• Announcements

    • Robin

      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!

partner555

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    1,098

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    9

Posts posted by partner555

  1. Posted

    3 minutes ago, wanderingmagus said:

    Does Magic actually care about anything besides itself? As in, if humanity as a whole goes extinct, would it consider that a great loss, or simply another event in the weave? It said itself, it's completely alien to mortals, and mortals are essentially incomprehensible to it. The three were chosen based on questionable criteria, and it didn't seem to consider things like cause/effect. Sure, it has a "flair for the dramatic", but an asteroid making the world go up in flames is also "dramatic", and apparently it really doesn't give two cents about entire civilizations going down in blood and fire. It also considers 8 billion people "a bit crowded" and not of concern. It gets an adult, an emotional teen and a biased kid to decide merely IF a major change should occur, without regard to HOW magic should change, or basically anything involving stuff like "consequence" or "morality".

    If there are no humans, there goes a source of drama.

  2. Posted

    1 minute ago, Scotty said:

    So I didn't even notice in the commentary:

    So yeah, Magic changes this time around, every Seer gets notified about it, if one or a number of them refuse to keep it secret and spreads knowledge of the new system around enough to make the WoM call another meeting, there's going to be quite a crowd. How the heck would the WoM go about handling that?

    Then in the event Magic changes the system again, all the Seers would still know and could still spread the knowledge but then the next meeting would likely be empty and magic wouldn't get any new perspective, go with the default and change, and basically wash, rinse, repeat.

    The last system change was probably 800-1200 years ago. there might have been 100 seers tops with 1 eligible, they would have been spread out enough and communicating with others being as slow as it was, there wouldn't have been much issue. Times are much different now with over 1000 Seers plus the internet making communicating across the globe almost instant. It would be very hard for this to just die out.

    Magic could realise the futility of keeping secrets on its own.

  3. Posted

    3 minutes ago, Scotty said:

    Well Edward was in charge of the paranormal division at the time, he'd likely have been filing the reports for himself, they're in a cabinet at the office buried among other files and Arthur probably hasn't gotten around to reading through them to the point where it's very tempting to turn this into an HHGTTG reference. ;)

    Edward was Kicked Upstairs and replaced by Arthur in between Sister 2 and Bringing Silly Back. The watches weren't introduced until afterwards. If Edward filed the reports, then it was while Arthur was in charge.

  4. Posted

    11 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

    He may have said full disclosure, but we know that he didn't trust anyone where he worked with knowledge of the CMD when Will and Gil brought it to him.  It's quite likely that he didn't fully disclose what Tedd was doing with that.  The question then becomes how much the lack of disclosure has carried on -- did he tell them everything about the watches, or did they evolve from earlier secrets too closely to be able to come up with a viable alternate explanation?  It's also clear that he didn't report Tedd's frequent gender-swapping, as Arthur seems to have heard nothing of it.  Whether Edward was embarassed or he was respecting Tedd's privacy, it would be difficult to report everything Tedd has done with the TFG or the watches without mentioning the thing Tedd seems to focus on the most.

    It's also possible Arthur didn't read the reports where the watches and what they do were disclosed.

  6. Posted

    This thread is for all your thoughts on how EGS changed and developed over the years.

    I'll start. From the beginning, Ellen was a female duplicate of Elliot. Reading the comic today, it's all too easy to forget that because the two act like actual brother and sister. Hell, if new readers started reading from Bringing Silly Back, they'd probably be surprised by all the mentions of Ellen being a duplicate, or attribute that to a weird way of saying twins.

  7. Posted

    7 hours ago, Drasvin said:

    It's not too unreasonable, if Voltaire knows certain points of Pandora's history. He would know that she cares deeply about her family and that when a werewolf killed her husband, she influenced events to eradicate them. All he had to do was nudge events to play out in a way that guaranteed that Pandora would have to break Immortal law to save Adrian's life. Then she would want to do something to protect her family from the threat that almost killed Adrian, and since she doesn't the time to carefully influence things to eradicate the threat, she would have to do something big and drastic. Pandora knew about the connection between Immortals after one breaks the Laws and figured out how to use it to cast her spell, so it wouldn't be out of the question for Voltaire to have figured that out.

    Okay, I can buy most of this, except knowing that Pandora would take advantage of the connection. Zeus was surprised that Pandora did, so how would Voltaire know?

    6 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

    I am more concerned about the fallout for Tedd in this, especially because he is now on Arthur's radar.

    He was always on Arthur's radar. Pandora said that Edward has been using full disclosure to protect Tedd and friends from even bigger government scrutiny. That being said, the protection afforded by the full disclosure thing might be lost.

    2 hours ago, Drasvin said:

    The pithos medallion also served to drive a wedge between Adrian and Pandora, causing their emotions to run higher than normal and likely preventing them from calmly discussing things that could lead them to discovering Voltaire's hand in events. I doubt that was accidental.

    Actually, as per the commentary on when that was brought up, Pandora being framed is not the only reason why they have issues. Remember Abraham?

  9. Posted

    19 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

    I imagine he would lay the blame on Tedd not being as traumatized as he thought. Unfortunately, I think he'll benefit from the Unspoken Plan Guarantee. We don't know which outcome he's trying to cause, only that it needs Tedd traumatized (and possibly Arthur now that I think about it. Something bad happened to Arthur or someone he cares about. I wouldn't put it past Voltaire to have arranged that, though again, that's just speculation) and somehow relates to the Immortals and their laws.

    http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2334

    http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2254

    I think we have a good idea of what he wants. He's frustrated by the limits of Immortals, and clearly wants them gone, or irrelevant. He also definitely wants Magic to change, given he tried to traumatise Tedd who wants Magic to be public. We can see how he intended to achieve the Magic change, though I'm not sure how what he did ties into the "last straw for Immortals" thing since the forced spell casting was up to Pandora and something he couldn't reasonably predict.

  10. Posted

    13 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

    "There have been some unforeseen complications"

    Unforseen indeed. I doubt Voltaire was prepared for this either.

    I wonder what he thinks of what Pandora did? If his plan failed, do you think he'd attribute it to Pandora being so overt in killing Aberrations that Magic threw its hands into the air and gave up any notion of secrecy, or because Tedd wasn't as traumatised as he thought, again, because of Pandora?

  11. Posted

    3 minutes ago, WR...S said:

    Hmm.  Well, I think Tedd's got the nuke, all but by pure luck.  With one in seven million, there would have been a handful of seers all of recorded history, but only now would exposing magic unleash such a torrent of them.

    (Makes you wonder more than ever what Magic is - especially in a setting with aliens this doesn't affect.)

    http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2335

    Well, the revelation was foreshadowed by Heka. He said that Tedd was far from the only one even if Seers are a rarity among rarities.

  12. Posted

    2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

    Also important: if they do NOT go with a severe system change, the 995-some other seers will not be informed about the existence of magic and the new rule system. Ironically, the best way to slow knowledge of magic from spreading will be to choose to go public. That way at least they will avoid a huge amount of new seers starting to spread the word.

    No way to put the genie back in the bottle, but that way they may at least be able to slow it enough to allow them to prepare a little for the coming magocalypse. :icon_eek:

    Wonder how he's going to explain to his boss that his plan failed?

  14. Posted

    24 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

    I thought for sure it had been established that wands store power, but I'm not sure where to look for confirmation.

    At any rate I suspect he has a lot more details about the magic system worked out than he's had a chance to explain in the comic; coming up with rules and figuring out details seems to be something he likes doing.

    http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1710

    Mentioned in that Q&A.

  16. Posted

    3 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

    I'm thinking Arthur is old enough to remember the last time magic changed. That is, he's really an elf, an even older elf than Adrian Raven.

    If he was, wouldn't he be aware of his status of Seer then?

    2 minutes ago, mlooney said:

    As much as I hate to say it, I about 80% on with Arthur J Arthur about keeping magic secret.

    Magic in EGS does seem to give spells out based on who you are, not a set list of spells.  Bad Tom gets magic, any bets he gets "Charm Person" or something like that?  Want to live in a world where he and other twits like him have that?  And that's just a fairly harmless option.  There are actively evil people out there as well, even in the EGSverse as given.  Notice that one of the vampires was also a mage.  Not Good.

     

    Wizard actually, but I see your point.

  19. Posted

    27 minutes ago, Scotty said:

    Tedd was told about the magic change and the existence of the WoM, and then Pandora told her that she was a seer and able to learn the changes and teach others. Elliot had previously mentioned that Tedd could potentially force Magic to compromise, what are the chances that Tedd could have realized that she could potentially be able to reason with the WoM and affect whether or not the system change and would that have been enough to make her ineligible?

     I think the main disqualification factor is knowing you could talk with Magic if it's considering a change. Tedd didn't know it, Arthur didn't know it, and we have no reason to think Van knew it, therefore, all three were eligible.

  20. Posted

    1 hour ago, WR...S said:

    I also doubt that Tedd and Van will win this scene; heck, my guess'd be that Van'll be on Arthur's side by the end of his speech.  We're clearly being set up for a very compelling argument, and one I don't think Tedd is going to be able to immediately refute to Magic's satisfaction.  If we'd heard it in full prior to this point, I'd think this was likely the climax of that thread, but while we've gotten the gist of Arthur's objection from him and Edward, we're about to see it fleshed out in a way we haven't before, which I doubt will be punctured immediately, especially given the presence of an unknown third party, initially on Tedd's side, at an impressionable age.

     

    This part is outright called "The Fate of Magic", and it's also well into the Sister 3 storyline. From another Doylist point-of-view, it's likely this will be resolved in this part without continuing into another part.

    Whatever arguments Arthur makes, Tedd has likely heard them and argued over with his dad several times. I'm sure he can come up with something.

  21. Posted

    3 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

    If Tedd has an advantage in this argument, it is that almost every point Arthur is about to bring up is something Tedd has already heard from Edward.

    Every time Tedd had to walk away from a discussion about magic with Dad probably left Tedd with one big question.  "What should I have said differently?"

    Ok, Tedd.  Prove you were paying attention.  And remember, Arthur has honed his position by debating with Liefield, Politicians, TV Talk Show Hosts, and your father.

    Allow me to guess some of Tedd's arguments:

    - Every seer will be told of their status and purpose in the event of a severe change. If those seers decide to not keep it secret, the whole point of the severe change is undermined.

    - Even if those seers are willing to be secretive, what about the people they teach? You can't control that many people.

  24. Posted

    32 minutes ago, CNash said:

    So, all questions of parentage and relationships aside.... looks like we're heading towards Tedd advocating a reveal, Arthur arguing for a severe change, and Van being the tiebreaker in the middle. I wonder how he feels about magic, and especially about his mother's "line of work". And also whether any of their opinions will change when they learn about Pandora's final act.

    I doubt Tedd's opinion would change, but I'm sure Arthur's would, since what Pandora did could not possibly be covered up, and with Magic outright admitting that Seers would be told of their status and purpose and how to teach it to others, there's no way the severe change would achieve Arthur's goal for long.

    Van... I don't know enough about him.

  25. Posted

    28 minutes ago, ijuin said:

    That reminds me--with all of the excitement over the Vampire Attack and the death of Pandora, we've forgotten that Adrian still needs to dismantle the dam sometime next week (next week in story time).

    I thought that was this weekend?

    Also, Pandora already used up the remaining ambient energy forcing every Immortal to cast the Aberration-Genocide.