Comic 1217 - Mission Control
Author Notes:
You people are amazing!
Now im sure you are aware that Datachasers and Luna Star are hosted on Comic Fury ( a excellent hosting site btw ) And that DC has been in the Popular now for almost forever it has 290 subscribers! Can we push it to 300! Ill tell you what - Ill talk it over with Rose and see what we can do special for you guys! It may be a extra page or something.. I dunno! So if you are still commenting as a guest take a few seconds and make a account! one thing I will do is make NEW CF subscribers a nifty Avatar for you to use! So hows that! Ill do 10 of them! ( maybe a few extras ) For those of you that Comment all the time Send me a PM and tell me what your favorite Charcter ( Datachsers or Luna Star ) is and Ill make a special Comic fury Gold Star Avatar!
So hows that?
(( PS Check out the forums in CF too. Interact with some cool comic creators and stuff! - you dont need to have a Comic to join! ))
You will notice all the screens are in English .. now technically they should be in "Roma" But rather than inflict my poor Latin skills on you - im presenting them as "Translated" for the readers. Doc silver is using "Standard" and it looks probably as strange as future Latin.
Comments:
oops sorry spoilers :D .. Kali is most assuredly with the Prince right now :D So no fear of her knocking on Silvers door :D
Nor do we have any sign of her having located her anyway, as of yet.
I find it interesting that there appears to be Chinese (or is it Japanese?) characters on Noctis' screen, right above the "Emergency!"
Look, I think there's a few bricks still upright over there! Half a wall, at least... Oh wait, it just fell down... :(
Nova Roma Centurion : *Looks down at armor * Aww hell..
Noctis is also in charge of cybersecurity. its one of her "bucket of dutys"
Only one of them is the Cassians.
Maxus is definitly another one.
And what about the Church of Genetic Purity?
And then there's Dolly, CeCi and .. "Helen's Friend".
And Aeneas.
Dispite all appearances the Church actually does not have that bad a rep .. a lot of people depend on the Churches advances in Bio medical and Gene repair techniques :D
Healers usually are well liked.
But they still meddle in affairs, don't they? :)
Impotent Decimus! Betcha he hates that.
With that said, I feel for her now. Three of her "sisters" offline during a coordinated attack, and she may have just had to listen to a fourth perish. That pause during her roll call after Malati and Hrist, she's probably assuming Maxus took them out.
...Which leads us to the current situation. Thanks to the prince, this MIGHT be a riot with a good coordinator, it MIGHT be a faction in the city on a power play, it MIGHT be a rescue operation from at least two other cities, or with the timing it could be Maxus hitting the panic button after a bungled attempt at his life. With too many possible aggressors to aim a counterpunch at, they're left at just repelling the attack if they can. While not knowing what parts of the palace guard, military, or otherwise are opposing forces.
Noticed that pause from Noctis did you?
I'm thinking the church has a lot of veteran soldiers on their rooster, whom are very happy to the doctors that saved their lives when they were in active duty.
Field Medics make a lot of friends on the battlefields.
Scary, Dangerous friends with big guns.
And the experience on how to use them!
Yeah, Nero was a winner all right.
His mother: He was 22 when he had her killed, not 12. And murder in the higher up families, especially among the ruling Caesarian ones, was actually not very uncommon. It's how his mother installed him as her little puppet ruler, for example. An influence from which he then tried and ultimately succeeded to break free.
Not exactly any kind of innocent, that woman. The murder was most likely simply a power struggle, maybe combined with some revenge. I'm not saying it makes him a nice and good fellow. But it does not make him a monster either. And it needs to be seen in the context of those times.
And now the big bucks: The burning of Rome:
First and most important fact: As far as we know, and backed up by historic evidence: NERO DID NOT BURN DOWN ROME.
Also: He was not in Rome when the fire started. And certainly did not play the lyre or anything to the view.
He was in an outside residence in Antium when news reached him. About 50 kilometres away from Rome. He immediately hurried back to the city.
It should be noted at this point that the fire had started in a place that had been the source of several smaller fires already over the last century. That it was not a part Nero would have wanted for his reconstruction and that one of the things that fire destroyed was his palace located near the source, including his much cherished personal arts collection.
The secondary source was again not a place he'd wanted for reconstruction. And in the better parts of the city as well.
One of the first orders he gave after his return, a rather unusual one for a Roman emperor: He opened up his private gardens and property to the public so that the people would have a place to flee from the fire and find refuge and a roof.
He also brought in additional food and made sure the price for crop was lowered, so that those who suffered from the fire may at least be able to buy food.
Afterwards he headed down into the fray and coordinated and led the fire brigades from the front.
When the fire was finally put out, the main changes during the reconstruction that he ordered were a height limit to buildings, wider streets, mandatory stone construction for parts of any building in Rome and a number of other rules that all boiled down to two purposes: Decreasing the fire potential overall and making sure that if one broke out, it would be quickly under control and have no chances of spreading too far until it was.
It is absolutely true though, that he took a lot of ground now unused for himself and built a new palace on it to replace the lost one.
Also true is that practically immediately rumours came up that Nero was responsible for the fire (for different reasons mentioned). Interestingly enough, those voicing that out loud were from political groups and families that were in heavy opposition to him at that time. Mainly noble families and the Senate (which, by the way, made Nero the champion of the common people and very popular among them until the fire).
Other contemporary historians of that time do not mention the rumours, sometimes not even the fire, or are doubting them. Interestingly enough, Christian ones tend to be among the ones not mentioning them at all. We don't have Christian sources placing the blame on Nero until much later.
At that point however the rumours proved to be a big problem for Nero, since they were successfully starting to turn public opinion on him around. So he needed a scapegoat. The Christians seem to have been quite suitable for that. The fact that some of them actually freely confessed of having at least furthered the fires did not help them as well.
Okay, I'll stop at this point and simply mention that Nero certainly was not the best Roman emperor. But he was also very far from being the worst. And while he squandered money and was very eccentric when it came to the arts, he was mostly in conflict with the noble families. Not with the common people, who actually held him in high regards for most of his reign.
But yeah, the bashing Nero thing has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Hence the wall of text.
More interesting is that almost all of their number seem engaged already in the fighting outside, though that could simply be the roving patrols that they maintain to have a presence in the city.
My suspicion is that Doc Silver is safe from the Cassians as it will be hard for them to get a response unit to her anytime soon. More likely the Army will attempt to take the Center back instead. They simply have more boots on the ground and thus more flexibility to respond.
Remember, the Cassians are really there to protect the Prince so will likely have most of their numbers in or around the palace. Anyone elsewhere is on a deliberate mission or predetermined patrol to wave the flag, so to speak.
Of course, that assumes her drones are not preoccupied at the time with engaging more aircraft threats.
most of her combat drones can.
The Prince has taken them and turned them into a perversion of what they were. they are now seen as monsters and murderers.
Telling Nisha to take cover and sending Krysanthe to re-arm and protect her, in the absence of intel and organization, is the only logical step in Noctis's mind.
So definitely not pretty, no!
Poor lost little kittens, they could use it, I think.
.. why are you looking at me like that Dolly?
No Dolly, NO ... you don't have time for those kittens right now!
surprised by Cassian complexity
or is she sensing
an opportunity?
She loves androids after all. :)
Great one :D
...Awwww, poor Noctis has desk duty... :(
...missing all the first hand excitement...
I doubt we will ever get to the point that sneakernet isn't an option.
Who even uses those anymore?
I heard SAC-NORAD was still using 'Winchester platters' right up through the turn of the century....
and all it takes is one Cassian going down to prove they can be beaten.
=> only one still engaged in battle at the moment
...plus two more in the palace (Noctis and Kali)
=> that makes one out of ten still engaged - that is only 10 % ...
I guess we can presume that those are the ones currently available (or not anymore in the case of some) on scene. That about right?
(Name the source!)
Along lines of,
"I dont see an authorization entry for the Cassians.. why not??/ ... . . Because they're .. HARD-CODED IN?? OH #$@!"
At Just_IDD
Nither me or Rose are coders and programmers .. any "mistakes" are just things we dont know. Doctor Silver DOES know what shes doing and would not make simple errors like that.
Dammit Jim - We are story-tellers not computer programmers !! ^_^
Alternity rounds, me as the combat spec (again). Our hacker starts yelling over his mic "I can't get him out! He's turning on the automated security all over the place and I can't stop him!" and I respond with "I'll get him out. Unjack." and then apply a liberal does of thermite grenade to the server room.
Also, interestingly, Noctis issues directives to the other Cassians?
A Callback to Amy in Luna Star?
and yes Noctis can issue directives to other Cassians per her rank. although there is a diffrence in " Directive: Command " and " this is your directive for this mission "
The first one is listened to by the inhibitor system and MACC's ( if its coded that way )
The second one is just words..
Most New Troy Andriods wouldnt listen to a directive code and they could just laugh it off .. HOwever the "TERM" is still used a lot when Andriods are talking .. it means " this is important LISTEN!"
rather than acting as a override.
guests appear without a pic avatar and when you hover over the name it just as has the link to the comic :D
I don't mind guest commenters - although some of the more negative comments do come in via guest commenting .. some web comics turn off guest commenting Im gonna leave it on for several reasons :D
and in living history no one knows of anyone able to hack A AIS with just human brain power. they are just too alien and too fast.
Before the apocalypse, where would the real life locations of New Rome, New Tory and New Sparta be? Are they in America, or overseas? 'Cause I see that Japanese [Or is that Korean? OR Chinese. I can never tell them apart... .................... THE WORDS, NOT THE PEOPLE!] text there, so it got me thinking.
Also, STOP LEAVING US WONDERING, DAMMIT! IS KALI A DOUBLE AGENT OR NOT?! YOU'RE KILLIN' ME! ;-;
As for Kali .. Maybe? Stay tuned :D
I've never hated a Canadian more than him, then.
Except Stephen Harper.
And New Rome is... I wanna say in the areas of either DC, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or New York.
New Troy, no idea, because I have almost no geographical awareness with regards America, besides the greater west and east coasts.
Nova Roma Is up in Canada on the island of Prince Albert sound.
Now, is the island NOW called Prince Douchimus Island? I could see him renaming it for himself.