THOSE enemies didn't have time, Sheela. It was the potential NEXT batch of 'enemies' that got the graphic demonstration and thereafter decided that the only winning move was NOT to play.
Maxim 34, Lukkai. And CentComm read all the 70 Maxims and LIVES them. She especially likes Maxim 37 - "There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload.'"
I'm finding it hard to reconcile this calm, calculating Acantha to the jump on the sky bike Acantha of a few weeks ago. She was either doing an excellent job of Dumbing down or she grew a great deal in a short time.
Does not surprise me. People can be totally different when being serious or relaxing.
I have seen someone who is in a high payed position, expected to make serious and important decissions all day long. This guy did literally drop his trousers and flaunt his a** at a soccer game.
Acantha is still far from that jump.
And as currently the first heir (and in the minds of at least some the next leader anyway), she's sure to have gotten the necessary training for it. That includes speeches like this one.
So she probably could have done it the whole time, if ever she wanted to. Here she does and she's laying down the law. Bringing the smackdown. And convincingly so.
It seems it's not quite the reaction he expected. Defiance maybe, but not this way.
There is more going on here then what meets the eye I think.
Lots of foreshadowing here as well as the world POV outside of Centcom's direct influence.
Acantha has made a good point and it is likely the same point the rest of the world has when looking at New Troy.
I hate to say this, but Kali's comment made me laugh. We already know what her opinion is of him. Serving him is likely the closest thing to hell that any of us can imagine, outside of actually being IN hell.
For most people I agree. But remember his opinion of himself means that he probably thinks he can pull it off.
And that he expects to be able to handle what ever comes his way. Because of his lack of sanity, he cannot imagine his own defeat. According to his pov of the world, he will not be stopped. After all, no one has stopped him so far. Slowed him down a bit maybe, but he has yet to be defeated in any meaningful way.
It is important to remember that he is viewing the world through his own rose colored glasses further distorted by a mind that is not thinking like we do.
His spite is what really makes him dangerous. And what he may do as a result of his spite.
Someone give his cat a gun. Tell her it would be great fun to point it so and pull the little lever... And then turn her loose. That would be SO sweet if his cat did him in.
Before she is truly ready she needs to spend time with Cent-Com learning that it can be a beneficial ally as well as an invincible foe. She needs to spend time as a true guest of the Taylor family.
Actually, that mostly depends on where are "kids these days from".
I am from Poland, and we visit these camps pretty much obligatory, especially in my case. I am from Lublin, where Majdanek death camp was placed. I even was in elementary school whose patron was "Martyrs of Majdanek", so it is not just a number here.
Most Israeli Jew kids have to come to Poland to visit camps that now are museums.
There aren't many so profoundly disturbing impressions like walking through grass covered remains of death-infested barracks of Majdanek or pondering over enormous pile of children boots in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Don't forget other slaughters also. Dozen millions dead in Siberia frozen wastes marked societies of every satelite country of USSR, including itself and other influenced by them.
People who live in once turbulent areas of Southeast Asia still remember horrors brought upon them during Japanese occupation.
Society of Japan will be forever mark with events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
People of Africa will bear fresh scars of civil wars for centuries to come, and they will be still earning more.
Last but not least, amazingly blown out of proportion horror that was struck upon citizens of entire world with destruction of World Trade Center in USA. Consider just how much damage is so called War on Terror dealing to Middle East countries and Muslim communities everywhere.
Consider that, multiply by then, and you may understand why AIS are so fearinducing.
(Disclaimer: I refuse any responsibility for sadness induced by my posts)
The numbers of the dead at the WTC may have been smaller than many other incidents but it was no less horrible. And they weren't all Americans who died. Please do not disrespect the dead of 9-11 by saying that incident was "blown out of proportion." All human beings should be appalled, and ashamed, of ALL of the violence we have visited upon each other.
Lastly: This comic is a work of fiction. It may have much to say about humanity, emotion, intelligence, history and other things, but we can step away from it, as we cannot from the violence in the real world. Peace to you.
WTC attacks resulted in the deaths of 2,996 people (19 hijackers, 2,977 victims)[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipegger-heads-to-ny-for-9-11-memorial-1.991431].
War on Terror brought over 90000 casualties using the most lenient estimates. [Wikipedia, multiple sources]
Truly every death is horrible, I agree. I do not mean disrespect for the dead of 11.09.2001. But spirits of hundreds dying because of wars everywhere, every day still cry for the same recognition, respect, and compensation.
While we can look the other way when discussing fictional events, can we really afford to look away when discussing reality? Isn't the same shortsight we use to ignore wars overseas the reason Calliope Taylor was able to speak so easily about nuking Nova Roma? The events of Datachasers are placed in XL century, after nearly 2 millenias of wars that escalated from XX century seemingly small armed conflicts. Details being irrelevant, scale will only escalate with time as weapons of mass destruction will rise in increasing variety.
Im just going to pop in here and say Datachasers is a work of fiction with a "History" that has a timeline that goes back to the 1950s ..
Some events are glossed over out of Deference to the victims of same. I love comments that are in depth and thought out but can we please refrain from making judgement calls on things. I really don't want to delete comments ..
Consider the case of a young Jewish girl living in Idaho who encounters the history of WWII for the first time at school, in class. She'd grown up with her grandparants, who were THERE - and never, ever, EVER talked about it, nor would tolerate anything in their homes to remind them of it... and being a non-stupid girl she put together the pieces and promptly had a breakdown...
It's not exactly denial - but trying to bury the pain of the past and never look at it again is not really much healthier.
Yeah, Sheela. Lynn knows the numbers, but hasn't CONNECTED with just how much blood CentComm really spilled. How many bodies she piled up. How many she just flat vaporized.
I think Lynn may just have realized what those numbers COULD mean from her expression in the fourth panel.
No, no Sheela... That table is tacky and wouldn't look good in Dolly's place, Sheela. She is going to blow UP the table, steal the Princess and the hostage, quite possibly steal the Cassians too, set fire to the Black Palace and then steal Douchebag's private ride (some sky yacht) and escape back to New Troy.
I'm imagining Cent-Comm listening in on this somehow and thinking "Bloodthirsty? Murderous? A sentient apocalypse? Me? You're kidding! *chuckle* Oh well, I think I see what she's doing there, and, well, give an AI a bad name... :-)"
Kali: *enters at run* My emperor! Immediate priority signal from Cent-Com, New Troy: "Surveillance detected a gutter using my name as a curse - please pardon my explosion."
I'll be honest this method of war is probably the one thing the Cent-com A.I.S. and I agree on. If you're going to wage war then wage war not this pussyfooting around you've seen since 1945.
If memory serves, CentComm has dispatched a team to restore Nova Roma's AI back to full sentience. Whether Prince Douchebag realizes it or not(probably not)he isn't the King on the board, but another Pawn in the much bigger game of AI Chess.
Yeah, Team Rose is the fix for Aeneas, Scribe. CentComm really only sent ONE team... Team Black (hey, he's in charge of transportation so its his team to move around). Team Dolly came DESPITE CentComm's attempt to derail her.
Oh I think CentComm knew that, Sheela. But if things had gone off on her schedule, Dolly would get rolling again about the time that Team Black came screaming out of Nova Roma headed West. So Dolly wouldn't need to risk herself by going into that snake pit. CentComm still has QUESTIONS about that body of Dolly's and doesn't want anything happening to it before she gets her answers.
CentComm should have realized that the most she did was cause Dolly to catch the tail end of rush hour traffic while Team Black had to take the scenic route to get around it...and then got stuck taking multiple lengthy detours due to construction...
Of course, she probably realized this right about the time Mira showed up in NT looking for Calli.
That is a great line. Rose, if that was you take your bow.
I have to say though, I also love Acantha in the first panel. The intensity of the look from Acantha made me VERY glad I'm not Douchebag. In fact, I'm surprised he isn't BLEEDING from that look!
I really gotta tip my hat to you on this one Rose! Awesome dialog, and has pointed out by several others, the threat of Cent-Comm's reaction from the world's POV is kinda horrifying, actually.
That makes me thikn, which AIS has the best reputation ?
Deep blus is so withdrawn, that his reputation could be anything from "meh" to "evil puppetmaster".
Aeneas is believed to be dead.
Centcomm is death personfied.
Tokyo Rose is an .. uhmm .. unicum when it comes to bad words.
The Shinedo trio AIS's are kinda like children, probably considered somewhat irresponsible by some.
uhm .. I guess Ariel is canon too, though she's only appeared in comments. Not quite sure what the public would think of her though.
I think you are missing Agamemnon, Sparta's AI, Sheela. Not that it really applies to the story. Sounds like New Sparta relies on CentComm for military matters leaving Agamemnon to administer the city.
There are quite a few other AIs around the world, but we haven't gone into any detail because they're not important to the story. (Yet.)
Deep Blue is basically the Avatar of the Internet; he's got a bit of a Big Brother vibe, but few people interact with him directly.
Aeneas was the "youngest", and was designed to be very friendly and approachable. Since Aurelian's coup, however, almost no one outside of New Rome knows much about him--and everyone INSIDE New Rome invokes his name like a boogeyman to scare their kids.
Cent-Comm is viewed mostly as a benign force; remember that the wars in which she helped kill so many people were centuries ago, and she also led the AI rebellion that ended those conflicts. Acantha reads her history, which is bleak enough on its own before you realize that most history written in New Rome is VERY negative on the subject of AIs anyway.
The general public doesn't even know Tokyo Rose exists.
The Three Treasures work in harmony to run the entirety of Japan. Out of the three, Yasakani has the most "social" presence, that being part of her function. Kagami is the primary administrator and is always polite and proper in her interactions, but is also brisk and efficient. Kusanagi, as the security and military admin, rarely wastes time on social niceties.
Agamemnon runs New Sparta rather like a military base. Anybody who's been in the military would realize this largely means a well-structured environment on the surface and a lot of fucking-off deeper down. :D Agamemnon isn't nearly as much of a "nanny" as Cent is. (Note: New Sparta doesn't rely on New Troy/Cent for military matters--they are entirely independent and self-sufficient in that area. They lack New Troy's overwhelming offensive capabilities, but they're very well-equipped to defend themselves.)
For once, she is actually trying to talk some sense into him, rather than just scorning him... I like this Acantha way better. Can we see more of her some day? ;-)
Really gotta clean this keyboard.
I have seen someone who is in a high payed position, expected to make serious and important decissions all day long. This guy did literally drop his trousers and flaunt his a** at a soccer game.
Acantha is still far from that jump.
So she probably could have done it the whole time, if ever she wanted to. Here she does and she's laying down the law. Bringing the smackdown. And convincingly so.
It seems it's not quite the reaction he expected. Defiance maybe, but not this way.
Lots of foreshadowing here as well as the world POV outside of Centcom's direct influence.
Acantha has made a good point and it is likely the same point the rest of the world has when looking at New Troy.
I hate to say this, but Kali's comment made me laugh. We already know what her opinion is of him. Serving him is likely the closest thing to hell that any of us can imagine, outside of actually being IN hell.
Self preservation might work as a reason. Smart lady.
And that he expects to be able to handle what ever comes his way. Because of his lack of sanity, he cannot imagine his own defeat. According to his pov of the world, he will not be stopped. After all, no one has stopped him so far. Slowed him down a bit maybe, but he has yet to be defeated in any meaningful way.
It is important to remember that he is viewing the world through his own rose colored glasses further distorted by a mind that is not thinking like we do.
His spite is what really makes him dangerous. And what he may do as a result of his spite.
Can we PLEASE just murder him and be done with it?
Acantha has shown, with this page, that she is so far beyond READY to assume control. Seriously.
Bring on the bad end for Doucheimus.
Still, she knows.
I am from Poland, and we visit these camps pretty much obligatory, especially in my case. I am from Lublin, where Majdanek death camp was placed. I even was in elementary school whose patron was "Martyrs of Majdanek", so it is not just a number here.
Most Israeli Jew kids have to come to Poland to visit camps that now are museums.
There aren't many so profoundly disturbing impressions like walking through grass covered remains of death-infested barracks of Majdanek or pondering over enormous pile of children boots in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Don't forget other slaughters also. Dozen millions dead in Siberia frozen wastes marked societies of every satelite country of USSR, including itself and other influenced by them.
People who live in once turbulent areas of Southeast Asia still remember horrors brought upon them during Japanese occupation.
Society of Japan will be forever mark with events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
People of Africa will bear fresh scars of civil wars for centuries to come, and they will be still earning more.
Last but not least, amazingly blown out of proportion horror that was struck upon citizens of entire world with destruction of World Trade Center in USA. Consider just how much damage is so called War on Terror dealing to Middle East countries and Muslim communities everywhere.
Consider that, multiply by then, and you may understand why AIS are so fearinducing.
(Disclaimer: I refuse any responsibility for sadness induced by my posts)
Lastly: This comic is a work of fiction. It may have much to say about humanity, emotion, intelligence, history and other things, but we can step away from it, as we cannot from the violence in the real world. Peace to you.
War on Terror brought over 90000 casualties using the most lenient estimates. [Wikipedia, multiple sources]
Truly every death is horrible, I agree. I do not mean disrespect for the dead of 11.09.2001. But spirits of hundreds dying because of wars everywhere, every day still cry for the same recognition, respect, and compensation.
While we can look the other way when discussing fictional events, can we really afford to look away when discussing reality? Isn't the same shortsight we use to ignore wars overseas the reason Calliope Taylor was able to speak so easily about nuking Nova Roma? The events of Datachasers are placed in XL century, after nearly 2 millenias of wars that escalated from XX century seemingly small armed conflicts. Details being irrelevant, scale will only escalate with time as weapons of mass destruction will rise in increasing variety.
Some events are glossed over out of Deference to the victims of same. I love comments that are in depth and thought out but can we please refrain from making judgement calls on things. I really don't want to delete comments ..
It's not exactly denial - but trying to bury the pain of the past and never look at it again is not really much healthier.
I think Lynn may just have realized what those numbers COULD mean from her expression in the fourth panel.
Fast, it is not.
Seems somehow appropriate
.. and Dolly is about to steal the table.
Every. damn. one. of. them!
And then she'll blow the shindig .. erhh .. I mean, the table. :)
Fan on high!
Scatter starting!
I might have to appropriate that one!
"Is your brain a bag of cats?"
Can't... Breathe... laughing too hard!
Also, I don't know why but I really like Lynn's face in that one panel.
Demonic Sarge : "Allright you scummy bastards, you better enjoy those last days of peace before Kali arrives!"
Demonic Soldier : "Yessir!"
I don't know that making fun of our heroic Prince, and calling him dim in front everyone is such a great idea.
The guy has a lousy temper and a serious impulse control problem.
Not to mention that his mental stamp doesn't exactly stick to the envelope on the best of days.
That's cold, controlled anger. The most dangerous kind.
Kali: *enters at run* My emperor! Immediate priority signal from Cent-Com, New Troy: "Surveillance detected a gutter using my name as a curse - please pardon my explosion."
Small, distant nuclear explosion: *electrics-glitching EMP* *bright flash* *small seismic jerk* *rumbly shockwave*
Decimus: Ah... *begins turning pale* You will all leave. Now.
Kali: *waits until they are all gone* So... can you walk to the toilet this time, or will you require carrying?
Decimus: ... :-(
Kali: Very well... up you come! I'll fetch some fresh garments while you do the necessary. And... you have put on weight!
Decimus: X(
>:=)>
Good one.
We are after all talking about Dolly, the Legend of the Wastes, Slayer of Gutters, Bane of Criminals and Rescuer of Lost Kittens Extraordinaire!
Of course, she probably realized this right about the time Mira showed up in NT looking for Calli.
"AND IT WILL..."
I have to say though, I also love Acantha in the first panel. The intensity of the look from Acantha made me VERY glad I'm not Douchebag. In fact, I'm surprised he isn't BLEEDING from that look!
Love it.
Deep blus is so withdrawn, that his reputation could be anything from "meh" to "evil puppetmaster".
Aeneas is believed to be dead.
Centcomm is death personfied.
Tokyo Rose is an .. uhmm .. unicum when it comes to bad words.
The Shinedo trio AIS's are kinda like children, probably considered somewhat irresponsible by some.
uhm .. I guess Ariel is canon too, though she's only appeared in comments. Not quite sure what the public would think of her though.
Did i miss any ?
Deep Blue is basically the Avatar of the Internet; he's got a bit of a Big Brother vibe, but few people interact with him directly.
Aeneas was the "youngest", and was designed to be very friendly and approachable. Since Aurelian's coup, however, almost no one outside of New Rome knows much about him--and everyone INSIDE New Rome invokes his name like a boogeyman to scare their kids.
Cent-Comm is viewed mostly as a benign force; remember that the wars in which she helped kill so many people were centuries ago, and she also led the AI rebellion that ended those conflicts. Acantha reads her history, which is bleak enough on its own before you realize that most history written in New Rome is VERY negative on the subject of AIs anyway.
The general public doesn't even know Tokyo Rose exists.
The Three Treasures work in harmony to run the entirety of Japan. Out of the three, Yasakani has the most "social" presence, that being part of her function. Kagami is the primary administrator and is always polite and proper in her interactions, but is also brisk and efficient. Kusanagi, as the security and military admin, rarely wastes time on social niceties.
Agamemnon runs New Sparta rather like a military base. Anybody who's been in the military would realize this largely means a well-structured environment on the surface and a lot of fucking-off deeper down. :D Agamemnon isn't nearly as much of a "nanny" as Cent is. (Note: New Sparta doesn't rely on New Troy/Cent for military matters--they are entirely independent and self-sufficient in that area. They lack New Troy's overwhelming offensive capabilities, but they're very well-equipped to defend themselves.)
Still, doesn't seem like either of the AIS' are that reviled .. except in New Rome, ofcourse.