Book 2 – Page 79

[0beron]

What's the bounty on the archons again? It'd help to remember what they are fighting for.

I believe it was 5,000 each. I do not know the exact number of Archons we started with, but we know that dusting EVERY Archon in the airspace is enough to make Trem heir, although some have pointed out it's possible the promotion could cost a bit less than the full amount. We've never been told the exact cost of promoting an Heir.

[The Bushranger]

The dialogue honestly makes ZERO sense if it's just 1 Slately.

No, actually it does, if you presume that his wording is slightly awkward and forced because the duplication was rushed and slightly imperfect, perhaps...

[Swodaems]

What's the bounty on the archons again? It'd help to remember what they are fighting for.

I believe it was 5,000 each. I do not know the exact number of Archons we started with, but we know that dusting EVERY Archon in the airspace is enough to make Trem heir, although some have pointed out it's possible the promotion could cost a bit less than the full amount. We've never been told the exact cost of promoting an Heir.

There were 27 archons in the airspace. 28 including the one that dusted at the bridge fight. The bounty is 5000 schmuckers per archon destroyed, plus a 25k bonus if a live one is captured. The one destroyed at the bridge has already been credited to Jetstone, so winning the airspace battle would bring the total up to 140k if they simply destroyed all the archons or 160k or 165k depending on if a captured archon is merely 25k or 5k+25k.

[kriss1989]

Lloyd got the duplication spell off, Fo-Slately appeared behind the [ARCHONS] as Slately was falling. Camera focuses on Fo-Slately he shoots down Angels, Camera focuses on slately and he's apparently teleported to the other side of the [ARCHONS] in the midst of the unipegataurs? No. Real Slately recovered his fall and its dual king beat down.

No it's just slight changes in perspective. In the last 3 panels, we are looking at the same Slately, whatever he is.
However you could be right about the falling bit...we still don't know what happens to whatever Slately is falling when "it" hits the ground. But whatever that is, it's still falling.

Hmm, the Archon that got blasted from behind was near Ace...the next panel has Stanly in front of the Ditomancer, who was behind Ace....holy Titan's Toenails you might be right.

[GJC]

Is there? There were 25+ to start out with, and we didn't see that many die. My impression was that there were still plenty off-panel.

Agreed, we still see them in the background of various panels too. I'd guess there are about a dozen left. I don't even think all of them went into the stack, some were just distractions (albeit most of those likely dusted, but there are still some.)
That being said however...I don't think any will survive the engagement. The King is gonna die somehow, but his stack will survive to take vengeance.

I think we started out with around 30 Archons. 28-32, though I don't remember where I read that.
And think about it. We saw them take a good bit of damage. First the hatamancer's volley, which was probably close to a full turn's worth of juice for him. Then a couple hundred well-led archers while they closed. Then combat with the unipegataurs and orlies. Not to mention the pew-pew guns.
I can't imagine them having more than half their force remaining by the time they were actually in a position to attack, and we only see, like, 7 or 8 focusing down Ossomer. If they had the numbers, wouldn't they have gone after Ossomer and the king at the same time?

Once Ossomer is down they go after the king, and he kills three outright in the latest comic. Sure, a few might be busy distracting the unipegataurs and orlies, but I don't think those are in much of a position to do anything. The only ones who are free to act, right now, are the 4 or 5 who just took down Slately, and at most I see them maybe trying to go after a caster or summat. They certainly aren't gonna have much freedom to act right now, which was the point I was making in the first place. : P

Assuming 30 Archons, anyway, the total bounty is 150k shmuckers. We know that promoting an heir is "very costly", so I'd imagine something like 100k, maybe 120k.

I don't think the dual king beat down is right. We can assume that the Archons' "REGEDIT" removed slately's flying special, and we see him falling and losing his grip on his weapon. I think that if he did manage to recover from that, we'd get a more obvious cue. As it is, aerial combatants just move around a lot, I suppose, hence the supposed inconsistencies.

[drachefly]

Waait. I just realized the parallel between this and recent events in Homestuck. heh. Foolamancy would have been a straighter parallel, but still.

[NastySasquatch]

Well, the position of Aces head actually kind of kills the 2 Slately's still flying theory completely.

[Thoke]

I think you can see two Slatelys in panel 8 (notice the hat between the archon and unipegataur)... And Assuming dittomancer can only duplicate unit at it's present stats and specials, Lloyd must've duped Slately before the flying special was removed. No point duplicating slately without it.

And hi, I'm kind of new to these forums

[Morni]

I would assume Ace and the others are flying after their king to re-stack with him. That might explain positioning

[Morni]

I think you can see two Slatelys in panel 8 (notice the hat between the archon and unipegataur)... And Assuming dittomancer can only duplicate unit at it's present stats and specials, Lloyd must've duped Slately before the flying special was removed. No point duplicating slately without it.

And hi, I'm kind of new to these forums

I think that's the shield of the unipegataur

[Thoke]

Oh, damn. Yeah, that's a shield...

Edit: It seems like archons blasted the jetpack off from Slately by using shockamancy. The REGEDIT could be the dittomancer's duplicating effect.

[elecampane]

I believe duplicating effect is seen as faint blue light cloud on panels 2 (from Dittomancer's staff to empty space and to Slately) and 4 (around Slately). Since on panel 5 Slately isn't surrounded by this light cloud, I assume duplicate is already made and is hiding behind archon's backs. So, REGEDIT is persumably sound of archons collective spell, which they have prepared on panel 6.

[Lamech]

Oh BTW, its also possible he was duplicated as an "extra life". When he croaks he immediately respawns.

[Nnelg]

Hey there, I'm new too.


It seems to me that people are overusing the term "original" around here. I mean, it's not like you think too hard about whether the captain is the "original" Kirk or not after having gone through a transporter. Which Slately is "original" only matters for determining which iteration is 'primary' and which is 'secondary', and even then there's no guarantee the spell distinguishes between the two. I've also seen a lot of people try to explain the "as long as one version lives, he survives" scenario by claiming "the copy becomes the original", but I believe this to be a flawed metaphor at best.

Perhaps a better analogy would be a variant of Schroedinger's Cat. Until something happens that differentiates between a 'primary' and 'secondary' iteration of the subject, the hypothetical 'box' remains closed, and we know not which is which. In fact, since one iteration is already (potentially) dead, we have no way of knowing until the spell ends and/or the remaining Slately suddenly vanishes. If he doesn't, then he's the "right" one now, regardless of what he might have (or have not) been in the past. If so, it won't really matter if he's the 'original'; he's still Slately.

Although, my personal favorite for this dupe is where if either iteration dies, the other's living on borrowed time and disappears when the spell ends...


Oh, and lastly I don't like how people are saying how "unbalanced" certain forms of the spell would be. Erfworld may be one giant game, but since when are all games balanced? Besides, any strong power can seem like a game breaker when taken out of context; don't forget we aren't seeing all of the costs involved here. Hundreds of turns' worth of preparations for a (then) possible future siege of Spacerock might have already been shot off so far this turn, with even more still waiting. It would be foolish to assume that any one spell we see can be cast every turn, or even every ten turns.

[GJC]

Personally, I only ever used "original" to distinguish between a Slately with a limited lifespan and the slately with an unlimited lifespan. If both have exactly the same characteristics, then they would both be original. Or, in any case, equivalent to an original. This isn't a question of "Who came first?", it's merely a question of "Who can do what".

And... no. This is not Schrödinger's cat. The fact that we're speculating about something we don't know does not bring quantum mechanics into this. Yes, as of right now, to us, there's no noticable difference between the Slately that was created by the dittomancer and the Slately hurtling downwards. But that doesn't mean there isn't a difference. It just means that we don't see that difference. Schrödinger's cat, on the other hand, says there is literally no difference until you check. Mind you, Schrödinger's cat is intentionally ridiculous as well. It's a critique of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, not a serious scenario.

As for the idea of preparation... I'm not so sure. As far as we can tell, you prepare for battle by popping and training units, by training warlords, by spelling up your tower and by buying scrolls. Nothing we have seen so far, with the possible exception of Vanna's comment after ending GK's turn, indicates that there are ways for casters to prepare high-power spells ahead of time. And I don't think there are. Juice is something you get every turn, that you have to make use of, every turn. And given that this was a last-minute spell, I very much doubt that much preparation went into it.

As for calling people foolish, is it foolish to assume that erfworld is consistent within itself? As far as we can tell, the only cost that goes into a spell like this is the caster's juice. This is because all the other spells we've seen cast have worked this way. Since the caster gets juice ever turn, it is reasonable to assume that he could use said juice every turn. What's foolish about that?

[zilfallon]

about which slately fell down:

i assume lloyd's words (double checker, double bind and such) meant that he was casting a spell. slately's fall (regedit, and again, assuming regedit was archons disabling the jetpack) happened after lloyd completed the spell (again, assuming his words meant a spell cast).

this makes me think that the "clone" , "secondary", "whatever u call it" is the one whose jetpack was regedited by archons and fell down.

however, in the last panel, Lloyd says "s-sure", which, i believe, implies uncertainty. what does that mean, exactly? does it mean that he lacks COMPLETE control over that spell?

[Raza]

Once Ossomer is down they go after the king, and he kills three outright in the latest comic.

Which is an impressive kill count for a first battle. Somebody remembered that he popped as a warlord unit.

Who else thinks it'd be cool if erfworld had little *ping* sound effects when units leveled on-screen?

[0beron]

It seems to me that people are overusing the term "original" around here. I mean, it's not like you think too hard about whether the captain is the "original" Kirk or not after having gone through a transporter. Which Slately is "original" only matters for determining which iteration is 'primary' and which is 'secondary', and even then there's no guarantee the spell distinguishes between the two.

I think the main reason for this is that there is a lot to imply the 2 Slatelys ARE actually different. Lloyd was very worried in the previous comic, and he was frantically casting through this one. Then when he created the duplicate, he almost seemed surprised it worked. So yes, in normal situations, your point about the original distinction not mattering may be true...but in this case we have some reason to believe the 2nd Slately is different or lesser in some way because the spell was not completed in time.

[Messenger]

Um... While we've all been focusing on Slately, can anyone tell if Ace did get hit by the Archon "No... Better!!" Slately pew-pewed? She did get her shot off.

Alien Slately kicking ass.

I still don't get, or even see, what he's going on about with his superiority complex though. The falseness of dismounting people in a fight? But using semi-illusory doubles is a job well done?

Guy is nuts.

It's not about Ossomer getting dismounted and crashing to his death. What gets Slately, what all of this is about, is that the decrypted aren't merely "undead"- corpses without their original souls and minds of their own acting on the volition of a cryptomancer- but are actually the people brought back to life but suddenly- disturbingly, wrongly- so loyal to their new side, so accepting of new beliefs. Remember the long talk Ossomer had with his dad while he was still working for Wanda? Or even Ansom talking to Trammenis and a living Ossomer?

It's betrayal. It's about seeing someone you know and love, someone you once trusted turning on you and what you once held dearest above all things. Even if it's just a side effect being decrypted, it's personally disgusting.

As for illusions and doubles- at least they're just illusions and doubles. They are by nature and directly defined as false. There's still something honest in that. But when someone comes back from the dead working eagerly for the enemy who killed them while claiming it's the truer side and inviting you to join in? Now that is falseness.

[Swodaems]

It seems to me that people are overusing the term "original" around here. I mean, it's not like you think too hard about whether the captain is the "original" Kirk or not after having gone through a transporter. Which Slately is "original" only matters for determining which iteration is 'primary' and which is 'secondary', and even then there's no guarantee the spell distinguishes between the two.

I think the main reason for this is that there is a lot to imply the 2 Slatelys ARE actually different. Lloyd was very worried in the previous comic, and he was frantically casting through this one. Then when he created the duplicate, he almost seemed surprised it worked. So yes, in normal situations, your point about the original distinction not mattering may be true...but in this case we have some reason to believe the 2nd Slately is different or lesser in some way because the spell was not completed in time.

The problem with using Lloyd's shocked facial expression as proof of something gone wrong is that it could also be a extremely natural reaction to the situation even if the spell went entirely 'right'. While we have seen a lot of carefree reactions to stressful combat situations thusfar in Erfworld, we have also seen the opposite occur.