Book 2 – Text Updates 054

[elecampane]

<...(omitted to be brief)...>
And plausible or not is all we can say. Unless you have access to the rules and can actually calculate the odds and the expected values, there is no way to settle this apart from everyone stating a gut feeling. My gut feeling is that Cubbins' decision is not tactically sound, but that doesn't matter- it's a character based decision.

I am totally agree with you here (including the omitted part), and would like to add, that the choise is not two archers vs caster, and not even two archers vs archer and a caster. There's at least 3 mounted archers on the page 73 last panel, and as far as I remember we don't have exact nuber of unipegtaurs Jetstone has, so perhaps there's more. And the more archers they have, the less valuable each extra archer is.

[teratorn]

I think it will all boil down to know if the tower air thingies will take down archons or not. Now I'm more worried about Trammenis. Slately finally acknowledge that he was the right guy to put in charge of his side.

[Zeku]

I always felt like I missed something here. Every time I heard "Cubbins," I just thought, who? In this update I thought maybe it was a cloth golem. I see now its the guy who looks like a girl. He's in all the pictures, but I never realized he was a named character.

Easy come, easy go I guess.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

Wow, that one really carried some punch. Possibly one of the most moving instances I've encountered in a webcomic. I really, really liked the Cubbins & Ace team, and I'm feeling all sorrowful fro both right now. Sorrow at where it looks like Cubbins is heading, but also respect for him. And we haven't spent as much time with Ace and Cubbins as some characters, so it is a testament to the quality of writing that you feel such strong sense of character and friendship from the two and that the (apparent) sacrifice of one creates such an emotional impact (for me anyway).

*Returns salute*

And the art is great. The focus is great and I always love the background detail that really brings it to life. The little dwagon down below, the two Archers holding one another and looking out as the end approaches, the poor guy on the ground - really great.

And I wish I could see Slately's face, looking upon Oss apparently reborn again... now if this is genuine and not a shenanigan of some sort this could be a real test for Slately. In less then an hour his world has been shaken to its core and he has had to adapt fast. All this because he saw Trem in a new light... but chiseled Ossomer, everything old Jetstone aspired to, suddenly throws off the Toolist witch's shackles and returns to fight alongside his father? Could Slately relapse? Of course if Oss has turned and he survives this I doubt he will be the same.

It was specified that a few arrows were held in reserve. I'd hate to have to hunt it up, though.

You're right. Trem didn't exhaust the air defences (and the archons are so spread out to offer them a bit better protection from what was left). When Ace first told Slately about his version of the plan (Slately escaping by air) it included archers and tower defenses contributing to the process of clearing a way for Slately.

Edit: oh, and GK probably gets a Jestone Prince. Trammenis was still in the tower.

It would be an interesting development if that happened. Parson, Jack and Trem - what a trio of thinkers, who knows where they could take Erfworld. While elsewhere the Jetstone alliance's resistance to a potential Decrypted Dystopian future is revitalized by Oss and Slate's new outlook while supporting of new era of Dollmancer powered warfare (Don King has a Dollmancer as well).

a moment of silence for a noble mancer, who has more testes than the titans.

Hear, hear.

Noble, but dumb . . . a caster is far more valuable than a couple of archers (unless he's completely out of juice). And he's small enough that I would think that he and a smaller archer could have been easily carried by a Uni. Once airborne, who knows, he might have been able to pull something out of his hat.

I don't think there is such a thing as a smaller archer, in terms of Erfworld physics.

However tactically useful a hat magician may have been I don't think tactical advantage was the point. The update starts with "A man can get used to nearly anything unpleasant, eventually." My take is that Cubbins had got used to surviving while other units went out to die, and at this point he was simply incapable of continuing to ignore it any longer. He didn't want to live when it meant someone else had to die in his place. Anyways, that's my take.

I thought something along those lines as well. We know the conflict weighs heavily on Pierce, all the people he couldn't save, we got to just have a look inside Ace's head... I remember Slately sending the communication saying goodbye to Trem, I imagine in recent times he has communicated the deaths of a lot of Jetstone troops to Slately.

Personally I think it could be a whole lot of things. I think he was definitely doing what he thinks is right, both in terms of his own personal concept of it and in terms of duty. He seems like a humble guy, he might have legitimately felt two archers would be better in the coming fight then he would. Since the survivability of Slately and his party seems uncertain, with their main aim being to take out enough Archons to promote Trem, he might well be thinking "chances are good I'm dead either way, so where can I do the most good?" - he saves two archers and perhaps, by staying, he also gets to launch whatever tower defenses are left, helping Slately and co that bit extra.

It might then have been complicated by the enormity of the moment, chaos, Ossomer, the tower going and the prospect of imminent death for a lot of Jetstone troops. It is a lot to take in, though I have a feeling Cubbins never intended to go, that Ace had tuned out that unpleasant reality of the situation so focused was he on his task.

Is Cubbins a traitor? Shouldn't his Duty have compelled him to look out for Jetsone? Isn't he worth more to the future than a lowly archer? Now Jetstone will lose the hat magician that gives them forward intel! Unless this is some sort of contrived Disney death...

What is Duty?

Cubbins is a hat magician and we have no idea of his experience in war, the juice he has remaining or exactly what he is planning. Duty seems to compel a unit to try and do what is best for their side (or compels them not to do something that would be bad for it), but I dare say it is at least somewhat contingent upon that unit's own personality/knowledge/skill etc (just look at Wanda's history in Faq). I don't think it confers some sort of special sense on a unit that lets them know exactly what is the optimal course of action for them to take is. It seems to me a warlord might look at a combat situation like this as an observer and have a different idea about what he would be compelled to do for the good of the side than, say, Sizemore, Jack or Parson. Or Slately or Pierce.

Plus the future is rather precarious right now. Jetstone surviving to have one depends on Slately surviving or an heir being designated before he dies.

Even if Cubbins was able to ignore the King's orders for some reason, why were the Archers able to do so?

I guess Slately never directly ordered Cubbins or Ace to their Uni, and we never heard him order the archers never to move - and we know Casters have more then a little wiggle room when it comes to actual orders if they think it would be better if they did/didn't do something. All Cubbins would need to say was "king wants you on the Uni", the archer wouldn't know difference.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Without Ossomer it would be just fleeing. With Ossomer on their side there is a possibility that sacrificing a caster to fire the air thingies will erase enough of the archons so that Jetstone gets a fighting chance. Ossomer alone might be strong enough to finish the surviving archons.

Cubbins is probably the most expendable caster, and archers are the best option for the mount he leaves behind.

But that raises more questions than it answers w.r.t. Cubbins' decision.

Why shouldn't a Uni-mounted caster be able to use Air Defenses, for one. A perched Uni is in Tower space, along with any rider. The Uni could take off "at the last moment" after the AA defenses were released.

And more to the point, why didn't one of the other two casters unleash the AA defs at some earlier time, for example when the items were presented to Slately?

Yes, we had an update some time ago, in which Ace and Pierce discussed an evacuation plan. Pierce said that the AA defenses would be ineffective against Ossomer+Archons (meaning, they would not be sufficient to clear the airspace), thus ruling out retreat by air ... only, Slately said Boop it, let's attack the air space anyway. In that situation, there is no reason not to fire the AA defenses immediately.

This would have made sense regardless of whether Ossomer turned or not; any damage done by the AA means less damage that needs to be done by the hunting party, and Slately had committed to that strategy.

EDIT:
There are reasonable explanations as to why the AA defenses were not used as soon as Slately stepped up in Mars Attacks garb, of course. Here's a few: they'd be weak and irelevant to the outcome of the battle (and this would hold whether Ossomer turned or not; supposedly, his bonus made the Archons hard to shoot down by AA; conversely, his bonus would make Jetstone troops very efficient in battle against the now bonusless Archons). Or, the crumbling Tower could not be relied upon to produce them.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

I am totally agree with you here (including the omitted part), and would like to add, that the choise is not two archers vs caster, and not even two archers vs archer and a caster. There's at least 3 mounted archers on the page 73 last panel, and as far as I remember we don't have exact nuber of unipegtaurs Jetstone has, so perhaps there's more. And the more archers they have, the less valuable each extra archer is.

I think only two of them are archers (the two Cubbins saved), or that they must be high level archers. Lloyd is doubling the Unis and Slately ordered Pierce to go and get the top units inside, so no ordinary archers were probably lucky enough to get a spot in the party.

And more to the point, why didn't one of the other two casters unleash the AA defs at some earlier time, for example when the items were presented to Slately?

Yes, we had an update some time ago, in which Ace and Pierce discussed an evacuation plan. Pierce said that the AA defenses would be ineffective against Ossomer+Archons (meaning, they would not be sufficient to clear the airspace), thus ruling out retreat by air ... only, Slately said Boop it, let's attack the air space anyway. In that situation, there is no reason not to fire the AA defenses immediately.

This would have made sense regardless of whether Ossomer turned or not; any damage done by the AA means less damage that needs to be done by the hunting party, and Slately had committed to that strategy.

I always chalked that up to Slately not seeing the benefit of it or had forgotten them (which seems fair, as he is only just taking his first steps on the road to being a warrior king and he isn't being advised by warlords) or he wanted to maintain the element of surprise (which also seems fair, as he is only just taking his first steps on the road to being a warrior king and he isn't being advised by warlords). We know the air defenses weren't going to be sufficient to clear the skies, I guess the question is whether there would be value in using them before Slately was prepared to move out (or whether there was no use in using them at all or using them in conjunction with Slately as his flyers would make them more useful).

Start attacking the GK units in the airspace and Oss would probably fall back or instantly stack up with Archons and the Archons would start defending themselves however they could (I think the Archon update said at the time all they could do was spread out and upskirt the guys on the walls unless something more happened), which might give them more time to ready themselves while Slately was kitting up and perhaps confirm Slately was up to something. As long as Oss just sat there there might have been a crazy chance they could rush him and badly injure him before too much help arrived.

Of course Slately wasn't aware Oss' internal tower was crumbling the whole time and was never committed to defending himself when he suspected Slately was preparing to attack.

EDIT:
There are reasonable explanations as to why the AA defenses were not used as soon as Slately stepped up in Mars Attacks garb, of course. Here's a few: they'd be weak and irelevant to the outcome of the battle (and this would hold whether Ossomer turned or not; supposedly, his bonus made the Archons hard to shoot down by AA; conversely, his bonus would make Jetstone troops very efficient in battle against the now bonusless Archons). Or, the crumbling Tower could not be relied upon to produce them.

Those are some good ideas and seem pretty plausible, heh I wish I'd thought about it more.

[Goshen]

One thing I don't understand. Why did they let all those troops just stand there at the top of the tower only to die as it collapses? Could Slatley at least have sent them downstairs to fight?

[cheeseaholic]

I'm going to laugh if he's launching the spell defences at Ossomer.

[effataigus]

This is one of those delightful times where the forumites add a lot to my reading of an update!

The skies filling with light I interpreted as archon blasts, but yeah, it really could be tower defenses! *Edit, on second thought, that doesn't really jive with the timing. Why swallow hard, salute, and only start firing off the defenses after the floor gives away. Not buying it so much anymore.

I assumed the orlies were just chillin (since we knew at least some were... recall the "O Snap!" bird) but yeah, I could see that Cubbins might have generated some more... that would certainly explain how Jetstone gets em and why they got a special call-out in this update.*EDIT: this actually seems unsupported by the text... it says "from the tower interior."

Someone posted on the last thread that it would make sense for Cubbins to have a propeller beanie!

Bland... your cost benefit analysis should include the possibility that Cubbins can still affect the entirety of his combat role even if he goes down with the tower. Pulling a flight of orlies out of a hat with the rest of his juice would provide the perfect screening-fodder for the king... who has a lot of archon blasts to survive. *Edit, ok so mebbe Cubbins didn't do that yet.

My take on it is that it is a mixture of nobility, balls, and combat acumen that motivated his decision. If it wasn't for that salute, I'd be expecting him to pop a propeller beanie on at any moment.

Someone asked earlier if Ossomer was heir... I believe he was. Not sure if he is again... we might even get to find out! Of course, if he kept his heir status, then perhaps Ansom did too... which could be really interesting.

[Raza]

Cool update. I wonder if anyone will have the sense to preserve his remains for decryption, now that Wanda's out of the battlespace.

Even if Cubbins was able to ignore the King's orders for some reason, why were the Archers able to do so?

Units can ignore orders when they believe it to be of the highest importance to the survival of the side. Apparently, Cubbins decided that the Jetstone flyers' escape from the Spacerock airspace was such a risky operation (it is, they are outmatched and both the king and newly re-turned heir are vulnerable) that his own potential long-term usefulness to the side was outweighted by the immediate usefulness of one or two more combat units.

Whether that's true is highly debatable, but units make these calls from their own perspectives and personalities. The point is that if Cubbins believes this, it allows him to ignore orders to the contrary because the survival of the side is at stake.

The archers simply lacked specific orders on the subject, and probably accepted new ones from Cubbins, who is a commander unit himself.

[CaptC]

Any justification of Cubbins because he "stayed behind to fire off the tower defenses" runs afoul of this:

If Cubbins had enough time to fire off the defenses AFTER putting the last archer on a mount but before the tower fell, he had plenty of time to do it between putting the first archer on a mount and the second. In other words, he could have fired off the defenses, and then mounted. There may be other reasons for Cubbins to do what he did, but that ain't it.

...Unless you want to call Cubbins a traitor seeking death before duty. If there are other reasons for Cubbins to off himself, we need something to clarify, because I see no reason at all for him to break his liege's orders.

[zilfallon]

Cheers!

that booping tower is finally going down

[cheeseaholic]

Well now he won't have to hang around with Ace anymore.

But the tower defenses don't all go off at once. They take time. Or at least they have so far. He might ride the tower all the way down while firing.

[teratorn]

Firing the tower and waiting while Ossomer was with the archons will be a bit more suicidal. Once the tower was depleted Ossomer could stack will all the surviving archons. I was under the impression that Slately was going for a scenario involving the flight of unipegataurs immediately after air defenses were fired. That way archons migh not have the time to restack with Ossomer and he could dispatch a few of them, and even have a few casters managing to flee the city, before Ossomer would take over and kill every Jetstone unit still in the airspace. He simply didn't have the time to do that.

Interestingly a couple more minutes and they would have won this fight. Assuming the unipegataurs plus Ossomer could finish the archons they could then swoop on the decrypted while the foot soldiers attacked at the same time. Ossomer probably felt the bonus drop (including his loyalty score) before turning and knows Wanda is not in the hex.

[zuche]

It's a shame this section of the story could not be told in comic format, as that would demand so many pages that people would complain nothing was happening. I think the art would have been wonderful, given the time.

Even so, that one image of Cubbins is magnificent. No one should have to face the decision he did. That makes his choice more noble. We can argue about its tactical merit all day, but that is not the only value system by which this act should be judged. It might not even be the most important one.

Isn't he [Cubbins] worth more to the future than a lowly archer?

[...] Yes.

Something about this question and the answer given makes me feel very sad. I'm also reminded of something observed by one of Terry Pratchett's characters in Small Gods, about how 51 was "a lot less" than 52.

This is the story of a war that a wargamer finds he cannot dismiss as a game. As such, it seems inappropriate to think in terms of units for those that could also be designated as "people".

Hopefully, they both survive past this event, but I'd like to at least learn their names. I'd rather see Cubbin's choice avoid a futile result, even if that turns out to be the most realistic outcome.

[Raza]

Hopefully, they both survive past this event, but I'd like to at least learn their names. I'd rather see Cubbin's choice avoid a futile result, even if that turns out to be the most realistic outcome.

I think we might. There should be at least some attempt or reference to GK's recovery of Cubbins body for future decryption, and knowing the way Erfworld is written, these two archers are likely to make a difference before their roles are played out - because we don't actually expect them to sooner than in spite of it.

I'm imagining something like Kazumi and Daigo from Order of the Stick, although that might be overly optimistic. OTOH, weren't they a male and a female? Those might just be their names.

[the_tick_rules]

Guess it depends on what ace rolls in his fall. but even if he lives getting away might be tricky.

[zuche]

On rereading this, "A man can get used to nearly anything unpleasant, eventually," was a wonderful way to start this entry. Can Ace grow accustomed to losing friends?

[badninja]

Sad update, how will this affect Jetstone in the long run? I hope he does not get decrypted so the endless speculation can continue.

[atalex]

I just had an idea that would be hilarious and awesome and therefore probably won't happen: Picture the next update from Cubbins' POV. Panels focused on him as he falls juxtaposed with panels showing the ground getting closer and closer. His face shows a flash of terror followed by grim determination. He jerks off his hat with his left hand and then thrusts his right hand into it up to his shoulder. As the ground moves closer and closer, he desperately tries to wriggle into his own hat. Finally, at the bottom of the page, we see an empty hat land on the ground amid the rubble.

Next update: Back in the MK, as Parson is arguing with Isaac, Marie silently nods to Puxatawnny Phil who jerks his hat off and tosses it on the ground, just in time for Cubbins to hurl out of it at great speed, distracting the Thinkamancers long enough for Parson et al to run through the portal.

Whadya think, sirs?