Book 2 – Text Updates 044

[Cadrys]

Stand back people, Stanley is about to try Science.

...and, I fear, very much in the "Hold my beer, hey y'all, watch this!" kind of way. Stand WAY back.

[John Campbell]

Holy boop! No, it won't work that way at all.

Spoiler: show

Maggie sets her suggestions so that the rebound of a breaking spell hits the spell's recipient, not herself. What if her spell rebounds and croaks Stanley? Okay, I know this is pretty wild speculation, but if that happens--all the units in the field become barbarians. Wanda becomes her own side, which may or may not include Parson. Ouch!

No. Stanley has no heir. If he croaks, Gobwin Knob ends. All the units in the field disband, and units in cities go neutral and freeze in time.

Jillian went barbarian because Faq did have an heir - her - but all of her cities fell, leaving her as a ruler without a side. If Stanley gets croaks, GK is a side without a ruler - an entirely different situation. Unaroyal is the example you should be looking at here.

[Beeskee]

If you think about it, Stanley seems to know more about his hammer than Wanda seems to know about her pliers. Have we seen Wanda do anything besides decrypt units with them?


I had a feeling Stanley was more awesome than he was letting on.



Typo in the text update: "He had an feel..."

[MonteCristo]

Did he ever offer any advice to Parson on camera? It seems Stanley had more faith in Parson than we thought...

Yes i recall during the summer updates when he chose to make Ansom the new chief warlord, he mentioned that he wanted to mentor Parson

[HandofShadows]

Stanley has hidden depths and a few more IQ points then most gave him credit for. But many characters in Erfworld have hidden depths and that is why we like it. Stanley getting to learn more about his hammer will be interesting. And I think dangerous. Not only to Stanley to anyone that makes him mad afterword. I suspect all the Arkentools are actually more powerfull than people know. I don't think that even Wanda is using half of the Pliers powers. Of course Charlie might be making near full use of the Dish.

[DevilDan]

Did he ever offer any advice to Parson on camera? It seems Stanley had more faith in Parson than we thought...

Obviously he's under a suggestion, but I still love, love, love this peek into Stanley's mind at this point. He does learn...

[technojunkie]

Did he ever offer any advice to Parson on camera? It seems Stanley had more faith in Parson than we thought...

One could make the argument that Stanley believed he was mentoring parson when reading him the riot act for not visiting the various areas of the city to ensure maximum production. that's about the closest stretch I can see.

[Beeskee]

Did he ever offer any advice to Parson on camera? It seems Stanley had more faith in Parson than we thought...

Yes i recall during the summer updates when he chose to make Ansom the new chief warlord, he mentioned that he wanted to mentor Parson

I remember that, they both annoyed each other too much and so didn't make much progress.


For Stanley's part, I imagine he's offering advice that Parson already knows.* All the advice that Stanley knows which would actually be useful to Parson is stuff that Stanley thinks "everyone knows", or doesn't think would be useful to Parson, so he doesn't cover it.

For Parson's part, I imagine he's constantly biting his tongue to avoid pissing off someone who can probably kill him by thinking hard about it. If he actually spoke up and told the Tool what he'd like to learn more about, he might learn something useful.


*Something similar going on like this for me RL. I'm trying to get RDP working, my boss has helpfully said 4-5 times to make sure the ports are forwarded. Um, yes, they are, thank you.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Did he ever offer any advice to Parson on camera? It seems Stanley had more faith in Parson than we thought...

One could make the argument that Stanley believed he was mentoring parson when reading him the riot act for not visiting the various areas of the city to ensure maximum production. that's about the closest stretch I can see.

My theory on Stanley is that he's somewhat aware of his limitations, knowledge made more painful by being cast aside by events for sometime now. He wants to prove, most of all to himself, that he's competent, resourceful, useful ... there's some envy of those more gifted in there, and a desire to resolve that by somehow being able to claim "I taught 'em all they know", and thus vicariously take some of the credit for triumph.

It matters less whether he actually mentored Parson on anything, he wants this to have been the case though, badly.

[drachefly]

At least he admits that Parson didn't get mentored, in this update.

By the way, this update, being a scheduled text update, would have been a really terrible time to enter the MK.

But if we don't see the MK next page, I'm going to scream. Doesn't even need to be Parson in the MK. Just show what's going on in portal park.

[konmanrocks]

and THAT is a sandwich meant for a ruler. its nice to see stanley using that grey matter between the ears.

[JohnATallon]

I always wondered why Parson didn't involve the Tool in some of his practice sessions with Jack. Planning pretend wars seems right up the Tool's alley.

[Swodaems]

One thing we learned this update, Stanley doesn't think long term. Not if he thinks an upkeep increase of 140 a turn in a game that has already lasted 1000s of turns is more desirable than spending 18 grand.
Of course, this might be getting the city on the cheap. An estimate of what it would cost TV to take the capital city of Carpool ran 250k.

[Lamech]

TINFOIL HAT POWERS GO!
So Ossomer was apperently popped a hier unit. Now he has been decrypted, or "repopped". Now there has been some speculation, in-comic and out, that he is still a heir of Jetstone. But what if when he got repopped, he in addition to a new life and side got his hier status back, not for Jetstone but his new side? (This was inspired by the person worried about backlash killing Stanley.)

And Stanley has gotten a bunch more sympathetic. I really liked this text update. Stanley keeps getting more depth.

[WaterMonkey314]

TINFOIL HAT POWERS GO!
So Ossomer was apperently popped a hier unit. Now he has been decrypted, or "repopped". Now there has been some speculation, in-comic and out, that he is still a heir of Jetstone. But what if when he got repopped, he in addition to a new life and side got his hier status back, not for Jetstone but his new side? (This was inspired by the person worried about backlash killing Stanley.)

Even better, combine them - Stanley breaks suggestion spell; croaks from backlash; and Ossomer becomes KING OF GOBWIN KNOB - all while he's still sitting on his flying carpet over Spacerock!

I think Ossomer just might dust himself out of utter confusion if that happened.

[(name here)]

I continue to think that the hammer is mostly a battle artifact. It apparently gives massive bonuses to dwagons, permits rocking out, and has serious shockamancy. We've only seen it in action up against the doombat/warlord spam, which is apparently really, really potent.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

Even better, combine them - Stanley breaks suggestion spell; croaks from backlash; and Ossomer becomes KING OF GOBWIN KNOB - all while he's still sitting on his flying carpet over Spacerock!

Maybe Ansom will become King of GK, and the Faq-GK alliance will confuse the heck out of everyone!

But not from the suggestion spell; I'm sure Maggie had to set it up to take all the backlash. I think Parson is going to be unpleasantly surprised when he learns that she's croaked. The revelation about the Ruler's natural thinkamancy may be foreshadowing of what it's going be to like for GK post-Maggie.

Edit to add:
...heywaitaminute, if Heir status might survive decryption, it might also survive Turning. We might see Ansom as King of Faq, Trammenis as King of Jetstone, and Ossomer as King of GK! Meet the Jetstones, indeed!

[Grimnir]

Mmmm, Sandwich. I'm hungry now.

[WaterMonkey314]

Even better, combine them - Stanley breaks suggestion spell; croaks from backlash; and Ossomer becomes KING OF GOBWIN KNOB - all while he's still sitting on his flying carpet over Spacerock!

Maybe Ansom will become King of GK, and the Faq-GK alliance will confuse the heck out of everyone!

But not from the suggestion spell; I'm sure Maggie had to set it up to take all the backlash. I think Parson is going to be unpleasantly surprised when he learns that she's croaked. The revelation about the Ruler's natural thinkamancy may be foreshadowing of what it's going be to like for GK post-Maggie.

Edit to add:
...heywaitaminute, if Heir status might survive decryption, it might also survive Turning. We might see Ansom as King of Faq, Trammenis as King of Jetstone, and Ossomer as King of GK! Meet the Jetstones, indeed!

Slately ought to be proud of founding an Erfian Hapsburg dynasty.

[effataigus]

So... if the pliers extended Wanda's croakamancy (Motion and Matter) to the Life axis...

Then perhaps...

an attuned tool is a tool that allows someone to cast along their magic while utilizing the axes they don't have access to? I.e. the dish extends Charlie's thinkamancy (Life and Motion) to the matter axis, and the hammer is extending Stanely's magic (none to speak of) to all three axes (which fits with carnymancy)?

If the 4 artifacts collectively extend to all three axes equally, then the 4th arkentool should allow the motion axis... meaning spookism (turnamancy, dollamancy, weridomancy)... and it would mean the ideal wielder would be a hippiemancer (florist, signamancer, date-a-mancer).

... hmm, and there has been some speculation that Parson is a signamancer...

Ok, tin foil hats can come off now, but keep them nearby... these forums require them often.