Book 2 – Text Updates 055

[balder]

New One is up.

[ShieldOfAthena]

Yay! An update. ^.^

[fjolnir]

Awesome, and a very good recap of our position to this point. Welcome back to the present, though I did like the exploration into wanda's past...

[ScegfOd]

yay Erfworld liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiives ^_^
I like how Mary admires Artemis so much. I wonder if it gave her a moral bonus...
I feel like i should say more but nothing specific comes to mind :3

[hajo]

The life of common erfworlders looks pretty dull - but we suspected that much.
Also, more hints that Jetstone wasn't running at top efficency.

And we should expect some Archons dropping from the sky shortly...

[Muzzafar]

So what's up with all the references?
Mary Sagittari: "sagittarius" means "archer" ("armed with arrows and bow") in Latin. "Sagittarii" is plural for "sagittarius".
What about Sagittari CXIV? (CXIV is 114 written in Latin numbers.)
What about Carrie, Terry, Jerry, Perry, Harry, Gary, and Rudolfo? Any significance in Gary being "the stern one"? Harry the jokester? Rudolfo the quiet one?
Swordsman/stabber named Dodge?
Googling "Count Topotato" and "Topotato, and beyond!" reveals that both refer to the phrase "counting to potato" and Internet meme "to potato and beyond" that mock people with low intelligence. Anything else?
"Clotheshorses" probably refer to clothes rack while "Aquabats" may refer to The Aquabats.
Any ideas?

[KiltedNinja]

Sweeet! Welcome back
Nice to have a re-cap, but I think I'm gonna re-read the whole lot in preparation for proper updates.

Nice to see that we're jumping right in at the deep-end with controversial character names (Counting to potato...) as well

Edit:

What about Carrie, Terry, Jerry, Perry, Harry, Gary, and Rudolfo? Any significance in Gary being "the stern one"? Harry the jokester? Rudolfo the quiet one?

The only thing that immediately comes to mind is Santa's Reindeer.. purely because the reindeer have similar sounding names (at least in pairs), then Rudolf's name is quite abstract compared with them..


As for the rest..? No idea...

[LogicsFate]

It's good to have something to discuss again. So Mary Mary, destined for Leadership promotion? She has the signs about her.

[vintermann]

She also has the signs about her for being another illustrative example of the horrors of war in Erfworld ... promoting redshirts is a fairly rare occurence in Erfworld.

Is there a TVTrope for a character introduced only to be killed off fairly quickly by some big episode related to the protagonists? To show the impact of the big episode? I think it's pretty common, but the only one I can think of right know is one of a plague victim in one of David Edding's fantasy books.

[drachefly]

Nice to see we're back, and back with book 2.

It's interesting to contrast these garrison archers with the soldiers we met in Book 0.

Topotato <-> Topato? Sounds like he is made of metaphorical poison, at any rate, and he certainly makes himself an irritant at court.

[roninpanda]

So what's up with all the references?
Mary Sagittari: "sagittarius" means "archer" ("armed with arrows and bow") in Latin. "Sagittarii" is plural for "sagittarius".
What about Sagittari CXIV? (CXIV is 114 written in Latin numbers.)
What about Carrie, Terry, Jerry, Perry, Harry, Gary, and Rudolfo? Any significance in Gary being "the stern one"? Harry the jokester? Rudolfo the quiet one?
Swordsman/stabber named Dodge?
Googling "Count Topotato" and "Topotato, and beyond!" reveals that both refer to the phrase "counting to potato" and Internet meme "to potato and beyond" that mock people with low intelligence. Anything else?
"Clotheshorses" probably refer to clothes rack while "Aquabats" may refer to The Aquabats.
Any ideas?

I think all of you may be over-reacting a bit in assigning significance many of these things and to the sibling's names. I just think Rudolpho was added in for comedic purposes. But seriously, "to potato and beyond" made me laugh til i cried! I think the clotheshorses were present to show the reader how useless Topotato was. I don't think we will ever actually see them.

[Free Radical]

Is Mary the archer that Cubbins gives up his unipegataur for? Or will there be a depressing text update where she watches some other lucky archer get saved just before she dies falling off the tower?

[Swodaems]

Does anyone else think that Trem being around as an established diplomat 1700 turns ago makes his age a bit odd?

Slately has ruled for 'three-thousand or so turns' and 'Prince Tramennis was the sixteenth of Slately's twenty-three sons and daughters'.

Assuming Slately is rounding to the nearest thousand, (making the actual number 2500-3499,) then Trem's presence in court 1700 turns ago suggests a odd prince popping rate. (I say prince popping rate because Slately gives us the names of 5 of the Jetstone siblings that we haven't seen in the update I linked and none of them are female. I'm guessing the man simply ignores his daughters and everything about them.) While we don't know how old Trem was when he spoke to Count Topotato, his very presence 1700 turns ago suggests that Slately only produced 7 more children in a 1700 turn span despite producing 16 over a 800-1799 turn span earlier in life. (Factoring in Trem's age simply makes things more lopsided.) While this slowing down of the procreative process would make sense here in Stupidworld due to Slately's aging, in Erfworld it just adds another thing to the list of unexplained phenomena that we have been adding to since day 1.

[MarbitChow]

[quote="Swodaems"...his very presence 1700 turns ago suggests that Slately only produced 7 more children in a 1700 turn span despite producing 16 over a 800-1799 turn span earlier in life.[/quote]
It's possible that the high pop rate early on is due to heavy losses while the side expands. Once it becomes a large, well-allied, and mostly stable and non-aggressive side, they would need to pop fewer royals, since fewer would be dying in conflicts and the rest wouldn't have as much to do.

[Muzzafar]

I think all of you may be over-reacting a bit in assigning significance many of these things and to the sibling's names.

You see, one of Erfworld's appeal (as a webcomic) is its many real-world cultural references and puns.
It is great to be able to recognize them as it adds much fun to reading.
One small issue is that some of Erfworld's readers may not be familiar with some of the cultural references and may not recognize some of the puns. (Simply because some of Erfworld's readers are not native English speakers and grew up in countries other than USA.) Some of us may have to Google "count topotato" to see the joke because otherwise the joke is lost on us. And isn't it sad when jokes are lost?
That is why there is a "Real World References" section in many articles on Erfwiki. So that those, who suspect there may be a joke, can learn that it is a joke indeed.

I think the clotheshorses were present to show the reader how useless Topotato was. I don't think we will ever actually see them.

We never know. Again, some of us may have to Google "clotheshorse" to realize that not only it refers to "horse" and "clothes", but also to "clothes rack". See above.

[badninja]

Wait we get an early update to the next part of book 2? I did like the second "flash" that happened again and how it showed the female opinion of the tactic. Nice to have the recap right before the comic resumes!

[Whispri]

I'm a bit disturbed by the complete lack of attention Jetstone payed to those archers. Meeting other people shouldn't have involved the word 'eventually'.

Awesome, and a very good recap of our position to this point. Welcome back to the present, though I did like the exploration into wanda's past...

Yeah, it was great seeing more of Wanda, I do hope that she's further exposed.

Does anyone else think that Trem being around as an established diplomat 1700 turns ago makes his age a bit odd?

As I recall, Jetstone was 'flush with princes and princesses' at the time of his popping, it probably took a while for them all to die off.

[SteveMB]

It's good to have something to discuss again. So Mary Mary, destined for Leadership promotion? She has the signs about her.

Yet again, it raises the question of how Signamancy (in Erfworld terms) parallels personal traits (in the real world) -- and the question of how much of the former is a universe mechanic versus an interpretation by Erfworlders (who know that certain things are governed by visible universe mechanics, and so naturally infer that other things are governed by less obvious but equally real mechanics).

Yeah, it was great seeing more of Wanda, I do hope that she's further exposed.

I don't think flash attacks are her forte (more's the pity ).

[kagato23]

Wonderful! We get to dust off the old names and start posting again!

I'm a bit disturbed by the complete lack of attention Jetstone payed to those archers. Meeting other people shouldn't have involved the word 'eventually'.

That's probably pretty standard for nonessential units. They are spawned where they need to be, and know their duty. Why would you need to interact with them?

[Squall83]

Hooray, Erfworld updates are back! This is one of the BEST days of my life! Even 2 days early!

yay Erfworld liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiives ^_^
I like how Mary admires Artemis so much. I wonder if it gave her a moral bonus...
I feel like i should say more but nothing specific comes to mind :3

More like a morTal bonus. And yes, I know that was lame.