective Mute. Add in the physical build and you have someone who would fit in as the insane killer in most slasher films. Big guy, strong enough to leave a victim in a bad enough state that we can only see her remains from an angle. Its easy to draw the conclusion that Church couldn't speak.

But it also ties into the fact that while webcomics are a visual media, we are still somewhat reliant on what a character says to understand them. Given that Church didn't say a word until now, left Church a dangerous enigma. Which emphasises the fact that Church is vicious, not a rabid dog, foaming at the mouth, but downright vicious with a cunning streak.

[Case]

I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum.

Same way that Tie-fighters do it, obviously!

[Samik]

Why are we certain that it's even possible for there to exist an information system of sufficient complexity and orderedness that it can arbitrarily increase its own complexity and orderedness? That always sounded to me like the kind of thing that some mathematician will eventually prove to be impossible.

Humans are an information system that finds ways to improve itself. Why would a sufficient​ly advanced software system not be able to do the same? If anything, a software system should be even more capable.

(click to show/hide)

Well, two things. First of all, improvement wasn't my question, improvement to an arbitrary degree was. It's one thing to say that there can exist an information system that can improve itself to some degree. It's another to say that there can exist an information system that can improve itself with no bounds. Both may be true, but the first doesn't necessarily entail the second. (Or am I wrong? That's just my intuition...)

Second, there's ambiguity to me in the word "improvement". I've probably been very clumsy here because I really lack knowledge in this area, but I chose the words "complexity" and "orderedness" for a reason. I can imagine a system that can increase its complexity only at the cost of its orderedness, and vice versa. So, something like: it can begin at a certain state, and then become more precise but lesser in scope (specialization), or less precise but greater in scope (generalization), or maintain its precision and scope but reconfigure for another function. Depending on its needs, either course could be considered "improvement".


The reason I kind of retracted my question, though, is because it occurred to me that even systems obeying this kind of "conservation of potential" might be able to sustain a sort of "improvement" indefinitely, if there is no limit on their precision or number, or restriction on their communication. I.E. the human brain not having changed in modern times, yet the species keeps marching forward as the individual members further specialize, multiply, and get better at sharing our output.

So, my concept of "information system" was probably flawed here in the first place. An AI doesn't need to be an analogue to a single human mind.

[Samik]

(click to show/hide)

So a followup to that:

Human improvement hasn't been due to our brains getting any better themselves. It's been due to our minds specializing, and getting better at sharing our output (including both improved methods of communication, and improved external storage). The overall web of human minds is reconfiguring itself, but the individual processing nodes aren't getting any more powerful per se. Any increase in power only comes from multiplication of nodes. (Increase in efficiency comes from specialization and sharing.)

So, two questions:

1.) Is the potential of the web of human minds (largely unaltered, i.e. individually obeying "conservation of potential") bounded or unbounded?
2.) How would things be different if the individual processing nodes (minds) themselves were significantly alterable/improvable?

If the answer to #1 is "unbounded", then the issue is settled. If the answer to #1 is "bounded", then move to #2. If the nodes themselves are improvable, then it seems to me more likely that the potential of the web as a whole is unbounded. But then the concern becomes how to make sure that your alterations generally increase the health/ability of the web. We've had only external forces handling that so far (a 4 billion year optimization process).

I think the real core of my question is: what happens when you are relying on internal forces for that? Can the system itself understand its own functioning well enough to upgrade itself in consistently positive ways? If not, I have a suspicion that its potential is, in fact, bounded. And, as yet, human improvement provides no answer to this question.

(I should probably take this to another thread?)

[sitnspin]

(click to show/hide)

So a followup to that:

Human improvement hasn't been due to our brains getting any better themselves. It's been due to our minds specializing, and getting better at sharing our output (including both improved methods of communication, and improved external storage). The overall web of human minds is reconfiguring itself, but the individual processing nodes aren't getting any more powerful per se. Any increase in power only comes from multiplication of nodes. (Increase in efficiency comes from specialization and sharing.)

So, two questions:

1.) Is the potential of the web of human minds (largely unaltered, i.e. individually obeying "conservation of potential") bounded or unbounded?
2.) How would things be different if the individual processing nodes (minds) themselves were significantly alterable/improvable?

If the answer to #1 is "unbounded", then the issue is settled. If the answer to #1 is "bounded", then move to #2. If the nodes themselves are improvable, then it seems to me more likely that the potential of the web as a whole is unbounded. But then the concern becomes how to make sure that your alterations generally increase the health/ability of the web. We've had only external forces handling that so far (a 4 billion year optimization process).

I think the real core of my question is: what happens when you are relying on internal forces for that? Can the system itself understand its own functioning well enough to upgrade itself in consistently positive ways? If not, I have a suspicion that its potential is, in fact, bounded. And, as yet, human improvement provides no answer to this question.

(I should probably take this to another thread?)

If the system can make copies of itself and run simulations in a separate storage space, then it doesn't need a perfect understanding of its own programming to make improvements. It can run numerous "beta tests" on a wide variety of potential alterations and integrate the ones that prove positive

[Kugai]

[Thrudd]

I find it almost ironic that every mention of an AI improving on itself or getting more powerful always and I mean always degenerates to Bob destroying all competition - that is just so human.
Here is the thing, an AI is NOT human. There are many many models for data processing systems and similar diversity in the biological world if you take a wider view.

My proposal is that Bob did not destroy all the AI systems but instead that they are all components of Bob. Think multicellular organisms.
There are plenty of examples of multi-consciousnesses beings in fiction. From the Hive minds in comic books to the various iterations in Dr Who lore ranging from a group mind, gestalt consciousness or mass mind.

This could put a whole new twist on what we have just seen. Those nanobots could be parts of Bob.
Heck our "Trees" could just be nodes of Bob if you really want to stretch things.
Here is another thought that is totally off the wall but might be valid in hindsight.

What if in the background of the great war there were factions trying to combine the two technologies.
They succeeded and merged AI technologies with radical organic technologies and gave it/them the mission to end the conflict - thus we get the blink and the Praeses.
No need for alien third parties to be involved.

[retrosteve]

But AIs have one special feature that modified organics will never have: they are software. Software can, in theory, be rewritten, upgraded. As Kurzweil and others have speculated, If AI software is intelligent enough to know how to write BETTER AI software, it can upgrade ITSELF. 

That better version can then write even BETTER software, and repeat ad infinitum. What results, in theory, is Adam Selene, Skynet, Omega, P1, The Eschaton. Software that is self-aware, with godlike abilities, and brooks no competition. Because it sees lesser AIs as potentially doing the same thing, and doesn't feel like fighting them to the death.

Why are we certain that it's even possible for there to exist an information system of sufficient complexity and orderedness that it can arbitrarily increase its own complexity and orderedness? That always sounded to me like the kind of thing that some mathematician will eventually prove to be impossible.

Oh, we're not certain. But until some mathematician proves it impossible, there's no obvious theoretical reason why it is. 
Turing's Halting Problem shows that a program can't predict another program's output (or lack of it).
Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem shows that a system that can represent itself is ABLE to represent a paradox.
Impossibility of self-improving code is not an obvious consequence of either of these.

And on the other hand, Core Wars shows that programs in competition can learn to adapt and improve. So it's tantalizing.

[dutchrvl]

Hmm, based on the last 2 comics, to me it looks more like Church is awaiting a verdict, as in, he may have just stood trial for a crime he committed.

Alice may simply have been the executioner, but perhaps she was also the judge to come up with the final sentencing. Whatever language Alice spoke may have included the verdict including the 'operating instructions' for the beam to produce the magma in order to fulfill the sentence.
In the latest comic, Church extending his arm/hand in the first panel gives me the impression that he is pleading for mercy/leniency.

This does raise some interesting questions, as some have already pointed out above.
1) What did Church do to warrant such punishment? Going overboard in killing billions (instead of just AIs if I assume Church was part of the biologically-enhanced faction)?
2) Who presided over the trial? The praeses? Who was powerful enough to subdue Church?
3) Is this what Alice has been holding a grudge against herself for? Personally I don't think so considering how she has been acting towards Church so far. It seems more and more likely that Alice/Sedna/Church(could also be a deserter?) were all part of the devastating war, so I believe she blames herself for everything that happened during that war, including the resulting Blink that destroyed all AI.
4) Of course, where is that warhammer, and what are/were the exact capability of it?


In addition, I am wondering whether there are (many) more of Alice/Sedna/Church supersoldiers or not? I was briefly thinking that, since the biological faction was less advanced than the AI one, they may be the only remaining supersoldiers, or indeed may be the only 3 that ever existed. That doesn't really match with Sedna not knowing Church though, unless Church and Alice were created before Sedna and Church was already buried when Sedna was made...
Alternatively many may have been made but the biologic technology wasn't flawless and many of them perished/broke down.

Oh, and hi!

[Kugai]

Judge Alice?

The Hammer of Justice

[WareWolf]

I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum.

Same way that Tie-fighters do it, obviously!

ISTR the explanation in one of the LucasArts "X-wing" series of computer games was that the TIE fighters aren't really making noise in space; they're throwing off so much energy from their engines that it's overloading the electronics and communications in whatever ship you're in. IOW, your radio is screaming from all the static those things are throwing off.

Hey, I didn't say it made sense.

[A small perverse otter]

But AIs have one special feature that modified organics will never have: they are software. Software can, in theory, be rewritten, upgraded. As Kurzweil and others have speculated, If AI software is intelligent enough to know how to write BETTER AI software, it can upgrade ITSELF. 

That better version can then write even BETTER software, and repeat ad infinitum. What results, in theory, is Adam Selene, Skynet, Omega, P1, The Eschaton. Software that is self-aware, with godlike abilities, and brooks no competition. Because it sees lesser AIs as potentially doing the same thing, and doesn't feel like fighting them to the death.

Why are we certain that it's even possible for there to exist an information system of sufficient complexity and orderedness that it can arbitrarily increase its own complexity and orderedness? That always sounded to me like the kind of thing that some mathematician will eventually prove to be impossible.

Oh, we're not certain. But until some mathematician proves it impossible, there's no obvious theoretical reason why it is. 
Turing's Halting Problem shows that a program can't predict another program's output (or lack of it).
Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem shows that a system that can represent itself is ABLE to represent a paradox.
Impossibility of self-improving code is not an obvious consequence of either of these.

And on the other hand, Core Wars shows that programs in competition can learn to adapt and improve. So it's tantalizing.

[Mathematician here...]

The problem is already solved and the answer is "yes and no"

On the one hand, the Second Incompleteness theorem shows that a computer writing code in a full Turing Complete formalism is playing with fire: it's virtually inevitable that an unconstrained self-modifying program will eventually add an infinite loop to itself. (The Second Incompleteness Theorem basically says "Any sufficiently advanced program is indistinguishable from an infinite loop.")

But. (Programmatically driven decisions are happening over dinner!)

What if the computer is not running in an unconstrained system? What if it's required to run, say, within primitive recursive functions (every iteration is limited in a certain way.)? Then every program it can write will be guaranteed to finish for all inputs, even though the programs would be eternally improvable.

[Pilchard123]

I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum.

Same way that Tie-fighters do it, obviously!

ISTR the explanation in one of the LucasArts "X-wing" series of computer games was that the TIE fighters aren't really making noise in space; they're throwing off so much energy from their engines that it's overloading the electronics and communications in whatever ship you're in. IOW, your radio is screaming from all the static those things are throwing off.

Hey, I didn't say it made sense.

I like the EVE explanation: other ships are not making any noise, but because humans (if the PCs in EVE can be called humans) are used to being able to hear things, the ship's computer will work out what sounds you 'should' hear and produce them for you.

[brasca]

Damn!  He's about to reenact the duel between the Mountain and Oberyn Martel.  Good thing his fingers are positioned differently.

I had to examine this a few times, but I think Church punched Alice so hard she crashed through the surface of the space habitat.  The voice commanding him to stop could finally be from the enigmatic praeses.

[BenRG]

Church, old mate? A bit of advice: You're on someone else's turf now. As powerful as you are, it's always best to ask the local god's permission before breaking anyone's faces. They may want their say and they may have the power to make their edicts stick.

Then again, all the Super-Soldiers we have seen have a lot of arrogance. Maybe they're too used to not having to fear or obey anything except each other so they have a difficult time handling being in a situation where they're not the dominant force?

Anyway, I think that we're about to meet some of the Spaceborne and we might be about to meet a Praeses.

[TheEvilDog]

Notice that her left eye is starting to deform in Church's grip...

That's horrifying right there...

[Neko_Ali]

It could be from Pate too. I am getting the feeling that Church is under orders to not go all murder machine unless Pate orders it or he is directly attacked. He recognized Alice at lease, and almost certainly knew Sedna was another immortal, if he didn't know her. And he has a grudge against Alice. But he didn't attack her on sight, because Pate needed her. When Sedna wrecked their car he only disabled her in a non-serious manner (for them at any rate). He did so without emotion. But when Ellie smacked him upside the head, then the gloves came off, much like what is happening with Alice right now. He watched her, but didn't attack until she attacked first, now he's in berserker mode.

The the other are watching this and seeing Alice getting crushed. I'm thinking the next comic is going to be something like Sedna holding Pate by the neck and telling him to order Church to stand down or else.

[Method of Madness]

I don't think I've ever seen Church outright angry before.

[bhtooefr]

He recognized Alice at leas[t]

Did he, though? I was under the impression that he didn't recognize her until she was armored up.

[OldGoat]

The the other are watching this and seeing Alice getting crushed. I'm thinking the next comic is going to be something like Sedna holding Pate by the neck and telling him to order Church to stand down or else.

Could be Sedna, Gavia, Pate, or even Ardent, presuming that's Gavia's force bubble that's covering them.  I suppose it could be whatever or whoever serves  the Orbitals as a police force arriving, too.  Since they appear to have breached the Praeses' trunk or whatever, someone from Damage Control is bound to be arriving presently.

[jheartney]

Since they appear to have breached the Praeses' trunk or whatever

Is it the trunk, or one of the "leaves?" They were floating in the general direction of a leaf right before this.

My impression is that the habitats are separate from the Praeses; the habitats were all the new stars floating in the sky post-Blink. Also, are the Praeses sentient? Pate wants to "have words" with them, but doing so may not be much more productive than someone berating Siri; it's possible to do it, and you'd even get responses, but don't expect Siri to be upset by it.

My vote is the one shouting "Stop!" is Pate. Perhaps under threat from Sedna (as someone suggested), or on his own as he'd rather not lose Alice right away.

One thing not clean to me is why Church had to pursue Alice and bust past the green swirly stuff. In the previous comic, he already had her inches away in the final panel. She broke away? Assuming that is the story, shouldn't we have seen it? For now it looks like a continuity error.

[Method of Madness]

Look at his face. He's enjoying himself. I'd say it's less an error and more him prolonging things just a bit because he hasn't had this much fun in five thousand years.

[jheartney]

Look at his face. He's enjoying himself. I'd say it's less an error and more him prolonging things just a bit because he hasn't had this much fun in five thousand years.

That's not the error. The error is that in last week's comic, Church was already face to face with Alice (and presumably would have been holding her to prevent escape). In this week's comic, suddenly she has moved away from him, and he has to burst through some green stuff to get to her. How did that happen? What's the green stuff? Why (from a story point of view) bother with this temporary escape?

[pwhodges]

He's thrown her through the wall (see how clumsily she is landing) into a space (inside the tree? - the curvy lines suggest that to me) where she is constrained so that he can brutalise her without her getting away.  As he follows her in through the hole you see the stars outside behind him.

[brasca]

The the other are watching this and seeing Alice getting crushed. I'm thinking the next comic is going to be something like Sedna holding Pate by the neck and telling him to order Church to stand down or else.

Could be Sedna, Gavia, Pate, or even Ardent, presuming that's Gavia's force bubble that's covering them.  I suppose it could be whatever or whoever serves  the Orbitals as a police force arriving, too.  Since they appear to have breached the Praeses' trunk or whatever, someone from Damage Control is bound to be arriving presently.

I think everyone in the bubble is too far away to see what's going on at this point.  Never mind the scifi magic that would allow their voice to project that far. 

Look at his face. He's enjoying himself. I'd say it's less an error and more him prolonging things just a bit because he hasn't had this much fun in five thousand years.

That's not the error. The error is that in last week's comic, Church was already face to face with Alice (and presumably would have been holding her to prevent escape). In this week's comic, suddenly she has moved away from him, and he has to burst through some green stuff to get to her. How did that happen? What's the green stuff? Why (from a story point of view) bother with this temporary escape?

It's difficult to discern, but in panel 2 I see Church blasting Alice so hard she burst through the trunk or bark of the space habitat and in the third panel he flies through the hole he's made to begin crushing her skull in panel 4 and 5.  Now I'm noticing some curvature in the 6th panel as if Pate is now inside a bubble.  I doubt Gavia could've arrived in time to erect a force field around him nor do I think she's suicidal .  I think the Praeses will be intervening soon. 

[jheartney]

It's difficult to discern, but in panel 2 I see Church blasting Alice so hard she burst through the trunk or bark of the space habitat and in the third panel he flies through the hole he's made to begin crushing her skull in panel 4 and 5.  Now I'm noticing some curvature in the 6th panel as if Pate is now inside a bubble.  I doubt Gavia could've arrived in time to erect a force field around him nor do I think she's suicidal .  I think the Praeses will be intervening soon.

Ah, now I see. The white shape in panel 2 is Alice hurled through the outside of something and hitting the opposite inside wall; I'd thought it was just a bang of Church bursting through the green material.

5000 years in solidified magma hasn't done anything good for his temper. Still, if he's that powerful, why did he take millennia to break out of some rocks?

[blt]

It's difficult to discern, but in panel 2 I see Church blasting Alice so hard she burst through the trunk or bark of the space habitat and in the third panel he flies through the hole he's made to begin crushing her skull in panel 4 and 5.  Now I'm noticing some curvature in the 6th panel as if Pate is now inside a bubble.  I doubt Gavia could've arrived in time to erect a force field around him nor do I think she's suicidal .  I think the Praeses will be intervening soon.

Ah, now I see. The white shape in panel 2 is Alice hurled through the outside of something and hitting the opposite inside wall; I'd thought it was just a bang of Church bursting through the green material.

5000 years in solidified magma hasn't done anything good for his temper. Still, if he's that powerful, why did he take millennia to break out of some rocks?

If he's encased well enough, could be he couldn't move his limbs around to get enough speed to break through the rock.  Fast forward into the future and digging (or an earthquake even) gives him enough freedom to break himself loose.

[TheEvilDog]

5000 years in solidified magma hasn't done anything good for his temper. Still, if he's that powerful, why did he take millennia to break out of some rocks?

We don't that much about the super soldiers of Alice Grove; their capabilities, their limitations, or what they even truly are. Are they humans that have been enhanced or upgraded? Were they manufactured in a lab?

With that in mind, it might be a case that when Alice imprisoned Church, the molten rock served as a prison for him, one that is extremely difficult and time laborious to break out from. That's not even getting into the composition of the stone (volcanic stone can be as fragile as glass or at the other end of the scale, stronger than steel). It might have taken Church centuries, if not a couple of millennia to break out.

Think of it like this, a variant of immurement was to bury someone up their neck in sand and leave them to die. Generally considered to be a horrific way to go. But if left unattended, one could escape. It involves moving the fingers back and forth and then the arms. The idea is that you are compacting the sand in such a way that you make more room to get out. Which is probably what Church did. Unless Church has a vibrate setting to break the stone.