Book 2 – Page 79

[balder]

New One is up.

[ftl]

Well, pretty clear that Ossomer wasn't a duplicate.

Slately was, though.

[Lefish]

This is awesome, with the king going all Rambo on their ****, but... what's going on with Parson? And Tramennis? This is eating me alive... :S

[Lamech]

Well they got four archons there. And caster's continue to be amazing. You know, now would be a good time for Wanda and Parson to arrive to increase the bonus. Somehow I bet this will have taken up a good chunk of the ditto's juice. Also none of this spare cash will matter for promoting Tram if they don't get to ground and heal him.

[╒╦╧╬╩╦╦╛]

I wonder if the duplicate will leave a decryptable body behind. I'd love to see Slately have a talk/fight with his decrypted evil twin

[Gorky]

Damn, I was kinda hoping Slately croaked there.

[drachefly]

Slately's last line seemed really forced.

[oslecamo2_temp]

Damn, I was kinda hoping Slately croaked there.

I believe he's already croaked, as in clones are temporary. The original one died, and the current one will probably vanish at the end of the turn whatever happens now, meaning he's in a clock to promote Trems.

If clones aren't temporary then screw everything, dittomancers are the most borked mancers of all as he could just sit down duplicating the army's best units with double stats every turn. Remember, he just duplicated a top unit full with pimped gear after having spent his juice in several other tricks over the day, no way that can be permanent.

Slately's last line seemed really forced.

The author just making it clear that yes it was the dittomancer that made it happen.

[coyotenose]

Ohhhh Boop.

Yeah. That's WAY worse than the variation I last theorized, and much ossomer... er, more awesome. Slately is gone; Lloyd Duped him just in time to keep the Side from falling. When the Juice runs out...

EDIT: Slately is gone, except in the unlikely event that something can break his fall or catch him. Seems a bit silly to opine that he'd survive the fall on his own by sheer unbuffed luck.

[twhitt]

I'm a bit confused here. Slately was attacked and fell to the ground. Lloyd duplicated the falling king, creating a second Slately still in the Jetstone stack. Is that right?
If it IS right, then there's a lot of questions about what powers the duplicate has relative to the original. As mentioned, will he persist past the end of this turn? Is he really a ruler? Will the presumed death of the original Slately have any effect on the side? I could imagine a situation where the surviving duplicate is permanent as long as only one of them survives, but that's quite overpowered.

[Infidel]

Wrigley's "OMG, OMG I got a compliment. A compliment! What do I do? What do I do?" Face is priceless.

[Saladman]

Lloyd started casting before the king was hit and fell, so no, he wasn't necessarily duplicated after that. Just depends on how exactly it works, which we can't really tell from the page.

What I do think the last panel suggests is simply that Slately knows he was duplicated at the height of being "powered up," not just with good gear but with the signamancy up as well. Which might only be about good combat numbers, but then Lloyd's stutter saying "sure" suggests it is the duplicate that's still standing, which as people have pointed out gets interesting. I'm guessing the duplicate is permanent but we really just don't know enough to say. (But I'll point out again there's a klog mentioning a dittomancer in regard to popping extra heavies or mounts. So there's some suggestion they can be permanent, unless popping is categorically different from field actions.)

[0beron]

Regedit.exe is an executable in windows that allows you to view, search for, and change settings in your system registry.

How exactly this applies to this situation I'm not sure...I wish we saw the King falling and another one fighting in the same frame to clarify that he was indeed doubled...the way we see it now is just really confusing, and REGEDIT doesn't really clear it up.

zzirGrizz is apparently the username of some fat 20-something gamer who is really good on first person shooters on XBOX live. Very fitting.

EDIT: I got it!!!!! The REDEDIT was the Archons "editing" away the Flying Special granted by the jetpack!

[Lamech]

So if the duplicate survives as long as the original goes, what happens if the original gets decrypted? Would be kind of funny if the new Slately depopped after getting away.

[singingbard]

EDIT: I got it!!!!! The REDEDIT was the Archons "editing" away the Flying Special granted by the jetpack!

If so, can that be considered a use of weirdomancy?

EDIT: Archons don't have access to weirdomancy spells. Is there any other school of magic that could alter a special in this manner?

[Eva]

Lloyd did want Slately to wait.

And the last panel does suggest something went wrong.

So... it does not look good for ditto'd king.

[woort]

If clones aren't temporary then screw everything, dittomancers are the most borked mancers of all as he could just sit down duplicating the army's best units with double stats every turn. Remember, he just duplicated a top unit full with pimped gear after having spent his juice in several other tricks over the day, no way that can be permanent.

I'd like to know whether a dittomancer can duplicate HIMSELF, agent Smith-style

[0beron]

EDIT: I got it!!!!! The REDEDIT was the Archons "editing" away the Flying Special granted by the jetpack!

If so, can that be considered a use of carnymancy?

I was JUST thinking the same thing....Archons only have Think-, Shock-, and Fool-amancies....and none of those cover specials. I mean, perhaps they "short-circuited" the jetpack with Shockamancy. Either that or Charlie intervened with a Wierdomancer somehow...?

[Lamech]

It probably was just a cool sound effect for the destruction of the item. They do break all the time. Also the guys below the fight must be really confused. First: Decrypted Ossomer, falls to his death. Except he's a Jetstone unit. Then the King falls down. Except the kingdom doesn't end. Oh, and its possible original king is still alive everyone. Where he should be in the first place.

[atalex]

Well, now that Ossomer is pretty definitively dead, I can finally make the comment I was going to make last week. Which is that one of the most amazing things about Rob's writing is how he gives us enough information to understand what is happening and to fuel endless speculation while still leaving all his options open for the future. We now know that it IS possible for a Decrypted to turn. In Ossomer's case, it was through some or all of the following factors: (1) Tremmenis's psy-ops tactics, (2) personal disdain for Gobwin Knob's tactics, (3) character traits unique to Ossomer that made him uniquely situated to turn, and/or (4) the fact that Wanda and the pliers left the battlespace, thereby removing her personal bonus from whatever countervailing force maintained Ossomer's loyalty to her. And now, he is dead. And we are no closer to knowing definitively which of those factors was primary and which ones were completely irrelevant. Furthermore, neither we nor Parson nor Wanda have anyway of knowing whether Wanda can reassert control over turned Decrypted if she were to reenter the battlespace. Further-furthermore, we STILL don't know if killing the ruler of a side destroys or converts the side if the heir has been decrypted. Well played, Mr. Balder, well played indeed.