2010-04-14: Deaf Ears

[Nell]

I think ChunLing was perhaps harkening back to the (discredited, I thought) idea that the fancy-font speech bubbles were Anilis speaking through Ian's mouth, rather than a juiced-up Ian speaking in crazy modulated god-voice.

Yeah, actually getting some clarification on whether that's him or Anilis would be nice.

I don't think his thinking is even that clear. Meji is calling him out and pointing out a more stable and doable solution, but since doing so robs Ian of his little power trip, he's throwing a hissyfit.

I really hope that jackass gets slapped down soon.

Eh, it is a stable solution, but it seems naive, especially the second part. Ian won't live forever, and I doubt bringing the elves out into the open would amount to anything. At best it would make the elves the laughing stock of the world (They are mostly secluded so this won't affect them). Worst case scenario would be: the world learns why they're doing it and they get out of the way so they can finish. I don't see any nations doing anything beyond using the info for politics/aesthetics.

[Viking-Sensei]

I still think the elves are facing the possibility of an unpleasant end game here.

Just like the dwarves before them, if they can't reproduce, their time on this planet is limited... and unlike the dwarves, who either had already vanished by the time all this mess started or were smart enough to stay out of it, the elves have made a habit of making some powerful enemies through their arrogance and better-than-thou-y-ness.

The humans and trolls both can continue to crank out new generations - granted, the races are both young and inexperienced (infants by elf standards), unless the elves make a single strike and wipe out all of the non-elves in one shot, they'll always grow back - and probably stronger than before.

Eventually, the non-elves could overwhelm the elves. It might be by suffocating them within a mountain of dead non-elf bodies, but they (unlike the elves) can always make more. Meat will prevail.

[Dallen Andair]

^
Humankind needn't even rely on simple numbers. We have a very nasty knack for stealing an enemies secrets and turning them to our use. The elves might get in a few hard-hitting strikes early on, but not much longer into a conflict, that'd be it. The ability to replace losses is a war-winner for humanity in general terms (I'm guessing that not even the Trolls would last long) but it's absurdly raid adaptation that makes humans dangerous. It wouldn't be long at all before the Elves run out of options, while their human enemies are still getting started.

Taken in perspective, the Elves accelerated their downfall (and signed their own death warrant) when they started teaching humans magic.

The Creator(s) made a horrendous mistake in creating humanity if they wanted balance and peace in a world. Such things never last long when a crafty, intelligent, adaptive, territorial, fast-breeding and highly aggressive omnivorous predator is introduced to the environment.

If war breaks out between humanity and elvenkind, the elves are doomed. It's only a matter of how, and how many elves are smart enough to realize it early enough to run and hide.

[Pallas]

I'm new here, and not too into forums, but I felt like at least posting this much. I'm an aspiring artist, so first I'll comment on the blood not showing up well.

I think the source of the problem is that the blood is too dark and uniform in shade to tell it apart from the outlines. I don't know what shading method Poe uses (I follow the story and not a whole lot else admittedly) but if he's using the computer at all, taking the blood up a few notches (not a lot) on the brightness/lightness scale would make it look less like blobby ink skin features, and more like... blood. However, that would probably also require some additional detail to really bring it across clearly (and I'm aware in terms of brightness/contrast, blood is about as dark as dark bits of hair, so I'll point out that Ian has pretty dark hair and yet still has degrees of shading innit, and that normally liquids are reflective, so they should have degrees of shading too).

If for some reason Poe's not using the computer (I dunno what I'd do without it myself), maybe he needs a brighter, near-black pen to make blood obvious. But I'm bad with that sort of media so I don't know for sure.

On that note, since blood (unless it's everywhere all over everything) is comparatively tiny in reference to other stuff in the scene, that means it needs bright speculars more than it needs more shades of gray. Easy enough with a light source, so maybe this method will prove effective in making it more obvious that there is blood in the scene. My last piece of advice, if that doesn't work, is to try gradient shading on the blood. Not really suited to Poe's style, but that's the last resort I'd use myself.

I'm not perfect by any means when it comes to art, certainly shouldn't be considered a guru, but I hope this proves helpful. Okay, enough art commentary out of me! On to story commentary!

I have this to say: totally expecting Meji's resident deity to start acting up now. Awesome!

[runic]

i'm not sure I wish ill on Ian. do I think there's a better way? hell yes.

But it's really hard to criticize someone's willingness to use violence when others are altogether to use violence against him and his people. remember, every elf he's met has fit the stereotype that he had for them, which reinforced the idea for him.

oh, and I think the ensigerum themselves are an indication that while the elves might steam role the less able nations that the humans have a few cards of their own to play. thus, I really wouldn't use the meat grinder analogy that absolutely.

[Lurker 314]

So this is how you apologize for abandoning your girlfriend to your genocidal foes. I got to take notes so I know what to say the next time I do that.

[mindstalk]

^
Humankind needn't even rely on simple numbers. We have a very nasty knack for stealing an enemies secrets and turning them to our use. The elves might get in a few hard-hitting strikes early on, but not much longer into a conflict, that'd be it. The ability to replace losses is a war-winner for humanity in general terms (I'm guessing that not even the Trolls would last long) but it's absurdly raid adaptation that makes humans dangerous. It wouldn't be long at all before the Elves run out of options, while their human enemies are still getting started.

This seems like unsupported human-wankery. Most humans can't even use magic. The one society that can in a large way is probably descended from elves. There's nothing in the comic that supports "we have a very nasty knack" relative to any other intelligent species in the comic. In reality, all we have to steal from is other humans, and we're often rather erratic about that.

The Creator(s) made a horrendous mistake in creating humanity if they wanted balance and peace in a world. Such things never last long when a crafty, intelligent, adaptive, territorial, fast-breeding and highly aggressive omnivorous predator is introduced to the environment.

There's no evidence that the local gods created humanity and strong evidence against it. Also no evidence that humans are any more crafty, intelligent, adaptive (individually) or territorial than anyone else. Elves are clearly highly aggressive and omnivorous predators. The only advantage humans have is being fast-breeding.

In other words, we're vermin. And sometimes vermin win. Especially intelligent vermin -- real-world vermin don't so much win as live in the cracks we can't be bothered to exterminate. Much like humans after the Errant War.

If war breaks out between humanity and elvenkind, the elves are doomed. It's only a matter of how, and how many elves are smart enough to realize it early enough to run and hide.

A few elves with mind-control magic could kill arbitrarily large numbers of Veracians and Farrellians and Confederates. Tsuiraku as-is could be destroyed with one large anti-magic device. Victory: elves, no losses.

[mindstalk]

But it's really hard to criticize someone's willingness to use violence when others are altogether to use violence against him and his people. remember, every elf he's met has fit the stereotype that he had for them, which reinforced the idea for him.

Except for that one elf he saw briefly with Meji that she told him wasn't so bad.

[Kincaide]

Victory: elves, no losses.

Not quite, there is no reason any of those advantages could not be turned around to bite the elves in the ass. Genealogies aside, if the Tsuirakans are half the magical badasses they've set themselves up to be then their combat mages could at least remove the magical advantage and level the playing field . Tsuiraku was also designed with several redundant systems to prevent it from going the way of Midgard.

As Jon has demonstrated, the invention of firearms seems to have raised human soldiers to the level of most combat mages and made them easily replicable. It takes a much shorter time to train a grunt to shoot straight than to train someone to have enough mental discipline not to have their fireballs explode in their own faces.

The main advantage of humanity is their diversity. Where the elves have stuck to one society, the humans are divided up into Farrel, the Northern Confederacy, Tsuiraku, and Veracia. Pretty much all of whom the elves have pissed off in one form or another. Farrel has its varied, skilled and shadowy merc guilds, Tsuiraku has its mastery of the magical arts and an airship navy that would make most steampunk aficionados jealous and Veracia has plenty of righteous if under trained soldiers and the terrifying time ninjas. The Northern Confederacy is still a mystery but who knows what horrendous engines of destruction they've pulled out of the dwarven ruins or built themselves.

While the elves are accomplished with magical and martial prowess they simply do not have the allies or resources for the drawn out war which this will inevitably turn into. Some plot device involving Exitialis might be employed but there is already one demi-god on the loose that would be more than happy to go to war with another of its kind and if push come to shove and Meji unlocks her powers then it'll be a two on one fight. Even if the elves did survive the conflict I doubt they would have a stable enough gene pool to really support a viable breeding population even without their current problems with reproduction.

My money is on the humans, whether it is in the short or the long run.

[TheGhostling]

Yes, someone new is making a comment but I'm not new to watching the forums.

I've seen some taking Ian's side and I've seen someone mention the downside to what Meji suggested but honestly, Meji's idea would protect the half-elves more than Ian's. What Ian plans on doing seems more like an Errant and when, or if, everyone else discovers it happened afterward then history would portray the Half-Elves as bad guys. Or at least no better than the Elves. Whereas exposing the elves could reveal the existence of Errants but in doing so Ian would also prove not all Half-Elves are insane Errants that go off on genecidal rampages.

In that case it'd be the Elves cast as the bad guys and Ian could take action against them without it reflecting poorly upon the entirety of Half-Elves. At least that's how I see it. Though I might be forgetting something that would say otherwise from earlier chapters.