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The Old Hack

Story Friday August 18, 2017

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I wonder if she knows that Magus went back to Sirleck for help? Or at least figures that he would have after she left him. Pretty certain she won't hurt Magus because she'd know he's only acting out of desperation because she refused to properly help him.

So it's basically Sirleck and Voltaire who are the enemies, anyone else? Aside from Lord Tedd I mean, I'm not sure she either knows about him or can actually reach him and that situation is complicated anyway.

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2 hours ago, Scotty said:

I wonder if she knows that Magus went back to Sirleck for help? Or at least figures that he would have after she left him. Pretty certain she won't hurt Magus because she'd know he's only acting out of desperation because she refused to properly help him.

I doubt she knows he went back to Sirleck. She knows he's still around and likely looking for an opportunity, but she doesn't seem to have put a lot of thought into him.

I'm honestly wondering if Pandora steered Magus onto the Dewitchery path just to awaken Abraham for a chance to kill him for worsening the werewolf problem. I wouldn't be surprised if she lied to him about that being his only chance in order to manipulate events to give herself a chance at revenge.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

So it's basically Sirleck and Voltaire who are the enemies, anyone else? Aside from Lord Tedd I mean, I'm not sure she either knows about him or can actually reach him and that situation is complicated anyway.

Sirleck and Voltaire are the only major threats in play at the moment, that I can think of anyway. Pandora might consider Magus a threat, and therefore an enemy, but he's a fairly minor one if he doesn't have someone to help him. And I'm not sure Pandora can kill him if she wanted to, as she tore him up pretty badly before and he survived.

While Lord Tedd is a very major threat, he's not in play at the moment(by which I mean he isn't taking significant actions in the current story). There are much more pressing and immediate concerns to deal with.

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23 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

While Lord Tedd is a very major threat, he's not in play at the moment(by which I mean he isn't taking significant actions in the current story). There are much more pressing and immediate concerns to deal with.

I keep telling you what Edward said, if translated from government three letter agency speak, is that Lord Tedd is dead.

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13 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I keep telling you what Edward said, if translated from government three letter agency speak, is that Lord Tedd is dead.

I am not hearing any "Ding Dong". :demonicduck: 

This is new. This is a start, too.

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3 hours ago, Scotty said:

I wonder if she knows that Magus went back to Sirleck for help? Or at least figures that he would have after she left him. Pretty certain she won't hurt Magus because she'd know he's only acting out of desperation because she refused to properly help him.

So it's basically Sirleck and Voltaire who are the enemies, anyone else? Aside from Lord Tedd I mean, I'm not sure she either knows about him or can actually reach him and that situation is complicated anyway.

I don't think she knows;  suspects, though, or reasoned out it would be very likely using that keen Immortal mind (as you said)?  I think so.  Pandora is aware of Sirleck, and Magus has few options.  I suppose from that, she might suspect that the Moperville Scoobies would intersect with Sirleck/Magus at some point without being aware of the Gathering Storm of Aberrations.

Voltaire she knows as an Immortal enemy in the general sense without knowing who he is and what he wants.  I wonder how much of his plan she could deduce by investigating the events that happened if she were in Near-Psychic/NonEmpathy mode versus the way she is now?  Though her current mindset is preferable in so many ways, it hinders her ability to fight her family's enemies.

Also, sheesh, she is very scary right now.

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2 hours ago, mlooney said:

I keep telling you what Edward said, if translated from government three letter agency speak, is that Lord Tedd is dead.

There's too much narrative build-up around Lord Tedd for him to be killed off-panel. It just wouldn't make good narrative. Though it is certainly possible that Edward believes Lord Tedd to be dead.

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2 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

There's too much narrative build-up around Lord Tedd for him to be killed off-panel. It just wouldn't make good narrative. Though it is certainly possible that Edward believes Lord Tedd to be dead.

It's also possible that Lord Tedd is in a "black site" now.   Which would also fit with Edward's statement.

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Just now, Drasvin said:

I doubt she knows he went back to Sirleck. She knows he's still around and likely looking for an opportunity, but she doesn't seem to have put a lot of thought into him.

I'm honestly wondering if Pandora steered Magus onto the Dewitchery path just to awaken Abraham for a chance to kill him for worsening the werewolf problem. I wouldn't be surprised if she lied to him about that being his only chance in order to manipulate events to give herself a chance at revenge.

Sirleck and Voltaire are the only major threats in play at the moment, that I can think of anyway. Pandora might consider Magus a threat, and therefore an enemy, but he's a fairly minor one if he doesn't have someone to help him. And I'm not sure Pandora can kill him if she wanted to, as she tore him up pretty badly before and he survived.

While Lord Tedd is a very major threat, he's not in play at the moment(by which I mean he isn't taking significant actions in the current story). There are much more pressing and immediate concerns to deal with.

The impression that I got from today's page is that Pandora will be going over everything she's done in the past few years to fix everything, to "clean up this mess I've made" Magus is part of the mess so I wouldn't doubt for a moment that she isn't considering what he might have done after she left him, she's the one that introduced him to Sirleck so she must assume the possibility of Magus going back to Sirleck. She's probably also going to try to find out what happened that put Noah in danger because Adrian believed that it was her doing but she didn't even question it at the time. On top of that, she knows there's another Immortal messing around so she's gotta figure out why and how to stop him. I think she's going to be putting that "borderline psychic" stuff to work pretty hard for the rest of the day at least.

Just now, mlooney said:

I keep telling you what Edward said, if translated from government three letter agency speak, is that Lord Tedd is dead.

I don't think so, for one despite the fact that Dan believes he introduced Lord Tedd too early, I don't think he'd write him out of it like that and yet still manage to find a way to bring him up again. Edward said "this is complicated enough as it is without dragging Lord Tedd into it."  Edward's "addressing the Lord Tedd situation" more likely amounted to assessing the danger of Lord Tedd sending something else to attack Tedd. Killing Lord Tedd, or even imprisoning him, is a big deal because Dan's already gone through the trouble is showing us that this is not simply an evil alternate of Tedd, and that General Shade Tail may be the real threat.

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9 hours ago, Drasvin said:

I'm honestly wondering if Pandora steered Magus onto the Dewitchery path just to awaken Abraham for a chance to kill him for worsening the werewolf problem. I wouldn't be surprised if she lied to him about that being his only chance in order to manipulate events to give herself a chance at revenge.

Given that Pandora explicitly said when the creator of the dewitchery diamond came to Moperville, I set aside my allegiance with Magus I would conclude that not only she did NOT steered Magus to that path to attract Abraham but in fact didn't predicted it will cause Abraham to arrive.

9 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Sirleck and Voltaire are the only major threats in play at the moment, that I can think of anyway. Pandora might consider Magus a threat, and therefore an enemy, but he's a fairly minor one if he doesn't have someone to help him. And I'm not sure Pandora can kill him if she wanted to, as she tore him up pretty badly before and he survived.

It is likely she WANTED him to survive. It was supposed to be punishment, not getting rid of him.      IF she would be trying to kill him, she wouldn't bother talking to him afterwards.

7 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

I wonder how much of his plan she could deduce by investigating the events that happened if she were in Near-Psychic/NonEmpathy mode versus the way she is now?  Though her current mindset is preferable in so many ways, it hinders her ability to fight her family's enemies.

Actually the last frame looks like she's activating her near-physic mode.

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

The impression that I got from today's page is that Pandora will be going over everything she's done in the past few years to fix everything, to "clean up this mess I've made" Magus is part of the mess so I wouldn't doubt for a moment that she isn't considering what he might have done after she left him, she's the one that introduced him to Sirleck so she must assume the possibility of Magus going back to Sirleck. She's probably also going to try to find out what happened that put Noah in danger because Adrian believed that it was her doing but she didn't even question it at the time. On top of that, she knows there's another Immortal messing around so she's gotta figure out why and how to stop him. I think she's going to be putting that "borderline psychic" stuff to work pretty hard for the rest of the day at least.

"Will be" is the keyword. She probably isn't aware of the attack yet, but she MAY either predict it almost too late or at least deduce Sirleck and Magus are behind it the moment it happened.

But her main concern would likely be Voltaire (meaning, the immortal responsible for Tara's attack on Elliot - she doesn't know his name yet. Probably.)

6 hours ago, Drasvin said:
8 hours ago, mlooney said:

I keep telling you what Edward said, if translated from government three letter agency speak, is that Lord Tedd is dead.

There's too much narrative build-up around Lord Tedd for him to be killed off-panel. It just wouldn't make good narrative. Though it is certainly possible that Edward believes Lord Tedd to be dead.

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

I don't think so, for one despite the fact that Dan believes he introduced Lord Tedd too early, I don't think he'd write him out of it like that and yet still manage to find a way to bring him up again. Edward said "this is complicated enough as it is without dragging Lord Tedd into it."  Edward's "addressing the Lord Tedd situation" more likely amounted to assessing the danger of Lord Tedd sending something else to attack Tedd. Killing Lord Tedd, or even imprisoning him, is a big deal because Dan's already gone through the trouble is showing us that this is not simply an evil alternate of Tedd, and that General Shade Tail may be the real threat.

Dan introduced Lord Tedd too early, but he IS planed part of story so Dan definitely can't kill him off-panel.

Also, I doubt DGB is able to operate in other worlds. I also doubt it would be easy for Pandora. What DGB might be doing is some sort of monitoring of dimensional breaches - Edward might say that Tedd can't be behind it because there were no dimensional breach detected (or all breaches were checked and cared for).

(Also, IF DGB would attack Lord Tedd in his home universe, he would probably easily destroy the attack force. Or, maybe general Shade Tail would destroy the attack force and Lord Tedd wouldn't even notice.)

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I'd like to turn everyone's attention back to the title page of Sister 3:

1467667917-20160704-S3_001.png

Pandora is apparently the silhouette between Magus and Sirleck, note how the figure looks, arms wide, burst of light shining forth. I wonder if that was a clue to her reset/refresh? If so, is it also a clue to whether the refresh works or not? Or is that just how resets normal look?

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I have an urge to turn the second panel into an Arthur meme.

Anyway...

A refresh, to me, would involve one of two options:

1. A permanent relinquishing of power and unimportant memories to fuel regeneration of the self, while retaining a minor fraction of her power and the most relevant memories that would preserve the person she wants to be for her family, while discarding the chaotic self she once was. This untested process, however, might result in all sorts of wacky shenanigans, such as turning her mortal.

2. Sealing away a majority of herself to allow for her mind to breathe until her worldly business has been settled, and she is ready to reset properly. This would be a temporary measure, and it also has its own risks if the seal does not work.

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4 hours ago, Scotty said:

I'd like to turn everyone's attention back to the title page of Sister 3:

But I took a look at the shape of the hair in the silhouette, and the shape of the pupils behind the hair, and immediately thought of Flora (from TwoKinds). Since she's a tiger, "Catspaw" is really appropriate.

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21 hours ago, weirdee said:

A permanent relinquishing of power and unimportant memories to fuel regeneration of the self, while retaining a minor fraction of her power and the most relevant memories that would preserve the person she wants to be for her family, while discarding the chaotic self she once was. This untested process, however, might result in all sorts of wacky shenanigans, such as turning her mortal.

I'm pretty sure only thing less likely than Pandora turning mortal is time travel. Also, I don't think it would be permanent - in best case, it would give her another two hundred years before she will get to the "no longer safe" level of craziness.

Basically, it would still be kind of reset, she just plans to "hack" it to keep the emotional connections.

21 hours ago, weirdee said:

Sealing away a majority of herself to allow for her mind to breathe until her worldly business has been settled, and she is ready to reset properly. This would be a temporary measure, and it also has its own risks if the seal does not work.

While that's interesting idea, nothing she said suggest she would try something like this.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also, I don't think it would be permanent - in best case, it would give her another two hundred years before she will get to the "no longer safe" level of craziness.

Basically, it would still be kind of reset, she just plans to "hack" it to keep the emotional connections.

Well yeah, I would imagine that after a while Pandora would again get to the point where her power and knowledge will result if boredom, and it's quite possible she could then do another "refresh"

I don't think that the reason that Immortals decided to go the route of "abandonment of self" style reset because it was risky to do otherwise. They probably decided to do it so they didn't have to carry any emotional burdens throughout their lives. Pandora is a good example, she fell in love with Blaike who then was killed later, she could have reset and her next life wouldn't have to mourn at all. Maybe most Immortals chose to avoid getting emotionally involved with mortals because it would be too much temptation to not reset, but at the same time, living as long as they can and having everyone they ever cared about live, grow old, and die would probably still take it's toll on them despite "refreshing" their power.

So it's really a matter of "Go insane with boredom and power?" or "go into a depression over everyone you've ever cared about dying which might probably lead you to just resetting completely anyway?" Immortals probably figured just reset anyway and avoid both situations.

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I'm guessing that originally it was personal feelings that were preserved, then someone found a way to instead use that capability to pass on more knowledge and a bigger "starter seed" of power, and the temptation to save more and more power crept up on them untill personal feelings got crowded out.

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Does Sirleck actually bear the gang any ill will outside of doing favours for people who do? Obviously he's not a fan of Pandora, and he seems like the kind of person to be capriciously cruel to mortals just to piss her off, though.

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Well, it sounds to me like Pandora is getting ready to fight, but I don't think she expects to fight tonight. It hasn't been quite explicitly stated that Pandora knows about Sirleck, but Sirleck does seem to know about Pandora, or at least that Magus was working with an Immortal. Why would I think that Pandora doesn't know about Sirleck? Because he's not dead yet.

On 8/18/2017 at 5:30 PM, Scotty said:

I'd like to turn everyone's attention back to the title page of Sister 3:

1467667917-20160704-S3_001.png

Pandora is apparently the silhouette between Magus and Sirleck, note how the figure looks, arms wide, burst of light shining forth. I wonder if that was a clue to her reset/refresh? If so, is it also a clue to whether the refresh works or not? Or is that just how resets normal look?

I'm wondering if Dan really had the plot thought out as far as we've gotten when he made this title page a little more than a year ago. Notice someone missing? Sirleck himself is Voltaire's catspaw. Now since Voltaire manipulated Sirleck by impersonating Abner the fedora-wearing detective (maybe he got that hat from John Troutman?) near the end of So a Date at the Mall, it may be that Dan thought you readers were smart enough to figure that out without his squeezing one more background loomer in this title page.

I'm also wondering if we're going to see Abner the detective in Catspaws. He could make for a plot device to warn at least one of our characters. And any anachronistic film-noir detective worthy of Dashiell Hammet or Raymond Chandler wouldn't stop digging just because a client told him he was finished with a case.

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43 minutes ago, CNash said:

Does Sirleck actually bear the gang any ill will outside of doing favours for people who do? Obviously he's not a fan of Pandora, and he seems like the kind of person to be capriciously cruel to mortals just to piss her off, though.

Like I said in the last post and at least one post quite some time ago, Sirleck's not dead yet. Sirleck is the type of abberation Immortals hate the most; he hasn't survived by being careless. There's some prize he's going for that justifies the enormous risk he's taking. I think the only reason he co-operated with Magus to allow Elliot to get to the Dewitchery Diamond. was that he knew Magus could always find him and an Immortal could always find Magus if she wanted to.

Maybe Sirleck's real goal is to get Magus killed, removing the connection between himself and that very dangerous Immortal. I suspect it's quite hard for most Immortals to detect aberrations of Sirleck's ilk. It would be sweet revenge to possess Magus' body--but Magus with a body would become once again an extremely powerful wizard. Powerful wizards can even threaten Immortals. Of course, there is another Immortal who's aware of Sirleck, but Sirleck doesn't know that yet.

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6 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Well, it sounds to me like Pandora is getting ready to fight, but I don't think she expects to fight tonight. It hasn't been quite explicitly stated that Pandora knows about Sirleck, but Sirleck does seem to know about Pandora, or at least that Magus was working with an Immortal. Why would I think that Pandora doesn't know about Sirleck? Because he's not dead yet.

She can still know about him, how else would he have helped Magus in the first Sister arc? Sirleck bribed the guard to let Elliot and Tedd into the facility with the Diamond, I doubt Magus found him by himself, Pandora would have found Sirleck for Magus. As for right now, Pandora's had a bunch of things on her mind, she's been fairly distracted by dealing with family and such, plus the fact that Magus and Sirleck hasn't made a move in almost 10 months, so while she knows he's around somewhere, she doesn't know that they plan on making a move "today".

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2 hours ago, Scotty said:

she doesn't know that they plan on making a move "today".

That's what I was totally for until a minute ago. I'm a bit less sure now. That last panel might go with Pandora realizing that she's going to need all her power to protect her family soon. 

In Part 16, not that long before visiting Tedd in Moperville time, Pandora visited Sarah. Pandora told Sarah that:

The ambient energy is going down... At this rate, it should be safe to fix the clog in a few days. ”.

Just four comics later, after some hugs, Pandora told Sarah:

“I'm going to talk to my son on Saturday. Can I tell you how it goes after I do?”

“Few” doesn't usually mean “one” or even “two”  So Saturday is one or two days away as Pandora fades out at the end of this comic, two comics before Part 17 begins where we see Tedd waking up as Dan tells us that it's:

Later that evening, AKA super early Friday morning...

Now I'm thinking that Pandora might have been covering up her anxiety about what's about to happen. The logical time to talk to her son, the person who's actually going to remove the clog, is when Pandora is reasonably sure the ambient magic is down to a level where it will be safe for Adrian to take down the magical dam Pandora has had built (and just exactly who did Pandora empower and guide to put up that dam, anyway?). But she told Sarah that she'd talk to Adrian on Saturday, which doesn't seem long enough for Sarah to reduce the ambient magic far enough by herself.

What else could could lower the ambient level a lot in a very short time? Well, remember that Pandora promised to find and shred the meddling Immortal that appeared at the Mall trying to provoke Dame Tara into killing Elliot. That kind of sounds like it would fill the bill. So Pandora may be allowing Sirleck and Magus' plan to go forward in order to draw out Voltaire and finish him. If she knows what's going on now, she may see Friday evening as her best opportunity to destroy her family's most powerful enemy.

That last panel also gives me the vibe that Pandora realizes that the battle coming up may destroy her, or at least force a botched reset. I think the whole internal argument she's been having led to her steeling herself to “stay on target”.

If this was a World War II manga, Pandora would be tying on her hachimaki in the last panel before climbing into her Zero to fly a kamikaze mission.

Incidentally, have any of you seen the manga or the anime The Apprentice of Zero?

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