hkmaly

Obviously, Catalina is only able to do this in cat form. She can also do that trick with landing on all four when falling from height, and no amount of yoga can teach that to human.

That's a good point. It's easy to forget Susan has sides to herself she rarely shows. I wonder if she's just roleplaying here, or if she had a mental effect similar to "Pet Kitty" applied to her? Meanwhile her outfit seems to be "furry" without the fur and extra animal features, or footwear. Maybe Catalina's been playing around with mixing-and-matching card effects? The pet effect (which did appealed to her) is best explanation. However, I don't think this is right after second Goonmanji. This is somewhat later, because it took Susan lot of time before she decided she must try it. Hmmm ... was it ever said how long can Catalina keep the wand? If it's temporary, maybe this is after THIRD Goonmanji ...

Indeed. Dan went from everyone using land lines to smart phones in the space of less than one in-comic year. That's fast, even for the telephone industry. Not speaking about the ridiculously small 512MB card in camera and gigabytes of space in computer ... just MONTH of comic time before video camera phones with HD. (March 9 and April 9, exactly month.) And the speed CRT monitors changes to flat panels is also quite fast ...

Given the fact it's speaking in a long dead language and didn't bust out of its crate until now, it's probably been inert since a previous system change, meaning the damage isn't from gunshots, but magical attacks. Definitely. Or her parents parents hiding something. Or their parents. And about her being seer ... seers are supposed to be rarity even between wizards. Also what Douglas said. "raccoon"? To answer the question: she's not used to being able to cast spells at all, she has no idea what spells the wand has, she sees a need for immediate effect, she's panicking. Also, if you saw Harry Potter, you should notice that using magic wand correctly is NOT that easy. Lot of wizards failed to make something levitate on first try because of incorrect pronunciation ... not something to try without instructions. Sure, it's apparently EASIER in EGS, but Ashley doesn't know. Just because she doesn't know her heritage doesn't mean her parents are hiding something from her. There are lot's of families in the USA that aren't that concerned about family heritage, especially when that heritage is heavily mixed, as implied by Ashley in this comic. Even Elliot isn't certain where his family is from. The referenced text also implies Ashley herself didn't CARE where she has ancestors if it wasn't Japan. Where are you getting those numbers? I though it's supposed to be ~ 1000 ... But, yes. It's EVIDENT that majority of people with magic talent is not awakened. The previous magic reset apparently worked REALLY WELL.

That MIGHT be justified worry. So far, ALL methods of searching for aliens had no success. Sure, it may be because using radio is not good method, but it can also mean sapient life is just that rare. In EGS, they have one advantage over us: they know that there is at least one other sapient species somewhere. As far as we know, nothing can travel faster. Sure, the moment we develop something FTL, it will became much more practical way of communicating. They already ARE possible and have lot of advantages for bidirectional communication. However, searching for directional transmissions is futile, the probability of being in right direction is almost zero. Technically, looking for stars going out is searching in electromagnetic spectrum. And, yes, civilization which is not able to utilize stars have reason to be careful around civilization which can, but on the other hand, they don't exactly have any good reason to conquer us, we don't have anything they would need except answers to several questions in form of "is X universal or it's just us". (Obviously, that doesn't exclude they may have some BAD reason to conquer us.) Yes. It also went harder to decode. Analog TV is something you can decipher by looking for patterns and try what they could mean. Compressed digital TV? You would need lot of experience decoding it without knowing the specification. ENCRYPTED digital TV? Forget it. Encrypted digital TV damaged by noise? Hard to actually notice there is any intelligent signal there. That is the smartest course of action if one is simply looking for sapient life, as early stage pioneers/explorers would like be. Though some scientists would likely want to study the development of early civilizations or even pre-civilization sapients. In those cases, obvious communication signals would be insufficient, and more involved search methods would need to be employed. Though such searches are unlikely to occur until interstellar travel is firmly established. Civilization which just started to use radio IS early civilization ... compared to someone who routinely travels through galaxy on FTL ships. But yes, obviously ; searching for life in general is worth it if you either can't find any radio signal or already found someone by radio and want to explore more species. Not only there are that many stars in Milky Way, it's STILL mostly empty. Average density is around one atom per two cubic centimetres. Basically, ANY distance Dan would say could easily be unrealistically small (because of not enough habitable planets) OR unrealistically large (because it would take too long to get here and would be too hard to find us). Or, most likely, both. Not saying one means Dan can at least pretend to have reasonable answer. I think the more fitting comparison is with Dan being vague about what year the story happens in. The more you think about it, the more clear is that ANY answer is not really going to make sense.

Do you think the wand can do translating spell? Or maybe Abraham can? Time to reassess the threat level. This could be bad. This could be very bad. This could be interesting... It should definitely be interesting. It doesn't need to be THAT much bad. It would be much worse if someone like not-Tengu got to wand like that. Ashley might get mad with power, but she's unlikely to become dangerous.

Assuming, of course, that he starts being useful. So far, he mostly insulted Ashley. I think he deserved being thrown. Also, designed to train a fledgling wizard, he may only be able to teach basic spells. Still ... yes. Just Kevin can revive entire system of magic ... and he's likely not ONLY wand like that. So far he seems like victim. He's scary looking, but is mostly confused and didn't do anything threatening ... unlike Ashley. On the other hand doesn't seem she damaged the golem ... Fear? Ashley might be the least powerful wizard the wand taught, but I doubt she's first who threw him. Teachers are generally not supposed to take revenge on their students, even if they would deserve it. So, unless the wand is complete failure as teacher, it should accept the apology. (It IS complete failure at helping with the peril, but that's not it's purpose, so ...)

... well, they DO talk about the parent planet and never mention another dimension, but it's true we don't exactly know that much more ... Most logical at our stage of development. Maybe in a century we will be looking for hyper-tachyonic quantum bosons, or something. Or super communications x-ray lasers. Or modulated gravitational pulses. Or smoke signals by waving a blanket above supernovae. Who knows. True. But still, deliberate communication signals. Actually, those lasers ... no way. Lasers are focused, point-to-point, not omnidirectional. Not much chance to detect them. But yes, we can already search in other areas of electromagnetic spectrum (which would include those blanket-over-supernovae) and technically we are already trying to detect gravitational pulses. Our methods to detect gravitational pulses will go better and we can start looking for tachyons or neutrinos or anything else, ESPECIALLY if we find something capable of FTL communication. We will probably STILL also search for radio because we would WANT to catch any civilization entering the radio stage of development.

Ok. Susan might want to remind them they are not alone. Eventually. Sometime.

It kinda depends what sort of Habitable Zone you are looking for. Life might not be carbon based oxygen breathers everywhere. There has been some quite creative forms of sci fi at times with life very definitely NOT as we know it appearing in all sorts of places, ranging from ice worlds like Pluto through gas giants to the photosphere of the local Sun... While life doesn't need to be carbon based oxygen breathers, and might even exist in environment without liquid water, 1) Some of those creative forms are not really possible with our physical laws, and presumably EGS physical laws either 2) Communication with those exotic lifeforms might be impossible ; in fact, just NOTICING them might be hard 3) Uryuoms, being carbon based oxygen breathers requiring liquid water, would be most likely to search for lifeforms similar to themselves, which would include humans 4) ... unless they are smart, give up searching for life in general and even sapient life in general and just do the most logical thing of JUST LOOKING FOR RADIO. Searching for radio signals allows you to cover much larger area and eliminate almost all false positives, as you can be almost sure that at the source of radio signals you will find life which is sapient, developed enough to understand the concept of other civilization from different planet, able to use math as base of communication and WILLING to communicate. You forget Ancients, who build the stargates and ENSURED ALL STARGATES ARE ON PLANETS WITH ENVIRONMENT SURVIVABLE FOR CARBON BASED OXYGEN BREATHERS (or at least were ; some planets lost that environment since the gates were build). Anyway: We already have fairies. In EGS universe, fairies are much easier explanation of all the gods. Also, all those signs of possible contact with extraterrestrials on our earth? Might not even EXIST in EGS universe. Sure, we generally assume that EGS universe is similar to our own, but we saw very little of it. Maybe it doesn't have any of the legends I mentioned either, it can have different ones.

Totally agree. How can I completely clean the dungeon when the enemies keep reappearing? It's so untidy ...

She's not seer, she doesn't UNDERSTAND the spells. Now, Tedd could be able to combine those spells. Of course, AFTER Nanase shows him the guardian form, which means someone needs to be in danger, she can't show it at will like other spells. I meant combo as in "cast one spell then cast the other." Earth magic enchantments can stack (as seen with the Escape from the Mall storyline), so I don't see any reason why she wouldn't be able to do that. 1) When under Guardian Form spell, you can't cast ANY other spell not part of that form. 2) Guardian Form will surely override any abilities Cheerleadra form could give, even if the form would still technically be under it. 3) The answer to earth magic enchantments stacking is definitive "it varies". 4) Ashley would currently probably be able to hold Guardian form for ten seconds top. YES. I'm pretty sure it's mostly fairies. Didn't you noticed how bored they become?

You can look at ancient sculptures and such in our own history and there are many humanoid examples that people speculate are the results of extraterrestrial encounters hundreds or thousands of years ago. Of course we don't have proof this is true because we haven't had any official recorded contact with aliens in modern times. In the Moperverse though, there are aliens living among humans and even hybrids exist albeit with some secrecy, so why couldn't there have been contact in ancient times? Maybe an event that lead to a system changed forced Uryuoms to leave Earth for a while and they only returned again in the last hundred years. Civilization capable of star travel is capable of record-keeping. Sure we don't know, but Edward only needs to ASK. Note that there is no reason why would Uryuoms - who are not affected by magic resets - need to leave exactly after some reset. There is, of course, possibility that some Uryuoms were on earth before - likely not long-term and maybe not deliberately. But I don't think so because I think Uryuoms only acquired the ability to star travel recently: they only recently passed laws protecting freedom of religion and their technology doesn't seem to be so much better than Earth technology, with the exception of whatever they used for space travel of course.

I was mainly referring to how apparent it is that Dan really gets into the character's head like in Susan's case, what she likes, dislikes, her habits and anxieties. Sure, Dan has stated that Susan shares a number of traits with him, so it helps there, but I think he does the same with all the characters. I'm pretty sure he shares a number of traits with Tedd and Elliot as well. Probably not Grace or Adrian, though. Names might also help, but finding good names for all background characters is too much work for most authors. Dan specially was struggling with several MAIN character names ... (Spear-carrier #2 has one kid and his adventure wasn't appropriate for children OR most TV stations but noone involved is likely to complain. Pity Spear-carrier #2 wouldn't live long enough to find out he became grandpa ...) There is big danger here, though: if the author is too good with world-building, people then complain that he never finished the stories of half of the interesting characters. AFTER spending whole life writing books. "It was supposed to be trilogy!" ...

As if it would matter at that point, after all the chaos other artifacts do meanwhile. (Yes, I hope she will be able to keep the wand and have lot of interesting discussions with it.) I would assume Vatican at least is on that list of allies Arthur plans to inform as soon as possible. However, not all of those would activate. Presumably, some never worked and some lack the energy to work now. Not speaking about the Will of Magic saying that SOME artifact, although I'm not sure why just some. The only evidence I have to support my theory is Pandora's memoirs of the warmongering horde suddenly loosing the ability to shoot fireballs from their hands as they were about to attack a village. I can only guess that another system change happened when there was a significant magic related event taking place, such as an attack by a group of magic users on whatever library the robot was guarding, there might have been several robots like this but this one was the least destroyed when the system change finally hit. Why would attack of group of magic users on magic library force magic reset? All people involved already knows about magic, so no risk of it getting public. Remember that no matter what damage it acquired before becoming inert, it could still acquire more while inert. I have better question: is the wand smart enough to not start blasting the library guardian before it will ACTUALLY become dangerous? More like the human keyboards being optimized for ten fingers ... Any spells she learns personally should be the current system, though she probably could pick up some older system spells from all the old artifacts activating around her. Then again, magic has shown that it can easily be confused about people, so if Ashley first several spells are learned from older system artifacts, then it's possible her personal magic system setting will get switched to that of an older system. I was talking about spells she will learn FROM THE WAND. Regarding switch ... is that issue? I would consider more likely she would be able to learn spells from all systems. She's not seer, she doesn't UNDERSTAND the spells. Now, Tedd could be able to combine those spells. Of course, AFTER Nanase shows him the guardian form, which means someone needs to be in danger, she can't show it at will like other spells. I don't think humans KNEW Uryuoms before last reset, not speaking about how old could this golem be.

It does make sense though since Susan herself hated the growth spurt and cursed her "lanky body". It's probably true ; however, it was not confirmed in canon yet. Just because we know doesn't mean Rhoda and Catalina knows, but I totally expect that they will get into more contact with main group in next months. Like, most stuff makes sense if it would happen few weeks from now, enough time for Susan to get to know Diane more but not enough to tell everything to Catalina and Rhoda, but that's too early for being summer.

If you don't visit the forum where it's reminded periodically As much canon as it can be after being mentioned in non-canon story line. That is, not much. While that's my headcanon as well, I'm not sure if it was already confirmed in canon, so the joke about the agreement is better. Not only actual people, but like actors playing according to script or something. Because if they just were actual people, transforming Catalina would be Rhoda's problem, not Dan's. Of course, them going by script doesn't really make sense either because that would mean the characters are still created by Dan ... meaning it's better to just enjoy the running gag and not attempt to take it too seriously. (Ok, some sort of reality show which is (supposedly) not scripted but people need to follow some hidden rules MIGHT work.) A wizard could easily get into a gotta-catch-em-all mindset about their friends' and associates' spells, trying to learn as many as possible, even to the point of obsession. Not that I see Ashley going that way, but given how Nanase was grinding levels for a while there, maybe it's just as well she isn't a wizard.... I don't see any problem with that. Although that may be because I totally would go into that mindset ... Also, while Ashley would technically be able to learn Rhoda's spells, it would be hard both to learn them and to cast them, as Rhoda is more experienced AND S-class talent. So, either will Ashley be limited on weaker versions of those spells, or she would only be able to learn them next year. ... thinking about it, Hanma totally was able to see Ashley is a wizard. And, depending on timeline, Ashley might knew as well ... ... actually, the main reason why this story would need to remain non-canon will likely be because it's set in summer (based on what are people wearing, for example here) but neither the summer before current main story nor the summer after current main story would match what the characters are shown to know.

Ok. Will add it to wiki to be sure I also played Diablo and don't remember those ... sure, probably because I didn't get deep enough.

This one is kind of small and cramped. The one in Raiders was HUGE. We didn't saw the basement.

People having hereditary talent before reset had the same talent after reset, but what exactly that talent allowed them to do did changed. Or some of that damage could've happened WHILE it was inert. Actually she should be able to learn spell from other magic users as well. Like, from Elliot. In fact, if the wand don't give her some spell, cheerleadra might be her best option ; she saw Elliot do it several times already, she might be able to cast it herself if she's wizard and the wand helps ... The library guardian might be scary but the wand is MUCH CLOSER. And speaks in language Ashley can understand (mostly). Actually wait ... didn't the wand updated it's English from 16th century (thou, cometh) to 21th (wow) when it linked to Ashley? Wizardry is hereditary reliably only when both parents are wizard. If Nanase's father is not wizard, she may not be one, despite still having hereditary magic talent. And she probably isn't, because if she would be, she would already learn some spell from someone else - it's not so hard, look how many spell TEDD learned. Nanase not being able to cast FV5 at this point suggest she's NOT wizard. Also, there was no need to mark Nanase as she was already close to awakening. They only marked Susan because they were not able to awaken her.

No no, that one got stored in an entirely different warehouse. Anyway, maybe this would be a good time to dig it out, seeing as it is apparently really good at frying Nazis. I think it's really good at frying people in general. The Nazis were just only one stupid enough to try. And it could easily be this warehouse.

How can we know the wand didn't activated some time ago and just waited for sensing peril - ok, I know, there was someone in peril all the time. If the wand use the same definition of "wizard" as we (or Edward), she isn't. She may have the talent but needs to awaken ... under CURRENT rules of magic. Which the wand doesn't use. So, hard to predict what will happen. Will she awaken anyway later? Although I suspect we already missed the opportunity to turn Ashley to magical girl. At least classical magical girl. Because in such case, the wand would have heart on end and Ashley would be already transforming. But in any case, SHE WILL GET MAGIC! I can multitask. Observe: Are those typos in the commentary deliberate? ... Ashley will get magic ... ... wait. Will she get 9E on wand which wants to help her? Or will the protector of library be asking in too scary way? Or will something else activate as well? ... also, will her magic be the kind which can get stuck if someone is transformed too long?

I know Dan played Chrono Trigger, Fallout and Mass Effect. I don't remember him saying anything indicating he played Diablo. Citation needed.

That Arthur said "The rest will have to be contacted following special procedure" suggests that it's not as simple as calling up Director Leifeld and say he needs to lock down every facility where supposedly inert artifacts are kept. He'd probably need proper evidence to back up his claim first but in order for that to happen, at least one of the "inert" artifacts needs to be viewed being active. Because it's not Director Leifeld who needs to be contacted. And, possibly, the person Y is not available on phone for security reasons. The difference I'm speaking about is that in bureaucracy, you may know all the steps but the final person won't talk with you when you didn't followed all steps. In secret operations, you don't know the steps because you are not in need to know and you will never see the final person, in fact you will ONLY do the first step and hope other people will do the rest of steps. Actually, something granting whatever wish they desire to first person around is worst case scenario and major disaster which needs to be prevented - or disarmed by sending some safe person to be the one. Of course, that person being Ashley is special exception and something which possibly saved the world. Well, most of world. Not sure about the hypocrites. However, imagine if someone like NotTengu - or SIRLECK - was around such artifact ... There are legends. While legends are rarely reliable source of informations, there is high probability that several items described as magical but tested negative will prove to be rendered inert by magic change. How dangerous that could be may be guessed based on the original description of those items. Excalibur. Ark of the Covenant. Holy Grail. Spear of Destiny. Mjölnir. Ring of the Nibelungs. Necronomicon. Book of Coming Forth by Day. Aegis. Caladbolg. Brahmastra. Talaria. Tarnkappe. Philosopher's stone. Gjallarhorn. And lot of others ...

http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=757 Yes, seems Susan is completely in character. Lost in science and logic and ignoring others, now when the embarrassment is gone. Also, seems swimwear is still an option. Aaand, Dan, you can totally put the sport bra on Susan as well. Not you, but SUSAN wanted the bra to not be too low cut so she bought sports bra despite not looking for one originally.