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hkmaly

Story, Monday July 30, 2018

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https://egscomics.com/comic/sister3-309

So, Plan CM went much better than expected. On the other hand, I suspect plan A would also get much better than expected if the goal was to convince others laws need to be changed ... thousand seers would make sure about that. They would also make sure Voltaire would regret plan A but technically it would work.

... aaand, we finally see Helena and Demetrius, although still no answer to what they were doing during the attack on Adrian. We also see Hanma and two other immortals which certainly wouldn't be important later :)

And I hope those are not supposed to be all immortals.

Hmmm ... Pandora realized Susan and Diane are her descendants the moment she realized it's possible. Could other immortals also find their forgotten descendants or it's usually not so obvious?

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So the immortals might decide to go back to being demigods, with the implication that mortals might be very disposable to them.

Mr. Verres has already said that a powerful wizard could beat an "Immortal" in a fair fight on the mortal plane; I wonder how hard it is to trap one of them on the mortal plane or into a fair fight.  I also wonder if the original purpose of Nanase's family was not as "Monster" hunters, but as "Immortal" hunters.

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16 minutes ago, Haylo said:

So the immortals might decide to go back to being demigods, with the implication that mortals might be very disposable to them.

Mr. Verres has already said that a powerful wizard could beat an "Immortal" in a fair fight on the mortal plane; I wonder how hard it is to trap one of them on the mortal plane or into a fair fight. 

If there would be war, it wouldn't be about being FAIR. Remember, thousand seers. And there would be lot of other people with strong magic talent who are not aware of it. Without magic reset, it might take some time to activate them, but in case of war ...

(Of course, that's just hypothetical scenario. It's very unlikely Dan would like to write about war.)

16 minutes ago, Haylo said:

I also wonder if the original purpose of Nanase's family was not as "Monster" hunters, but as "Immortal" hunters.

I think you overestimate ability of middle age villagers to differentiate between fairies, aberrations and just evil magic users. I'm sure all could be labelled monsters.

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58 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I think you overestimate ability of middle age villagers to differentiate between fairies, aberrations and just evil magic users. I'm sure all could be labelled monsters.

I don't think Haylo meant the label but the purpose. I think she was speculating whether the Immortals used to be the worst of the 'monsters' around and if Nanase's family might have been part of what kept them in check. Then, when Immortals made the law that kept themselves from interfering directly, hunters like that switched their focus to non-Immortal dangers.

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Where were you when Ah Puch and the Great Buffalo Spirit declared war on the Sons of Odhinn, or Yamaraja arose from the depths of Naraka to make war upon mighty Al-Uzza and Ba'al?

Because it sure sounds like the gods are coming back this time.

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I think you overestimate ability of middle age villagers to differentiate between fairies, aberrations and just evil magic users. I'm sure all could be labelled monsters.

Immortals apparently made their laws well before the middle ages, if Pandora's last reset was in the middle ages she probably had numerous resets before then.I also think the agreement to reset every 200 years(give or take) was also around the time the "only guide and empower" law went into effect and I still want to believe that was around the time that Humans stopped worshiping pantheons of gods.

 

Anyway, I'm really hoping that Helena and Demetrius mention how Voltaire tried to manipulate a Griffin from the other half of the world into murdering someone.

 

Also yay Hanma!

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:

I'm really hoping that Helena and Demetrius mention how Voltaire tried to manipulate a Griffin from the other half of the world into murdering someone.

Yes, it would be most helpful for all the immortals to know that what ever they think of Pandora's sacrifice, it was because Voltaire drove her to it.

So which Immortal will be the first to disagree?

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To any Immortal who holds any respect for humans and who doesn't blindly trust other immortals, Voltair's statement in the final panel ought to be a warning that Voltaire's intentions aren't as good as he makes it out to be.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

I also think the agreement to reset every 200 years(give or take) was also around the time the "only guide and empower" law went into effect and I still want to believe that was around the time that Humans stopped worshiping pantheons of gods.

But Humans haven't stopped, at least not all Humans. In addition to some varieties of the modern Pagan movement, Hindu tradition has a rather large pantheon, and some of the Kami in Shinto are powerful enough to rank as gods (hence the term often being translated as "god" or "gods"). In fact, pretty much anywhere that Christianity or Islam hasn't completely suppressed the old beliefs, there is belief in either a pantheon of gods, or a huge range of spirits some of which are like gods.

I assume what you really meant was the rise & spread of Christianity (followed by Islam) in the Old World and the resulting near-universal abandonment in belief in the pantheons of the Roman tradition (including all those it had absorbed), Egyptian tradition, Germanic traditions (including the Norse), and the Arabian tradition? So approximately 2000 - 1000 years ago?  That would give Immortals who reset on schedule about 5 to 10 incarnations since the current laws went into effect; I suppose that would be more than long enough explain the "it's always been this way" vibe I've gotten about current Immortal society & rules (not to mention for a lot of knowledge to be lost, though considering they apparently deliberately forgot many things during resets, and different immortals don't interact a lot, large amounts of resets aren't really required for a culture-wide loss of knowledge).

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Just now, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Yes, it would be most helpful for all the immortals to know that what ever they think of Pandora's sacrifice, it was because Voltaire drove her to it.

I don't believe they know the details of Voltaire calling up Sirleck and painting a giant target on Adrian, but the griffin incident alone should make the other's wonder what angle Voltaire is coming from, to go from tricking someone into committing murder, to suddenly be all "this is a big tragedy that could have been avoided if we had more freedom to do as we please." heck, if any of them knew how old Pandora was, they'd probably be like "she was able to get away with a lot before she intervened with the vampires, that's what we were trying to avoid with the laws.

Best case scenario would be a revision of the guide and empower law to allow for saving lives against monsters. but somehow word it so that Immortals like Voltaire can't make people kill each other for S&G's.

Just now, ChronosCat said:

I assume what you really meant was the rise & spread of Christianity (followed by Islam) in the Old World and the resulting near-universal abandonment in belief in the pantheons of the Roman tradition (including all those it had absorbed), Egyptian tradition, Germanic traditions (including the Norse), and the Arabian tradition? So approximately 2000 - 1000 years ago?  That would give Immortals who reset on schedule about 5 to 10 incarnations since the current laws went into effect; I suppose that would be more than long enough explain the "it's always been this way" vibe I've gotten about current Immortal society & rules (not to mention for a lot of knowledge to be lost, though considering they apparently deliberately forgot many things during resets, and different immortals don't interact a lot, large amounts of resets aren't really required for a culture-wide loss of knowledge).

Pretty much, not sure about the "it's always been this way" bit though, Voltaire's main gripe is that Immortals have restricted themselves into impotence which implies they weren't always restricted, I had theorized that the rise of christianity and monotheistic religion in general was due to Immortals pulling back their influence on the various cultures. There might be some Immortals that still do interact more subtly with groups like the modern Pagan and Hindu as you suggested, but the ones like Norse, Greek, Roman, Egyptian at least by how they're depicted in media these days were very in your face "worship us and we'll take care of you, but if you don't...."almost like extortion which sounds a lot like what Voltaire wants.

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3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Pretty much, not sure about the "it's always been this way" bit though, Voltaire's main gripe is that Immortals have restricted themselves into impotence which implies they weren't always restricted, I had theorized that the rise of christianity and monotheistic religion in general was due to Immortals pulling back their influence on the various cultures. There might be some Immortals that still do interact more subtly with groups like the modern Pagan and Hindu as you suggested, but the ones like Norse, Greek, Roman, Egyptian at least by how they're depicted in media these days were very in your face "worship us and we'll take care of you, but if you don't...."almost like extortion which sounds a lot like what Voltaire wants.

I don't think that Volt face want extortion, he wants flat out worship, if not a master/slave relationship with humans. I could be wrong, but he strikes me as too evil to have any thing less.

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9 hours ago, Scotty said:
15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I think you overestimate ability of middle age villagers to differentiate between fairies, aberrations and just evil magic users. I'm sure all could be labelled monsters.

Immortals apparently made their laws well before the middle ages, if Pandora's last reset was in the middle ages she probably had numerous resets before then.I also think the agreement to reset every 200 years(give or take) was also around the time the "only guide and empower" law went into effect and I still want to believe that was around the time that Humans stopped worshiping pantheons of gods.

That's even worse :)

Note that the "reset every 200 years" is NOT a rule. I think that the agreement was "reset before you go crazy" with the rules helping if immortal won't realize it's already too late for that ... and that LATER it was established that 200 years looks like the correct point.

14 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I don't think Haylo meant the label but the purpose. I think she was speculating whether the Immortals used to be the worst of the 'monsters' around and if Nanase's family might have been part of what kept them in check. Then, when Immortals made the law that kept themselves from interfering directly, hunters like that switched their focus to non-Immortal dangers.

My point was that villagers wouldn't be happy if they called monster hunter and monster hunter complained that it's not the kind of monsters he's hunting. So, as long as they are monster hunter and not village hunters ...

Although it is possible they were the worst. If Noriko's family is really THAT old.

8 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:
9 hours ago, Scotty said:

I'm really hoping that Helena and Demetrius mention how Voltaire tried to manipulate a Griffin from the other half of the world into murdering someone.

Yes, it would be most helpful for all the immortals to know that what ever they think of Pandora's sacrifice, it was because Voltaire drove her to it.

So which Immortal will be the first to disagree?

That's definitely something that should be mentioned. However, are Helena and Demetrius aware that the griffin incident is related to Pandora's sacrifice? They SHOULD if they still paid attention to Elliot ... but we already accused them of slacking in that ...

3 hours ago, Scotty said:
8 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Yes, it would be most helpful for all the immortals to know that what ever they think of Pandora's sacrifice, it was because Voltaire drove her to it.

I don't believe they know the details of Voltaire calling up Sirleck and painting a giant target on Adrian, but the griffin incident alone should make the other's wonder what angle Voltaire is coming from, to go from tricking someone into committing murder, to suddenly be all "this is a big tragedy that could have been avoided if we had more freedom to do as we please." heck, if any of them knew how old Pandora was, they'd probably be like "she was able to get away with a lot before she intervened with the vampires, that's what we were trying to avoid with the laws.

Best case scenario would be a revision of the guide and empower law to allow for saving lives against monsters. but somehow word it so that Immortals like Voltaire can't make people kill each other for S&G's.

It's not about wording. It's about intention.

Personally, I think that easier and safer option would be to just exclude aberrations from any protection, however considering Pandora already get rid of most of them, that might be considered too little ...

3 hours ago, Scotty said:
7 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

I assume what you really meant was the rise & spread of Christianity (followed by Islam) in the Old World and the resulting near-universal abandonment in belief in the pantheons of the Roman tradition (including all those it had absorbed), Egyptian tradition, Germanic traditions (including the Norse), and the Arabian tradition? So approximately 2000 - 1000 years ago?  That would give Immortals who reset on schedule about 5 to 10 incarnations since the current laws went into effect; I suppose that would be more than long enough explain the "it's always been this way" vibe I've gotten about current Immortal society & rules (not to mention for a lot of knowledge to be lost, though considering they apparently deliberately forgot many things during resets, and different immortals don't interact a lot, large amounts of resets aren't really required for a culture-wide loss of knowledge).

Pretty much, not sure about the "it's always been this way" bit though, Voltaire's main gripe is that Immortals have restricted themselves into impotence which implies they weren't always restricted, I had theorized that the rise of christianity and monotheistic religion in general was due to Immortals pulling back their influence on the various cultures. There might be some Immortals that still do interact more subtly with groups like the modern Pagan and Hindu as you suggested, but the ones like Norse, Greek, Roman, Egyptian at least by how they're depicted in media these days were very in your face "worship us and we'll take care of you, but if you don't...."almost like extortion which sounds a lot like what Voltaire wants.

The depiction of gods in today's media is hardly fair ... even very old stuff like the Trojan War legend can be explained with gods being limited by "empower and guide".

In fact, Voltaire certainly don't actually remember how it was before current rules, and what he thinks he remember could been edited by his previous incarnations. So, maybe current rules ARE "always this way" ... doesn't matter. As long as immortals would THINK changing the rules would allow them to do stuff depicted in today's movies, it will, no matter if it ever was that way.

Note that we have Heka confirming that immortals were called fairies ... and that there ARE other immortal beings. We ASSUME greek gods were fairies, because it makes sense ; but we don't have it CONFIRMED.

 

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And I think Voltaire wants the whole master slave thing to apply to all humans as the slaves and him, in particular, the master.

The other immortals don't really figure into his plans for the post change world.

 

 

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

And I think Voltaire wants the whole master slave thing to apply to all humans as the slaves and him, in particular, the master.

The other immortals don't really figure into his plans for the post change world.

 

 

Pretty sure the other gods would have a problem with an Amun trying to pull a fast one over Ra and Horus, especially since they already tried that back in the day. El-Shaddai also tried that on Ba'al and Ashara, they had issues with that and took the upstart tribes captive after Dagon sacked his temple and stole his nice chair. Even Mahabali had to bow before Vishnu when his avatar Vamana tricked him into giving him dominion over all he could cross in three steps, and the dwarf took the entire universe in two.

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3 hours ago, wanderingmagus said:

Pretty sure the other gods would have a problem with an Amun trying to pull a fast one over Ra and Horus, especially since they already tried that back in the day. El-Shaddai also tried that on Ba'al and Ashara, they had issues with that and took the upstart tribes captive after Dagon sacked his temple and stole his nice chair. Even Mahabali had to bow before Vishnu when his avatar Vamana tricked him into giving him dominion over all he could cross in three steps, and the dwarf took the entire universe in two.

Care to break that down for us layman

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4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Note that the "reset every 200 years" is NOT a rule. I think that the agreement was "reset before you go crazy" with the rules helping if immortal won't realize it's already too late for that ... and that LATER it was established that 200 years looks like the correct point.

I can agree with the idea that the 200 year bit is just a suggestion with the caveat of "if you chose to go beyond that you risk doing something that would force us to reset you."

Most Immortals decided that resetting on their own terms was more favourable.

4 hours ago, mlooney said:

And I think Voltaire wants the whole master slave thing to apply to all humans as the slaves and him, in particular, the master.

The other immortals don't really figure into his plans for the post change world.

 

There might be a few that would agree with Voltaire, it's uncertain though, I'd like to think that Zeus, Hanma, Helena and Demetrius would be against what Voltaire wants, the 2 new immortals on the page are definite unknowns as well as the unknown number of Immortals out there.

 

Heck, this could be wild speculation, but what if Helena and Demetrius speak up against it, only to be shot down by the revelation of why they were forcibly reset?

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2 minutes ago, Scotty said:
4 hours ago, mlooney said:

And I think Voltaire wants the whole master slave thing to apply to all humans as the slaves and him, in particular, the master.

The other immortals don't really figure into his plans for the post change world.

There might be a few that would agree with Voltaire, it's uncertain though, I'd like to think that Zeus, Hanma, Helena and Demetrius would be against what Voltaire wants, the 2 new immortals on the page are definite unknowns as well as the unknown number of Immortals out there.

I expect that the consensus will be that SOME change will be made and the question will be how big.

I mean, Zeus is the only one who I can imagine arguing for no change. Or is that Jerry? Jerry will be arguing for no change but I'm less sure about Zeus.

Hanma ... look at her face. She thinks about descendants she might have.

4 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Heck, this could be wild speculation, but what if Helena and Demetrius speak up against it, only to be shot down by the revelation of why they were forcibly reset?

... ok, on one hand, getting it shot down will be bad, but on the other, that's basically our only option to ever find out why they were reset isn't it?

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Just now, hkmaly said:

I mean, Zeus is the only one who I can imagine arguing for no change. Or is that Jerry? Jerry will be arguing for no change but I'm less sure about Zeus.

Well, Zeus did say that forcing an immortal to reset just because she was protecting family was a dumb law, so he'd be willing to tweak the laws, but I think he'd want to try to keep them such that someone like Voltaire wouldn't be able to run rampant. That's best case scenario.

4 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... ok, on one hand, getting it shot down will be bad, but on the other, that's basically our only option to ever find out why they were reset isn't it?

I don't know if it's the only way, just the only way I can think of at the moment.

 

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

My point was that villagers wouldn't be happy if they called monster hunter and monster hunter complained that it's not the kind of monsters he's hunting.

If they could handle Immortals -- big if, mind you -- lesser monsters might be seen by them as a welcome relief and light exercise. Frankly, I don't see them as being quite that nitpicky but I do take your point.

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

I mean, Zeus is the only one who I can imagine arguing for no change. Or is that Jerry? Jerry will be arguing for no change but I'm less sure about Zeus.

Well, Zeus did say that forcing an immortal to reset just because she was protecting family was a dumb law, so he'd be willing to tweak the laws

Right he did. Ok, Zeus is out, number of "no change" proponents: 0.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

but I think he'd want to try to keep them such that someone like Voltaire wouldn't be able to run rampant. That's best case scenario.

I would think he wouldn't be only one with this. Question is where the majority ends between "we need to make sure we won't have TOO much power" versus "we need to make sure this incident wouldn't repeat".

Obviously, there will be SOME rules to keep them in check anyway. But Voltaire is good at rule-bending and we may end up with rules which theoretically limit what immortals can do but practically wouldn't be able to stop Voltaire.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

... ok, on one hand, getting it shot down will be bad, but on the other, that's basically our only option to ever find out why they were reset isn't it?

I don't know if it's the only way, just the only way I can think of at the moment.

The probability of them remembering is likely zero.

With Pandora out and Zeus after reset, no immortal we know is likely to remember.

So, unless we get yet another immortal who will start to be friendly with our cast (Hanma? Might be too young either.) we need good reason for someone to tell them.

There might be something I overlook but I don't think so.

33 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

My point was that villagers wouldn't be happy if they called monster hunter and monster hunter complained that it's not the kind of monsters he's hunting.

If they could handle Immortals -- big if, mind you -- lesser monsters might be seen by them as a welcome relief and light exercise. Frankly, I don't see them as being quite that nitpicky but I do take your point.

... wasn't my point that they can't afford being nitpicky?

Generally, every kind of monster requires specific tactic. But yes, even with that I would expect other monsters would end up as light exercise. At least other monsters we know of.

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1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

... wasn't my point that they can't afford being nitpicky?

Err, I must have misunderstood you then. Sorry.

2 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Generally, every kind of monster requires specific tactic. But yes, even with that I would expect other monsters would end up as light exercise. At least other monsters we know of.

With the possible exception of things like Not-Tengu, yes. They might not be quite Immortal level but they would still stand out from the crowd, possibly to an unpleasant degree.

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7 hours ago, mlooney said:

I don't think that Volt face want extortion, he wants flat out worship, if not a master/slave relationship with humans. I could be wrong, but he strikes me as too evil to have any thing less.

He might not necessarily want them to submit to him without resistance--he strikes me as the sort who would have fun crushing impotent rebellions and "heroes" who stand no chance against him. He definitely seemed like he was gaining entertainment from manipulating Tara and anticipating Elliot's destruction. In short, he wants to toy with mortals, not simply to have them bow at his feet.

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