2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

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The Comment Golem
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2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

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Discussion thread for [CT] Lead Dead Moron
eee
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Re: 2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

Post by eee »

Actually I can think of a couple of things to talk about.

1) Just how fast is this telepathy business? Because if it's at the speed of speech then Sarine has been standing in the middle of the street staring at what appears to be a guy sitting on a porch for a while now, and somebody might be noticing. When two people do that for a long time it either leads to 'Get a room, you two!" or somebody is about to pull out a weapon and attack...

2) With the news of Toren's death (GOSH, what a heartbreak! Not.) the final score between Jon and Ian on the five members of the Elven strike force is now Jon: 1 wounded, maybe killed, and 1 definite kill; Ian: 2 wounded (the guy Sarine healed, and then the guy Jon finished off), 2 incinerated (including the guy Jon shot, which is why it's hard to tell which one of them killed him), and the leader who he dropped a building on. This has not been one of the shining moments in Elven military history. :shock:
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Re: 2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

Post by BloodHenge »

Still, calling him the "lead moron" is pretty cold. Then again, we're not supposed to like Sarna anyway.
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Re: 2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

Post by Graybeard »

eee wrote:Actually I can think of a couple of things to talk about.

1) Just how fast is this telepathy business? Because if it's at the speed of speech then Sarine has been standing in the middle of the street staring at what appears to be a guy sitting on a porch for a while now, and somebody might be noticing. When two people do that for a long time it either leads to 'Get a room, you two!" or somebody is about to pull out a weapon and attack...
I've always considered, and in Errant Road, we have treated, telepathy to work at the same pace as verbal speech, in which case the concern you raise is to some extent real. However, mind-speech probably wouldn't be inconsistent with almost simultaneous, verbalized natterings that are basically content-free but sound like conversation -- "nice weather we're having" kind of stuff. The elves, particularly the Peregins, should have plenty of practice in conducting that oral "conversation" for concealment. We just don't see/hear it here, which is fine by me.
eee wrote:2) With the news of Toren's death (GOSH, what a heartbreak! Not.) the final score between Jon and Ian on the five members of the Elven strike force is now Jon: 1 wounded, maybe killed, and 1 definite kill; Ian: 2 wounded (the guy Sarine healed, and then the guy Jon finished off), 2 incinerated (including the guy Jon shot, which is why it's hard to tell which one of them killed him), and the leader who he dropped a building on. This has not been one of the shining moments in Elven military history. :shock:
Seems about right on a body count. There appear to have been five to a dozen elves in the original party (the framing shot leaves it somewhat ambiguous how many, if any, are in the second rank, behind Toren and the four out in front), and enough escaped to remove all the bodies but Toren's -- this came up somewhere, I forget where. At the same time, Toren compliments Ian -- "you killed several elves and were still able to engage in a prolonged magical fight with another" -- suggesting the tally may have been somewhat higher. One way or another, definitely a serious charlie-fox.
BloodHenge wrote:Still, calling him the "lead moron" is pretty cold. Then again, we're not supposed to like Sarna anyway.
Oh, I dunno. Ever hear the way Marines in the Real World talk about regular Army?
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Re: 2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

Post by Bytemite »

Not sure they need to maintain eye contact to communicate telepathically, and it seems to me Sarine's been moving her head around. So while it might be odd for a couple seconds for someone in a creepy dark gray cloak and hood to abruptly stop in the middle of a busy road and just stand there idly, it's not THAT odd. After a few seconds people might just assume she's lost or thinking or looking for something. And no one except maybe a kid with latent magic ability would look twice at Sarna.
Last edited by Bytemite on July 30th, 2013, 10:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

Post by Bytemite »

Graybeard wrote:
BloodHenge wrote:Still, calling him the "lead moron" is pretty cold. Then again, we're not supposed to like Sarna anyway.
Oh, I dunno. Ever hear the way Marines in the Real World talk about regular Army?
Or vice versa...

It's not uncommon for various branches of the military to not get along at all because of their different approaches and operating procedures.
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Re: 2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

Post by Anthony »

eee wrote:Actually I can think of a couple of things to talk about.

1) Just how fast is this telepathy business? Because if it's at the speed of speech then Sarine has been standing in the middle of the street staring at what appears to be a guy sitting on a porch for a while now, and somebody might be noticing.
Depends whether standing still staring is required. Sarna isn't staring, which argues that it isn't.
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Re: 2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

Post by Graybeard »

Bytemite wrote:Not sure they need to maintain eye contact to communicate telepathically, and it seems to me Sarine's been moving her head around. So while it might be odd for a couple seconds for someone in a creepy dark gray cloak and hood to abruptly stop in the middle of a busy road and just stand there idly, it's not THAT odd. After a few seconds people might just assume she's lost or thinking or looking for something. And no one except maybe a kid with latent magic ability would look twice at Sarna.
They certainly don't need to maintain eye contact. Sara and Warrel spoke telepathically during their fight with (read: slaughter of) trolls near the Ensigerum village, and they certainly were keeping their eyes on their victims, rather than each other. Yes, this would mitigate the weirdness somewhat, but I would still suspect some banal conversation might have been going on -- this wasn't something that was just happening for "a few seconds," just lip-synch through how long it takes you to speak Sarna's little oration. We just wouldn't need to hear it.

Incidentally, one thing I've been enjoying in the new art is the frequency of Sarna showing her little wink/blink that became an identifying feature when we saw her later. To me the new art doesn't always show the characters' personalities as clearly as the original art; many of the new images have a darker, more sarcastic/cynical look to them for some reason. But since Sarna is practically the embodiment of snark, it works just fine for her, and keeping the little wink is a nice touch.
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Re: 2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

Post by eee »

Am I misreading the sequence of the thought bubbles and who's thinking what? Because if not, the "Sarna" in the upper right one should be 'Sarine". To me it looks like

UL - Sarna muses that Isabel would be a great place to get lost in, in response to Sarine's telepathic lie last page that that's Jon and Meji's destination.

UR - Reading it as is, Sarine is asking Sarna about the other Errant. And yet, if that's correct, then there's a problem because in the next balloon

Middle Left - Someone starts 'talking' about Toren. Going by the UR bubble, it would be Sarna replying to Sarine's question. But the bubble beside and to the right is

Middle Right (upper) - Clearly Sarna talking to Sarine, both because she calls her by name, and also because the snark is all Sarna ('lead dead moron'). Then, in the balloon below it

Middle Right (lower) - It would seem to be Sarine resuming her report of the dead captain and missing Ian.

LL - Sarine tries to mitigate the disaster by suggesting Ian might be dead in the building, and his body just not found yet...

Lower Middle - Sarna questions if it is not more likely he got away, too. Like Meji.

LR - Sarine agrees that is most likely the case.

Of course, I've never been the same since I tried to follow the thought meld in Bester's The Demolished Man, so I'm probably wrong. But no matter how I try to follow the sequence it just doesn't seem to work as is...

What am I doing wrong?
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Re: 2013-07-30: [CT] Lead Dead Moron

Post by Imp-Chan »

There are only two light gray Sarine bubbles on the page. The rest is all Sarna's rambling, and it's broken up because that way it fit on the page. It could definitely be clearer, but I have no idea how it could do that and occupy only the one page.

The first Sarine bubble is the upper right, it addresses Sarna directly. The second is the middle bottom, it confirms Sarna's train of thought.

I will gladly take suggestions on how to make this clearer, because I have put something like ten hours into what you see and it still isn't clear.

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