Book 2 – Page 80

[balder]

New One is up.

[madmaw]

Do doubles leave bodies...or do they think they are the original?

[Drahken]

Aaannnd that bitty bat beholds the duly dead double, deceiving the despondant Don. Duh-oh!

[╒╦╧╬╩╦╦╛]

Ho that body will be such a nice addition to the decrypted troops...

"The king is dead! Long [un]live the king!"

[Zeku]

Well it's nice we finally got a panel that wasn't just a box. But unfortunately, this dramatic angle, coupled with the deeply unhappy dittomancer means...

That both Parson and Charlie are about to get a lot of interesting new information.

Edit: Although, the side hasn't autowiped yet, which means that either I didn't notice them declare an heir, or he's got a few more blood spattered words left in him.

[sheepfly]

Well it's nice we finally got a panel that wasn't just a box. But unfortunately, this dramatic angle, coupled with the deeply unhappy dittomancer means...

That both Parson and Charlie are about to get a lot of interesting new information.

Agreed!

However, we haven't seen any changes in color or attire on any of Jetstone's units, so it's quite possible that Jetstone still effectively has a ruler at least until the double croaks. That would mean that the city is still a capital site and will not immediately go barbarian, the portal in Portal Park will remain open for now, and there is still time to promote Tramennis to heir status.

It's nice to see that at least one archon will likely survive, too. Maybe she'll even get some character development like Vurp.

[Lamech]

Okay, I think that if the King was incapacitated Loyd would be pointing it out. So he's... croaked. Tram's incapacitated. Okay, they need to get the bounty promote Tram, heal him, and escape. All before the garrison is captured. This doesn't look good. And this is so sad for Jetstone...

[Swiftbow]

Given the King's lines ("This is what it's like to be alive" and "That double... was just like me in every respect") and the body on the parapet, I'd be VERY surprised if it turns out the King isn't dead.

[technojunkie]

Man, I can't wait to see the perspective of a decrypted Slately.

[Drahken]

Ah, I didn't think of that, that the dead one is the original and the live one is the double. But then that begs the question: if the double really IS exactly the same and no one, not even he, realizes the difference, does it really matter? Then we start getting into all sorts of metaphysical quandaries about "what is identity?" and "what is the matrix" and all that jazz. If the duplicate is indistinguishable from the original, and can perform all of the same functions, including ruling the side, is there really a difference between the two? It's like the movie The Prestige.

[kagato23]

Ah, I didn't think of that, that the dead one is the original and the live one is the double. But then that begs the question: if the double really IS exactly the same and no one, not even he, realizes the difference, does it really matter? Then we start getting into all sorts of metaphysical quandaries about "what is identity?" and "what is the matrix" and all that jazz. If the duplicate is indistinguishable from the original, and can perform all of the same functions, including ruling the side, is there really a difference between the two? It's like the movie The Prestige.

Thing is, since nobody talks of dittomancers like they are the most valuable casters of all times (and somebody who could keep your side alive perpetually would qualify), the theory is that copy dupes don't last permanently. Which means this Dupe's gonna die.

Ironically he's living more then the original did for endless turns. Might even live through this fight. Only to fade away at dawn or somesuch.

Poor Ace. He's finally getting the chance to be useful and respected on his own merits. He's gonna be heartbroken. I'm almost hoping he croaks before it comes out.

[Kaed]

Good titans, Ace. Please leave the Rhyme-o-mancy to the adults from now on.

[the_tick_rules]

I wonder if Wanda could disband the captured unit to prevent this bounty? And what makes people so sure the living is the double?

[yuffiek]

It's pretty obvious from the dramatic shots in the last couple of comics, the fact that the 2nd Slately seemed to appear out of nowhere when he "pew pew'd" the Archon, and that duplicated units should de-pop immediately if croaked, that the real Slately is dead and the side is only being maintained by his doppelgänger.

So Spacerock is really in a time crunch, they have until Lloyd runs out of juice (he's probably running close to empty now, surely not enough to make it to end of turn) to earn enough bounty to promote Trammensis, and convince Clone-Slately to STOP fighting long enough to do it, since C-Slate doesn't realize he's just a copy.

[Raza]

Still disappointed in the Archons. With Ossomer's leadership bonus gone, it feels like they should be doing much better. What happened to multicolored special effect disintegration rays, to veils and confounding tricks, to 'total battlespace saturation' where (these exact same) ~30 archons concentrated simultaneous shockamancy fire on a single mounted figure from across a capital airspace with 100% accuracy? These same units supposedly had a nigh-certain probability of capturing GK in TBFK, which had at least as much force left then as the JS flying group has now, and they didn't have a leadership bonus then, either.

Seems this round they're reducing to flying archer infantry with a flashy re-skin. They're missing a lot, doing low damage when they hit, and generally dusting at the slightest touch from inferior units.

Also, I recon you guys are right about the clone-ruler sustaining the site. I guess that's a good lead-in for the flying team fetching Trammenis, which needed to happen anyway.

[splintermute]

Still disappointed in the Archons. With Ossomer's leadership bonus gone, it feels like they should be doing much better. What happened to multicolored special effect disintegration rays, to veils and confounding tricks, to 'total battlespace saturation' where (these exact same) ~30 archons concentrated simultaneous shockamancy fire on a single mounted figure from across a capital airspace with 100% accuracy? These same units supposedly had a nigh-certain probability of capturing GK in TBFK, which had at least as much force left then as the JS flying group has now, and they didn't have a leadership bonus then, either.

Seems this round they're reducing to flying archer infantry with a flashy re-skin. They're missing a lot, doing low damage when they hit, and generally dusting at the slightest touch from inferior units.

Perhaps they had an artifact bonus during tBfGK - at the time they were still Charlie's units, and he's linked to them in some way. If Wanda being in the MK cuts them off from the pliers' influence, this might be the first battle they've been in without an artifact bonus, and Cubbins' initial attack may have taken out archons with leadership.

Also, at that stage in tBfGK, Stanley had taken the majority of the air force, and they had few air defenses left.

[GJC]

The force they were up against during TBFGK totalled 3 unipegataurs, 3 riders, 1 archon and a caster.

In this battle, they're up against a lot more than that.

They also had to engage at a much closer range in order to escape the archer bombardement, and had used up quite a bit of juice so far.

[Messenger]

Do doubles leave bodies...or do they think they are the original?

Bad news for Jetstone: The clock is running. How long does a Dittomancer's duplicate last?

Ho that body will be such a nice addition to the decrypted troops...

"The king is dead! Long [un]live the king!"

Man, I can't wait to see the perspective of a decrypted Slately.

Good news for Jetstone: IIRC, Wanda and the Arkenpliers are far, far away without an easy way to get back.

[cloudbreaker]

The doombat! Or more like a bat-of-doom considering the scene it appeared in. I hope it croaks an archon, levels up, and evolves into a Goldoombat.

[Morni]

I counted 11 archons in the last panel.. and you can see a shoot going off panel.. so at least 12 left.

and for all the people that keep saying that archon are push over, even after they got rid of Ossomer. If I recall correctly, the Royals said it was going to be a though battle.. even if the royals could kill Ossomer before he would stack. Aka no Ossomer involved, though battle for either side. http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -05-13.png